Mar 26, 2023·edited Mar 26, 2023Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama, Poetry Unbound
It was March 11, 1998. I was in labor; the water had broken and I was 5 centimeters dilated and things were moving along nicely. But then the labor stopped. Nothing changed for several hours. The doctor came in and said if things didn't start moving soon they would have to use some interventions to get the baby out. I was beside myself with dismay and anger, not wanting that. The doctor left. The nurse said, with remarkable gentleness, "is something blocking you?" I said, "well, my mother died." She said, "when did your mother die?" I said, "last week." (In fact, by the calendar, it had been 17 days but in my universe that was the same as "last week.") She said, "oh you poor dear." The inquiry: "is something blocking you?" and "oh you poor dear" were words of perceptivity, and power. This unleashed the weeping I had not yet done, not a single tear up to that minute. The baby came out, whole and beautiful, on a hurricane of sobs not long after. I hold in sacred memory that nurse, whose name I do not remember, and the power that her words-- borne by love-- had to free me to give voice to the grief that had been locked inside my body.
Sounds like perhaps your Mom reached backed through that nurse to help you bring your beautiful baby into our world. Thank you for sharing this sacred memory.
I was going to respond with a contribution I thought was so great I had to share it with all of you. Until I read your story Wendy. And nothing more needed to be written.
I have been changed by the words of others, for better and worse, but one positive one that comes to mind is when, after years of dealing with the secret of my mother’s alcoholism and being finely attuned to my father’s suffering about this, I called, after discussion with my father, the Alcoholics Anonymous hotline, looking for help. “How old are you?” asked the operator. “Twelve,” I replied. After a long pause, she said these works before ending the conversation that I didn’t believe then but started me thinking, “This is not your problem.”
Every question you ask, Pádraig, seizes me as if i were a fish hooked from the sea. Alas, the first thing that leaps to mind with today's casting is way too many examples of words spoken to me in anger, contempt, paternalist exasperation. And, sadly, they hit me when i was too young or too weak or too naive to bat them aside and they got in me (and sometimes still do) and I changed in unfortunate ways as a result. I've learned better but am still vulnerable. And even now, as i revisit my experience I have to work hard to resist the memory of those many wounds and remember those words that have helped heal my soul or at least soothe it. So... Having just moved to Toronto some time ago, my best friend from Montreal was visiting and, coincidentally, one of our favourite authors was doing a book launch. Eduardo Galeano had just published in English one of his remarkable collections of wee tales, The Book of Embraces. We attended and afterwards, while i usually shy away from the ritual of signing, we lined up. While in line my friend confessed that Galeano was actually friends with her parents with whom he had been neighbours while in exile. He knew the whole family but my friend was the one member he'd not met. When we got to the signing table and introduced ourselves, he was delighted to meet my friend and insisted we join him for drinks afterwards. I was gobsmacked, star-struck, giddy, an utter fan-boy. I tried to act mature but can't be sure I was successful. He was charming, holding court with us like a true professional, kind, funny, charismatic, self-effacing at times. We spoke of writing and his writing and I forget most of what he shared. But i eventually dared a question that had been on my mind for years: "How do you find so many magical things to write about?" This is only slightly less nerdy than asking an author "where do you get your ideas?" Shoot me now, I thought, as i heard myself uttering my question. If you know his work, then you know that he was a master of the short tale, almost all of which are based on historical research or his own experience. He reveals truth and truths like a magician. He looked at me kindly, penetratingly, "ah, you must understand that two or three magical things happen to me every day." And, as if he had just cast a spell, those words entered me and wrapped themselves around my heart and i knew that what he said was true for me as well, and for all of us. His point, i knew, was that he chose to notice. That was over 30 years ago and I have lived every day since with those words as a guide and reminder to notice that magic that is all around us and I have practiced noticing it every day since.
