Wow, Courtney. This is beautiful. So many lines I want to remember. "...standing still is easier than walking into the unknown..." "...tides that gift their release when you finally uncurl..." Thank you.
Love this, Courtney, especially "How resistance isn't strength, / just a clenched jaw caving inward, / fighting tides that gift their release / when you finally uncurl, exhale."
Totally resonates with the experience I've just described too - synchronicity...
Thank You Anne for sharing your feedback on my work, I appreciate your support. I'm six years sober now, but I drank myself almost to death for decades. I'm grateful I found a way to stay sober.
This beautiful poem written well into sobriety is yet another witness of what my daughter presents in her book, The Recovering, that there can be so much creativity and creation of beauty among sober artists as well.
Hello Courtney. I really enjoyed reading your poem. So many textures, armor and strength and caving inward. You can really feel the resistance here, in your words, and also the release, when you finally let go, and find yourself. "Pack light for the journey forward . . ." I love your final line. Sound advice for us all. Thank you so much for sharing your words, and your journey. All the best to you.
Oh, these lines… “All this time, I felt like I had to describe / the things I did, and what was done to me” - a whole lifetime in there...
For so long, I resisted the changes that becoming a mother wanted – needed - to make in me for me to become the person my children needed. I kicked against all its demands – no time to myself, no time to sleep, no patience, no patience, no patience. The constant draining physicality of caring for babies, of being “touched out” at the end of a day and craving five minutes where nobody would pull on me. But ironically – in the way these things happen - it was my youngest child’s constant kicking against me – and herself, and the world – that finally opened my eyes to what I actually needed to do, which was to stop fighting it all of it and just be with it. Whenever she had yet another meltdown, I would hold her tightly, as she pushed and pushed against me until suddenly, she would just collapse, like soft butter in my arms. I realised that by holding steady in the face of her resistance instead of feeding it with my own, I gave that resistance nowhere to go and it would just dissolve, both of us finding some blessed peace and release, if only for a while. I have carried this lesson with me in the decades that have followed, learning and re-learning it as life has thrown other change challenges in my path. And I keep a copy of this painting by the English artist Jenny Saville, as a reminder that whatever I feed grows and that “giving in” is not always defeat but may actually be the saving of me... https://www.artforum.com/events/jenny-saville-4-195996/
Oh my God, Natalie, I still don’t feel like I have any clue about being a “good” mother!! But that insight did shift something in me that made things a bit easier, even if so much was still a struggle. I am only really starting to appreciate how much that ‘losing self’ was at the bottom of it all and how my own issues and damage meant that I was never able to put myself or my needs first, even thought this would actually have been a healthier choice both for me and my children. Still, better later than never…
I like to tell my daughters that they “raised a mother” rather than always saying it the other way around. It reframes everything so that I don’t feel all the weight on me and it’s an exercise in gratitude. It’s helped me to let go of the constant feelings of being less than I wish to be for them.
This is such a powerful, honest and shared (at least to some extent) of motherhood. My granddaughter is prone to extreme meltdowns and my daughter has learned a pattern similar to what you describe.
Thank you, Deacon Joanne - as I've learned to go a bit easier on myself, it has become easier to talk about my struggles. Meltdowns are hard, though...
Ohh this speaks to me as a toddler mama. I am in the throes of resistance to what is needed of me and full of anger that it’s so hard. Thank you for sharing this. Your hindsight is my inspiration🦋
My pleasure, Sarah. Can't say that it was a miracle worker but it did help make some of the worst days (and there were a lot!) a bit easier to manage. And then there were the unexpected, amazing days when I dreaded the worst but it all turned into something beautiful...
Gorgeous poem, Padraig. Thank you. I don't recall where, but I recently read the quote, "Stop shrinking to fit into places you've outgrown." I was still trying to bring life to a relationship that had long since lost any vitality. I found myself desperately clinging to the memory of what it had been, instead of its reality. The volta of intimacy. I don't know that I will grow in this lifetime to a place where I DON'T resist this turn.
thank you for saying this Lynn, that maybe there's something natural about the resistance to this turn.
I don't want to think of resistance, if it's present, as anything other than part of the whole. I want to bring tender, tending to that inevitable crumbling process. Perhaps resistance can pick up its pieces and follow along with where life is taking us.
I resisted my oldest daughter’s claim to her own life. She was 18 and had struggled with her mental health throughout her adolescence. Armed with many tools and her own determination to live, she moved out of my house her freshman year of college. I could not imagine her on her own, or truly—how I was to be if I was not to be her ever anxious guardian. She flew and I grew to understand and accept.
Thank you for this poem, and the questions. Acquainted with grief from an early age, I know a lot about resisting as a way of life, mostly unconscious, until it wasn’t. Like the volta. A turn happened, at least 3 times clearly that I can recall:
1. When I realized the silent phrase in my head “my mother died when I was 9,” not spoken when I introduced myself to someone new, “Hi, I’m B . . . (Insert unspoken qualifier) did not have to define me. I could have an identity I shaped.
2. When 10 years after our divorce (14 after Tom left), I realized I was going about life projecting the image of a married woman. It’s true, with two children, I couldn’t quite believe I was divorced. I hadn’t left. But I was so resistant that a coach of a church softball team thought I was married.
Just because I realized I was married to this identity, as it were, did not mean I immediately went about changing it. I did not. Change can be very slow, resistance very stubborn. Identity like grief is at one’s core, and to change I think you need to begin to create something new to fill the void.
3. I read a book, a novel, recently about loneliness and secrets, among other things. I realized, accepted maybe for the first time, that I might not have fully understood some essential part of Tom. He may have felt lonely, the opposite of what partnering is.
Yes, resistance comes pretty naturally and feels “strong.” Holding onto it becomes a habit, or way of seeing, or one’s identity, or life. Change is fluid, slippery, uncertain, leading into the unknown, requires courage. It is difficult, and therefore, worth trying.
I like all these examples because they fit into my reality and you describe them well. Especially that feeling that resistance is a good strength, while change is slippery and needs softness.
I appreciate you sharing the moment of realizing you might not have understood something essential about your former husband. I had a similar experience recently. My ex husband's current wife, whom I like very much, mentioned in passing how one of the first things he said was how relaxed he felt around her. Something shifted in me because I could feel the truth of it. Dean and I were well suited in many ways, but we didn't let each other relax most of the time (of course we also were the ones raising three children together, which makes relaxation more challenging.)
My mother who I had little interaction with over the last many years came to me 2 weeks ago, homeless and on hospice. ( I truly don't think she's dying but more a misunderstanding from the medical perspective ).
Because of this I've agreed to let her abruptly move into my 1075 square-foot home. The smell of her and her things are in my nostrils when I close my bedroom door is too much intimacy. Her intimacy, a devouring mother, has been a difficult theme.
I am in the full throws of resistance. The quiet of my everyday ripped apart by strangers running in and about my home. My work being pushed out of my home. A decision I made but nonetheless. I want the volta to be that we find suitable housing for her elsewhere. But that isn't how volta's work is it?
Is this resistance or a needed boundary? I am figuring that out.
When my resistance, today to the reality of the boxes of her things in the middle of my hallway, like a wave, crashes, like a center that can't hold, it brings natural relief and tremendous grief. Right in the mix of all of this, I am.
I feel the devouring mother, although I had a devouring father instead, and am contemplating at this time, how involved I can be in his difficult life as he ages.
I honour your struggle right now, your resistance and the impulse to set boundaries. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you so much for sharing from the middle of a hard moment in your life. I see one volta in your sudden decision to invite your damaged mother in, and perhaps another volta waiting to happen. I especially appreciate the way you acknowledge that this was your decision and that it is still very hard. So often I have felt that I couldn't simultaneously say that I stand behind a decision I made but also I need people to recognize that it is hard. Somehow, they seem to think that if I made the decision I shouldn't be complaining about my situation, but real life is messier than that.
and after the sun rose, I saw an insect land on the railing
and take shelter, and a bird drank from a leaf.
Wild pigs exploded from the bushes where they’d hid,"
I loved these lines. As I have heard Padraig read for two years, first I was stunned by his description of the church fathers trying to exorcise his homosexuality, while, in one case. hiding his own. then , Compelled by the kitchen poems, capturing belief in God, has all the moments when I have said oh my God, in lust in amazement and in disgust, when there is something greater than the self that amazes or stuns. And this year. hearing the new poems about loving men with propulsive energy. exactly as those lines above capture!