Chris! What a gorgeous and moving reflection. Your story carried me from the pain of how language can hurt, can harm, especially when we are young and more vulnerable, how it can cut so deep that scars remain for decades ... to a place of joy and magic, to the Book of Embraces!!!! G A L E A N O ! I delighted in hearing your starstruck, giddy, fanboy response to having drinks with Galeano. In giddy kinship with you I will share that I love to tell people (and it is true) that “Eduardo Galeano kissed me.” Ok, it is true that he kissed nearly everyone at that book signing, it was his way,... but still! A couple of years after that, kiss ;), as part of my first job out of college at a small publishing house, Monthly Review, I was assigned to “copy edit” or “line edit” or whatever the name was for what I was tasked to do for an anniversary edition / reprinting of Galeano’s Open Veins. Can you imagine my delight?? Lastly.... that Book of Embraces, I’ve kept it all these years, with perhaps the most homemade “post-it” notes of any book I own, that were placed not only by me but by other, beloveds with whom I shared a home (7 people, a 2-bedroom apt) one summer, and many a night reading pages of that very book to each other... You’ve sent me back to this whole other time in my life, Chris! But back to your story - the magic. The noticing. The fact you took in what he said, let the poetry of those words, the spell, work on you, in you, over all these years. How beautiful. Thank you for sharing. 🙏🏾
What an amazing coincidence. And, indeed, i'm envious. To have worked on his work and Open Veins, at that. I do not exaggerate when I say that reading that book changed the course of my life. It lead me to work with the Sandinistas in the Nicaraguan Revolution and pretty much opened the door of the world of popular education to me. Indeed, magical.
Wow. That is so moving; truly magical, Chris! What words can do when they touch, and pierce, and penetrate the heart.... and I imagine it’s that they connected with, resonate with, words that were perhaps unwritten, unformed, but in some way, already there within you. That’s a bit of my magical thinking I suppose!
I went into recovery at 19 - and someone in the rooms said, “You never have to be alone again.” That’s held me for almost three decades of sobriety/abstinence.
I was born and raised in an impoverished farming community. My elementary school consisted of five rooms for eight grades. We had no kindergarten or junior high school. There were 12 students in my 'graduating' eighth-grade class. How was it possible that I leapt into a life of healthcare systems and a university?
A high-school English teacher quite improbably saw potential and challenged a mediocre assignment with the phrase, "You are capable of so much more than that." That observation and a few discussions with her over lunch helped me believe that a different personal trajectory might be possible.
However, it wasn't until I started to listen to On Being that I began to believe that it was possible to craft a different type of a civilization (rather than my own individual life) through words. We had neither poetry nor any culture of literature on the farm. The dialogue of many guests began to coalesce into a potentiality of hope - a short of conceptual structure or space where we might imagine together a new civil life - indeed a collaborative life at all - lived in more equitable community with each other and with our planet. Stories shift hearts. We need good stories if we are to have a good future.
I think you are right on with your statement “stories shift hearts”. I think stories enable people to really hear what another person says. A story brings us in to another’s life. I think it has the potential to reach another ‘s heart and soul making change and growth possible.
A dear friend once said to me, “whatever it is that you are going through, whatever you are feeling and whatever it costs, that is the price of your freedom”. I am still absorbing the impact of those words and trying to live up to their promise. I wish all here the peace and freedom you seek.
When I experienced exclusion from the community that had been home and was taught the words of Mary Oliver's Wild Geese and Journey and someone sang the song " How can anyone every tell you, you are anything less than beautiful, how can anyone ever tell you, you are less than whole..." Those poems and this song are a very part of my soul.
I love so much your sharing and these prompts, as you bring me into a reflective space, a search inside... and so many, many, many instances come to mind. A beautiful journey through memories.... Including one that was difficult, that involved my language and another’s language, and it changed me. I was treating a patient (with acupuncture) who was undergoing chemotherapy for advanced ovarian cancer. She was resting on the treatment table and I was at her feet, needling some point, and casually telling her about the focus of the treatment, and I said quite casually, “because chemo strips away the stomach yin, it really damages it, it....” I don’t even recall what I said next, because what I noticed next was a whimpering, and then I looked towards the face of my patient and saw her crying, and then she erupted with those words: “HOW DARE TALK TO ME LIKE THAT!” I was shocked out of my “I’m a chill acupuncturist doing my thing supporting people in their healing journeys mode”. For a moment I thought the treatment may have induced a “Shen disturbance” (spirit disturbance) in the patient, and her words were nonsensical. Oh. But she continued. “Watch your language!” Though what followed were words that changed me, I cannot recall them verbatim, but she took me to task for using the harsh language of “chemo stripping the stomach yin” and being “damaging” and schooled me on the importance of my language. I initially felt walls of defenses come up “she doesn’t know me! I’m not that person. I would never...” and then flushes of shame as i realized “but Mona. you did.” And eventually getting to “this doesn’t mean you’re a bad person or a bad practitioner or an anything. But it is an invitation to change.” Ultimately, her words, strong as they were, allowed me to reflect - in a more precise way than I had previously - on how I describe to patients my findings and what it is we are doing in the treatment. In this case it could be as simple as describing it as something like “We are nourishing your yin, and supporting your body’s resources to best process the chemotherapy.” Part of the irony was that she, my patient, was a conventional medical doctor, and part of my bias (and rant) had been that MDs can be so thoughtless and careless in how they use language, harming people by how they speak, leaving patients feeling worse simply because of the language they used and how they spoke! And here I was, the acupuncturist, the Chinese medicine holistic practitioner, being “hit over the head” as if by a Zen master’s stick to say, “wake up!” by a conventional MD.
Though I often believe “I really do not respond well to being spoken to in a sharp tone. I just shut down.” In this instance, the words, and tone, and of course context in which this note in the glass bottle was sent forth, actually reached my heart-mind, and changed me.
~
Pádraig, thank you so much for all your words. I especially am thankful for your reflection on not getting caught up in ideas about your ignorance of what a poem might mean and instead just letting the feeling of it work on you.
oh my. This hits mighty close to home. I have been 'hit', several times, with that very thought of "but [chris]. you did". I think each time it happened (and will no doubt happen again) i learned (after making necessary apologies) but it's hard to know for sure. Such moments have always necessitated me doing some deep digging into my self - sometimes returning to the same dig-sites only to learn that there was deeper to go. Most of my work has to do with confronting unjust uses of power and that has often entailed being in the line of fire (sometimes literally) and in such moments there is often little time for thoughtful contemplation and consideration of one's actions. So mistakes are common enough and sometimes rather loaded. Apropos of your reference to "Zen master's stick" i've learned from aikido (at which i suck) how to take such blows and absorb the energy (or ki, i suppose) while staying balanced - such that the energy can fuel the necessary learning. Perhaps not the smoothest metaphor.
Apropos of Pádraig's question about language, this makes me think of one of the most powerful type of speech act i've learned of recently: parrhesia, a greek word meaning "fearless speech" and which can be roughly compared to the quaker notion of "speaking truth to power." It is a speech act of speaking a "truth" that could harm the person to whom it is directed but which could bring harm upon the speaker. Perhaps a more fulsome translation would be "fearless speech about a dangerous truth." It is usually the case that the truth is spoken by someone with less power to someone with more. If you've seen Alfonso Cuarón's version of The Little Princess, there is a beautiful illustration of this act when Sarah Crewe, our storytelling hero, confront's the cruel headmistress. It is a beautiful moment of fearless speech and dangerous truth. Your story makes me realize how important it is when one is on the receiving end of such dangerous truth to be able to listen and learn. Thank-you for sharing this story which, i'm guessing, is hardly an easy one to share.
Thank you, Chris! Being on the “front lines” as you describe indeed requires one to act and speak without the benefit of time to reflect and refine. So, mistakes happen! What is a life without mistakes, right? Said as if it were easy for me to accept - but, not quite so! A process... I like your aikido metaphor. For me I have to watch getting too identified with any of it. With the “successes” or the “failures,” with the “praise” or the “blame” as it spoken about in Buddhism.
I love this word parrhesia - a new one for me - thank you. I think I love Sarah Crewe already, though I haven’t yet read or seen this story, but I’m going to look into!