I spent a year on the run after my husband died. Running my three year old daughter with me. I’d dragged us round the world looking for him, for the “us” I’d expected to have. Somehow I saw the good in attending a Buddhist silent retreat on impermanence about the end of that first year. My daughter with her grandmother for five days I found myself in a centre in western North Carolina.
After the urge to run from this too, subsided finally ( with the skilled help of strangers) I sat and faced the emptiness.
About day 4 in the meditation hall I had what I can only describe as a vision. In the video screen of my minds eye a cartoon skeleton of a dog appeared, chasing its own tail in perpetual revolution. It was a sad desperate terrible looking thing.
And how the dam cracked and burst open when I realized this dog was myself. Everything changed from there.
What a powerful experience. I'm glad you had skilled strangers to help you through this transformation. I'm about to go on a Buddhist silent retreat next month. Honestly I'm a bit scared to face four days of no talking, no reading, no writing.
That fear is so normal. The silence is daunting. I’m so excited for you though …
these days I can’t wait to get to a retreat and enter silence. It is beautiful once you break through the strangeness of it. It’s a true gift I think, you’re bringing to yourself. Every good wish to you
A wonderful prompt! A door opened for me: My life has run on two different tracks, simultaneously. Since I was very young, I journeyed very quietly, inwardly, intimately, a path of creativity. This has kept me alive, curious, and willing to continue exploring. Have I a guardian angel? Maybe. Must have. Otherwise how am I still alive? Path number two was, and continues to be, resistance, full stubborn resistance. I held tightly unto anger for years, said “fuck you” to this world, got snared into an eating disorder for over thirteen years, as if that was a lifeline to get me through the scary waters of full-on living. And yet, even in the thick of bulimia, the creative path kept insisting its right to thrive. Slowly, I have been knitting my two paths together, feeling more at home with “being myself”. This wholeness is so much more interesting, and fruitful. And, of course, I still resist at times, hide, and say “fuck you”. Nevertheless, the creative generative life force seems to be “winning” and celebrating creativity. 🏮
When trying to find equilibrium in painful, disappointing relationships to which you've made a public commitment, the grieving process is long in recognizing that the dream of true partnership is dead & that one must exchange & embrace a new, more authentic solo identity.
This came at the right time for me; I feel I'm at the threshold of a volta. I've been grieving my mother and it finally feels like the moment to ask where do I go from here. Big changes in the horizon. Thank you for another heart-hugging post.
Interestingly, as I think about this week’s question, I have throughout my life — to a large degree — resisted change. In my depths, I seek that which is comfortable and familiar. I have created many rituals in my day-by-day life, often unconsciously, which I believe reinforce this sense of comfort and predictability. But, life keeps coming at me. Yes, the sun rises each day, the winds sometimes blow with great force, the seasons come and go, onetime classmates have moved on, friends change, an infant is born, loved ones have died. I have been shifted by life — sometimes jolted. I mostly try to hold my ground, aware that change is inevitable and possibly transformative.
I was trained in quantitative research methodologies when studying psychology. Now in education, I dutifully encouraged students to follow the "right" steps. A colleague in social justice collaborating with me on a new project pushed back on my request to follow strict design guidelines. At first, I resisted. This was a career's worth of training he was questioning. All these years, anxious to do it all "the right way," (never fully confident that what I created would be seen that way-hmm). He shared the limitations and downsides of holding on so tightly to the structures we were taught were the gold standard. He gently described how we can miss many voices, especially those who are underserved and underrepresented in our work, and who may view education, philosophy, or science very differently than the researcher. We may miss their stories, miss capturing their realities if we tightly grasp onto a single way of knowing or researching as the only one with value. Because of this man's generosity in sharing these reflections, as well as his own story and struggles, I stepped out of a rather small, stressful shack with elite vibes into the vibrant world of possibilities, seeing our gorgeous, diverse ecosystem with new eyes.
This prompt made be wonder about timing. This all happenened at a moment in my path that I was equipped to hear it - what role does timing play in our resistance to change, and in our capacity to let go?
Beautiful, Alissa. And, yes - I too believe that timing absolutely does play a role. Often, something has to shift before we are ready or able to properly "hear" or "know" what we have heard and known intellectually for a long time. I love the idea that we often just need to "get out of our own way"...
The ease and presence in the moment and it's gifts-- it's why I keep coming back to your poems again and again. I have a few things that I do that are very healthy for me. But I let a stressful day push them to one side -- and then find this sneaky resistance preventing me from getting back to them. Scratching my head about this just now. It's a resistance to maintaining change.
I have a complicated relationship with resistance. As a therapist, I actually look forward to resistance expressed by my clients. If no pushback against loss or against someone else's good ideas, the person has given up. Resistance means they are still in the fight. Of course, all things in moderation. But, my own resistance...now that is where it gets complicated. I recently found a poem I wrote some years ago when I watching the way of nature. After I had written it I realized it had helped me release a resistance to change in my own life.
My life did a big turn in 2001 when my husband was diagnosed with young onset Parkinson’s. We decided early in that PD would revolve around our activities and not the other way around. I’ve endeavored to maintain my creative life especially the last several years with beginning to write poetry. I submitted my first poem to a women’s journal in May and should be hearing soon if it got accepted. I also started relearning the violin a couple of years ago and it’s a big source of solace (especially the Celtic tunes). Being a caregiver is a balancing act for sure and has increased my empathy towards others.
two patterns, both with a common thread that leads to a belief that I am responsible for holding together fractures that threaten to break a relationship or identity. One pattern is to persevere until my body and soul speak so loudly that resistance gives way to such a freedom as I let go and move into the bliss of not knowing what comes next (divorce, retirement). The second pattern is to wait until reality is unavoidable as change is occurring (avoiding all the signs of an unhealthy relationship). There has been growth over time as I’ve learned to recognize the inevitability of change and have developed more grace in handling it.
I’ve attached two quotes to my refrigerator that speak to me.
“All that you touch, you change. All that you change,
changes you. The only lasting truth is change. God is change.”
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower.
“There is a journey you must take. It is a journey without destination. There is
no map. Your soul will lead you. And you can take nothing with you.” Meister Eckhart
Love that, Lauri - and I literally just posted about that Octavia Butler quote last week!! Re the Meister Eckhart one, it brings to mind this poem by Adrienne Rich - you might like it.
Glad you liked it, Lauri! Her work is so good - I pulled her book "Of Woman Born" off the bookshelf yesterday and so much of it is still relevant today, even though it was published 50 years ago...
The Quiet Tug-of-War
There was a year I refused
to let go of the past's grip.
Its fingers, bruised and brittle,
curled tight around my spine,
kept me tethered to a version
of myself that no longer fit.
I told myself change was surrender,
as though my defiance were armor.
Burned bridges became monuments—
silent, smoldering reminders
that standing still is easier
than walking into the unknown.
In my sixth sober year, I saw it:
How resistance isn't strength,
just a clenched jaw caving inward,
fighting tides that gift their release
when you finally uncurl, exhale.
Relief came soft as wet earth,
a different kind of gravity,
less like loss, more like choosing
to pack light for the journey forward.
Wow, Courtney. This is beautiful. So many lines I want to remember. "...standing still is easier than walking into the unknown..." "...tides that gift their release when you finally uncurl..." Thank you.
Thank You Lyn for sharing your feedback on my work I appreciate your kind words
Love this, Courtney, especially "How resistance isn't strength, / just a clenched jaw caving inward, / fighting tides that gift their release / when you finally uncurl, exhale."
Totally resonates with the experience I've just described too - synchronicity...
Thank You Anne for sharing your feedback on my work, I appreciate your support. I'm six years sober now, but I drank myself almost to death for decades. I'm grateful I found a way to stay sober.
beautiful 😍
oooh- I really like your answer, courtney!
How beautiful Courtney! "Relief came soft as earth"💕
This beautiful poem written well into sobriety is yet another witness of what my daughter presents in her book, The Recovering, that there can be so much creativity and creation of beauty among sober artists as well.
Hello Courtney. I really enjoyed reading your poem. So many textures, armor and strength and caving inward. You can really feel the resistance here, in your words, and also the release, when you finally let go, and find yourself. "Pack light for the journey forward . . ." I love your final line. Sound advice for us all. Thank you so much for sharing your words, and your journey. All the best to you.
Feel every word of this. Thank you.
Love the line about packing light! Change requires leaving behind what is unimportant.
Oh, these lines… “All this time, I felt like I had to describe / the things I did, and what was done to me” - a whole lifetime in there...
For so long, I resisted the changes that becoming a mother wanted – needed - to make in me for me to become the person my children needed. I kicked against all its demands – no time to myself, no time to sleep, no patience, no patience, no patience. The constant draining physicality of caring for babies, of being “touched out” at the end of a day and craving five minutes where nobody would pull on me. But ironically – in the way these things happen - it was my youngest child’s constant kicking against me – and herself, and the world – that finally opened my eyes to what I actually needed to do, which was to stop fighting it all of it and just be with it. Whenever she had yet another meltdown, I would hold her tightly, as she pushed and pushed against me until suddenly, she would just collapse, like soft butter in my arms. I realised that by holding steady in the face of her resistance instead of feeding it with my own, I gave that resistance nowhere to go and it would just dissolve, both of us finding some blessed peace and release, if only for a while. I have carried this lesson with me in the decades that have followed, learning and re-learning it as life has thrown other change challenges in my path. And I keep a copy of this painting by the English artist Jenny Saville, as a reminder that whatever I feed grows and that “giving in” is not always defeat but may actually be the saving of me... https://www.artforum.com/events/jenny-saville-4-195996/
Thank you for reminding me of the name of an artist profiled in the New Yorker. I was intrigued then lost her name.
That's so cool, Maeve! I love her work - especially her depictions of women and how she draws on her own experience.
Thank you for this. I think I needed this exact post right now ❤️
I like to think of the universe sending things our way just when we need it most, Alissa. Mind yourself...
thank you for saying this Anne, I wished I had had your wisdom and courage to be honest about this experience of losing self to motherhood.
I like the idea of mothering resistance. 💕
Oh my God, Natalie, I still don’t feel like I have any clue about being a “good” mother!! But that insight did shift something in me that made things a bit easier, even if so much was still a struggle. I am only really starting to appreciate how much that ‘losing self’ was at the bottom of it all and how my own issues and damage meant that I was never able to put myself or my needs first, even thought this would actually have been a healthier choice both for me and my children. Still, better later than never…
I like to tell my daughters that they “raised a mother” rather than always saying it the other way around. It reframes everything so that I don’t feel all the weight on me and it’s an exercise in gratitude. It’s helped me to let go of the constant feelings of being less than I wish to be for them.
Love that, Mary - so beautiful and wise...
Thank you for sharing your journey and the art. “Just be with it” - something that is hard to do for moms.
This is such a powerful, honest and shared (at least to some extent) of motherhood. My granddaughter is prone to extreme meltdowns and my daughter has learned a pattern similar to what you describe.
Thank you, Deacon Joanne - as I've learned to go a bit easier on myself, it has become easier to talk about my struggles. Meltdowns are hard, though...
Ohh this speaks to me as a toddler mama. I am in the throes of resistance to what is needed of me and full of anger that it’s so hard. Thank you for sharing this. Your hindsight is my inspiration🦋
My pleasure, Sarah. Can't say that it was a miracle worker but it did help make some of the worst days (and there were a lot!) a bit easier to manage. And then there were the unexpected, amazing days when I dreaded the worst but it all turned into something beautiful...
Gorgeous poem, Padraig. Thank you. I don't recall where, but I recently read the quote, "Stop shrinking to fit into places you've outgrown." I was still trying to bring life to a relationship that had long since lost any vitality. I found myself desperately clinging to the memory of what it had been, instead of its reality. The volta of intimacy. I don't know that I will grow in this lifetime to a place where I DON'T resist this turn.
thank you for saying this Lynn, that maybe there's something natural about the resistance to this turn.
I don't want to think of resistance, if it's present, as anything other than part of the whole. I want to bring tender, tending to that inevitable crumbling process. Perhaps resistance can pick up its pieces and follow along with where life is taking us.
I resisted my oldest daughter’s claim to her own life. She was 18 and had struggled with her mental health throughout her adolescence. Armed with many tools and her own determination to live, she moved out of my house her freshman year of college. I could not imagine her on her own, or truly—how I was to be if I was not to be her ever anxious guardian. She flew and I grew to understand and accept.
Beautiful Bee. Such brave love
Ah, the god toad, volta. Amazing.
Thank you for this poem, and the questions. Acquainted with grief from an early age, I know a lot about resisting as a way of life, mostly unconscious, until it wasn’t. Like the volta. A turn happened, at least 3 times clearly that I can recall:
1. When I realized the silent phrase in my head “my mother died when I was 9,” not spoken when I introduced myself to someone new, “Hi, I’m B . . . (Insert unspoken qualifier) did not have to define me. I could have an identity I shaped.
2. When 10 years after our divorce (14 after Tom left), I realized I was going about life projecting the image of a married woman. It’s true, with two children, I couldn’t quite believe I was divorced. I hadn’t left. But I was so resistant that a coach of a church softball team thought I was married.
Just because I realized I was married to this identity, as it were, did not mean I immediately went about changing it. I did not. Change can be very slow, resistance very stubborn. Identity like grief is at one’s core, and to change I think you need to begin to create something new to fill the void.
3. I read a book, a novel, recently about loneliness and secrets, among other things. I realized, accepted maybe for the first time, that I might not have fully understood some essential part of Tom. He may have felt lonely, the opposite of what partnering is.
Yes, resistance comes pretty naturally and feels “strong.” Holding onto it becomes a habit, or way of seeing, or one’s identity, or life. Change is fluid, slippery, uncertain, leading into the unknown, requires courage. It is difficult, and therefore, worth trying.
I like all these examples because they fit into my reality and you describe them well. Especially that feeling that resistance is a good strength, while change is slippery and needs softness.
I appreciate you sharing the moment of realizing you might not have understood something essential about your former husband. I had a similar experience recently. My ex husband's current wife, whom I like very much, mentioned in passing how one of the first things he said was how relaxed he felt around her. Something shifted in me because I could feel the truth of it. Dean and I were well suited in many ways, but we didn't let each other relax most of the time (of course we also were the ones raising three children together, which makes relaxation more challenging.)
My mother who I had little interaction with over the last many years came to me 2 weeks ago, homeless and on hospice. ( I truly don't think she's dying but more a misunderstanding from the medical perspective ).
Because of this I've agreed to let her abruptly move into my 1075 square-foot home. The smell of her and her things are in my nostrils when I close my bedroom door is too much intimacy. Her intimacy, a devouring mother, has been a difficult theme.
I am in the full throws of resistance. The quiet of my everyday ripped apart by strangers running in and about my home. My work being pushed out of my home. A decision I made but nonetheless. I want the volta to be that we find suitable housing for her elsewhere. But that isn't how volta's work is it?
Is this resistance or a needed boundary? I am figuring that out.
When my resistance, today to the reality of the boxes of her things in the middle of my hallway, like a wave, crashes, like a center that can't hold, it brings natural relief and tremendous grief. Right in the mix of all of this, I am.
I feel the devouring mother, although I had a devouring father instead, and am contemplating at this time, how involved I can be in his difficult life as he ages.
I honour your struggle right now, your resistance and the impulse to set boundaries. Thank you for sharing.
Do contemplate! 💕
Thank you so much for sharing from the middle of a hard moment in your life. I see one volta in your sudden decision to invite your damaged mother in, and perhaps another volta waiting to happen. I especially appreciate the way you acknowledge that this was your decision and that it is still very hard. So often I have felt that I couldn't simultaneously say that I stand behind a decision I made but also I need people to recognize that it is hard. Somehow, they seem to think that if I made the decision I shouldn't be complaining about my situation, but real life is messier than that.
well put Deacon - thank you 💜
"and the drops were a percussion on the trees,
and after the sun rose, I saw an insect land on the railing
and take shelter, and a bird drank from a leaf.
Wild pigs exploded from the bushes where they’d hid,"
I loved these lines. As I have heard Padraig read for two years, first I was stunned by his description of the church fathers trying to exorcise his homosexuality, while, in one case. hiding his own. then , Compelled by the kitchen poems, capturing belief in God, has all the moments when I have said oh my God, in lust in amazement and in disgust, when there is something greater than the self that amazes or stuns. And this year. hearing the new poems about loving men with propulsive energy. exactly as those lines above capture!
hurray!!!
I spent a year on the run after my husband died. Running my three year old daughter with me. I’d dragged us round the world looking for him, for the “us” I’d expected to have. Somehow I saw the good in attending a Buddhist silent retreat on impermanence about the end of that first year. My daughter with her grandmother for five days I found myself in a centre in western North Carolina.
After the urge to run from this too, subsided finally ( with the skilled help of strangers) I sat and faced the emptiness.
About day 4 in the meditation hall I had what I can only describe as a vision. In the video screen of my minds eye a cartoon skeleton of a dog appeared, chasing its own tail in perpetual revolution. It was a sad desperate terrible looking thing.
And how the dam cracked and burst open when I realized this dog was myself. Everything changed from there.
What a powerful experience. I'm glad you had skilled strangers to help you through this transformation. I'm about to go on a Buddhist silent retreat next month. Honestly I'm a bit scared to face four days of no talking, no reading, no writing.
That fear is so normal. The silence is daunting. I’m so excited for you though …
these days I can’t wait to get to a retreat and enter silence. It is beautiful once you break through the strangeness of it. It’s a true gift I think, you’re bringing to yourself. Every good wish to you
A wonderful prompt! A door opened for me: My life has run on two different tracks, simultaneously. Since I was very young, I journeyed very quietly, inwardly, intimately, a path of creativity. This has kept me alive, curious, and willing to continue exploring. Have I a guardian angel? Maybe. Must have. Otherwise how am I still alive? Path number two was, and continues to be, resistance, full stubborn resistance. I held tightly unto anger for years, said “fuck you” to this world, got snared into an eating disorder for over thirteen years, as if that was a lifeline to get me through the scary waters of full-on living. And yet, even in the thick of bulimia, the creative path kept insisting its right to thrive. Slowly, I have been knitting my two paths together, feeling more at home with “being myself”. This wholeness is so much more interesting, and fruitful. And, of course, I still resist at times, hide, and say “fuck you”. Nevertheless, the creative generative life force seems to be “winning” and celebrating creativity. 🏮
boy can I relate to the scary waters of full-on living! Thanks for putting that into words. 💜
what brilliance to take something so challenging like an eating disorder and weave it together with creative intimacy.
you might also like Thomas Moore's work. Care of the soul or The Enchantment of everyday.
When trying to find equilibrium in painful, disappointing relationships to which you've made a public commitment, the grieving process is long in recognizing that the dream of true partnership is dead & that one must exchange & embrace a new, more authentic solo identity.
Dead Sea
Dead Sea receiving
Jordan flow is your silence
When I speak my soul.
Dawn L. Young
May 1, 2022
Dawn. I am glad you were able to express this hard reality through poetry.
This came at the right time for me; I feel I'm at the threshold of a volta. I've been grieving my mother and it finally feels like the moment to ask where do I go from here. Big changes in the horizon. Thank you for another heart-hugging post.
Best of luck and good choices Eva!
Interestingly, as I think about this week’s question, I have throughout my life — to a large degree — resisted change. In my depths, I seek that which is comfortable and familiar. I have created many rituals in my day-by-day life, often unconsciously, which I believe reinforce this sense of comfort and predictability. But, life keeps coming at me. Yes, the sun rises each day, the winds sometimes blow with great force, the seasons come and go, onetime classmates have moved on, friends change, an infant is born, loved ones have died. I have been shifted by life — sometimes jolted. I mostly try to hold my ground, aware that change is inevitable and possibly transformative.
We seemed to be posting at the same time about different facets of the same conundrum.
yes life does!
I like to think that loving the familiar is what our soul does and the spirit is more akin to change.
Thanks for sharing.
Is this a gypsy homesteader, or a homesteading gypsy?
I was trained in quantitative research methodologies when studying psychology. Now in education, I dutifully encouraged students to follow the "right" steps. A colleague in social justice collaborating with me on a new project pushed back on my request to follow strict design guidelines. At first, I resisted. This was a career's worth of training he was questioning. All these years, anxious to do it all "the right way," (never fully confident that what I created would be seen that way-hmm). He shared the limitations and downsides of holding on so tightly to the structures we were taught were the gold standard. He gently described how we can miss many voices, especially those who are underserved and underrepresented in our work, and who may view education, philosophy, or science very differently than the researcher. We may miss their stories, miss capturing their realities if we tightly grasp onto a single way of knowing or researching as the only one with value. Because of this man's generosity in sharing these reflections, as well as his own story and struggles, I stepped out of a rather small, stressful shack with elite vibes into the vibrant world of possibilities, seeing our gorgeous, diverse ecosystem with new eyes.
This prompt made be wonder about timing. This all happenened at a moment in my path that I was equipped to hear it - what role does timing play in our resistance to change, and in our capacity to let go?
Beautiful, Alissa. And, yes - I too believe that timing absolutely does play a role. Often, something has to shift before we are ready or able to properly "hear" or "know" what we have heard and known intellectually for a long time. I love the idea that we often just need to "get out of our own way"...
The ease and presence in the moment and it's gifts-- it's why I keep coming back to your poems again and again. I have a few things that I do that are very healthy for me. But I let a stressful day push them to one side -- and then find this sneaky resistance preventing me from getting back to them. Scratching my head about this just now. It's a resistance to maintaining change.
I have a complicated relationship with resistance. As a therapist, I actually look forward to resistance expressed by my clients. If no pushback against loss or against someone else's good ideas, the person has given up. Resistance means they are still in the fight. Of course, all things in moderation. But, my own resistance...now that is where it gets complicated. I recently found a poem I wrote some years ago when I watching the way of nature. After I had written it I realized it had helped me release a resistance to change in my own life.
I loved a Butterfly
She came looking for the sanctuary
a caterpillar might need—
protection and nourishment.
We danced together in the wind,
clinging as if this moment would always be.
I didn’t mind being her nourishment,
for her presence enlivened me.
But then she was shrouded in silk
just out of reach.
Time stood still,
our songs silent.
She emerged, changed,
a different sort of beautiful.
I see her now and again
as she visits the flowers,
touching petals,
tasting the sun.
For a moment she stops,
looks my way, bending her wings
as if to say goodbye,
then off on her journey.
Soon I will go the way of all leaves,
but carry with me the reminders
that I loved a butterfly.
Touched by your tender, poignant, and revelatory poem. Thanks for sharing it, Philip.
My life did a big turn in 2001 when my husband was diagnosed with young onset Parkinson’s. We decided early in that PD would revolve around our activities and not the other way around. I’ve endeavored to maintain my creative life especially the last several years with beginning to write poetry. I submitted my first poem to a women’s journal in May and should be hearing soon if it got accepted. I also started relearning the violin a couple of years ago and it’s a big source of solace (especially the Celtic tunes). Being a caregiver is a balancing act for sure and has increased my empathy towards others.
Resisting change for me has happened in
two patterns, both with a common thread that leads to a belief that I am responsible for holding together fractures that threaten to break a relationship or identity. One pattern is to persevere until my body and soul speak so loudly that resistance gives way to such a freedom as I let go and move into the bliss of not knowing what comes next (divorce, retirement). The second pattern is to wait until reality is unavoidable as change is occurring (avoiding all the signs of an unhealthy relationship). There has been growth over time as I’ve learned to recognize the inevitability of change and have developed more grace in handling it.
I’ve attached two quotes to my refrigerator that speak to me.
“All that you touch, you change. All that you change,
changes you. The only lasting truth is change. God is change.”
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower.
“There is a journey you must take. It is a journey without destination. There is
no map. Your soul will lead you. And you can take nothing with you.” Meister Eckhart
Love that, Lauri - and I literally just posted about that Octavia Butler quote last week!! Re the Meister Eckhart one, it brings to mind this poem by Adrienne Rich - you might like it.
...
XIII
The rules break like a thermometer,
quicksilver spills across the charted systems,
we’re out in a country that has no language
no laws, we’re chasing the raven and the wren
through gorges unexplored since dawn
whatever we do together is pure invention
the maps they gave us were out of date
by years… we’re driving through the desert
wondering if the water will hold out
the hallucinations turn to simple villages
the music on the radio comes clear—
neither Rosenkavalier nor Götterdämmerung
but a woman’s voice singing old songs
with new words, with a quiet bass, a flute
plucked and fingered by women outside the law.
Thank you so much for sharing the Adrienne Rich poem. The words spill out with such complexity and depth.
Glad you liked it, Lauri! Her work is so good - I pulled her book "Of Woman Born" off the bookshelf yesterday and so much of it is still relevant today, even though it was published 50 years ago...
I put a book of her poems and essays on hold at my local library. Thanks for prompting me to read her work.