Lastly, life is funny. In November, I saw a play by Suzan-Lori Parks composed of multiple playettes, each written in a single day during the pandemic. During this time, my mom and then dad had medical emergencies and I spent weeks in the hospital, rehab center, and at doctors apptmts. And I was HORRIFIED and decided one day I’d write a play, composed of playettes, of these unbelievable (not in a good way) encounters with medical professionals. This morning having this prompt from Pádraig remind me of this encounter, I think if I ever do write this play (we shall see!!!), I’ll need to add in one playette where I am the “guilty” one. Maybe that is the “turn” in a sonnet that I’ve heard Pádraig talk about. So it’s not just the predictable - yeah yeah, we know that the system is broken.... but also, look here mlle self-righteous holier-than-thou, mirror mirror on the wall, what do you see? (hopefully not a solid self, not “good” not “bad”). This exchange is reminding me of the words by Khenpo Tsuktrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, “Making mistake after mistake, I walk the unmistaken path / Forgetting again and again
I rely on unforgetting mindfullness / Experiencing confusion after confusion, I seek out the unconfused true nature.”
I have added Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche's words to my commonplace book. I'm a big fan of such thinking and have encountered this kind of trickster wisdom in many different stories and cultural contexts. I will ponder these words. Perhaps even meditate upon them though i'm a terrible meditator (simply too lazy, i think). This also reminds me of Shunryu Suzuki's famous words: "In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few" which was another candidate for response to Pádraig's question this week. In the 90s I visited the San Francisco Zen Center's Green Gulch Farm a few times and on one visit i picked up Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind and read it cover to cover. It was a rare experience of reading in which i felt as if he were actually talking to me. The locale certainly helped evoke his presence. It was rather eerie and unforgettable. And guides me still.
I love your reference to "trickster wisdom", chris. It reminds me of the "coyote angels" in John Nichols' Milangro Beanfield War. As I now understand them, coyote angels show up to help you but not in any ways that you could anticipate — or even imagine. They provide the surprising twists and turns to your life story. Green Gulch is definitely good coyote angel habitat!
From the Sandinistas to Suzuki Roshi! Love it, Chris! ;) And that sounds like another powerful “transmission”. I am so grateful for that very same book too. And beginner’s mind — thank you. A perfect reminder to start this week.
I came across this quote by Rilke 30+ years ago and it still grounds me:
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
August 2009, three weeks after my younger son, age 26, died of opioid addiction. I was less than shadow, had no words of my own to decipher grief. I began to read Joan Didion's "A Year of Magical Thinking" with tears running down my face, thinking "yes, this is what I'm feeling." I began to see how language can help name grief, along with joy, and that is when I began to write poetry.
Thank you for this generous share, Valerie. You've made me think of Ellen Bass' poem, "The Thing Is." I always find my way back to it in times of grief.
My first response was recognition; my next was, "what kind of question is that?" As in, of course I'm changed by words, every minute, every day--reading, thinking, talking, listening, writing. And with that thought, I saw myself in a swirl of words, swimming in all the words I love, have always loved since I learned to talk, learned to read--and learned to listen. For me it's all about connection, with others, and, first and foremost now that I'm a lot older and a little wiser, with myself. I've been taken to deep dark places by harsh words fired at me like a weapon. I've been taken to mysterious places by novels, poems, essays, conversations. And heart and soul have soared with the discovery of my own modest talent as a poet. Words to me are a kind of god, infinite, full of colors, sights, sounds, smells, contact-touch. They center, then take me to the deeper place, the silent center where there are no words. Paradoxically, this silent center is the source of all things, including the words I speak or write, and the words I am present for when I read or listen.
I was in first year at university, lonely, knowing almost no one, invited to a dinner party. As the meal was being served, the host, an eccentric English professor at the University, raised a glass, said a few words, closing with just one, “Enjoy!” For me, it was a moment. Something in his tone and inflection allowed that word to go straight to my heart. It was as if I didn’t actually know how to enjoy, how to enjoy anything, and he was telling me it was possible, that it was something I had lost in life, had forgotten. That was over 40 years ago. It was so simple, and yet so profound, the difference since then.
Isn't it wondrous how simple, even seemingly unpoetic words can have a poetic impact on our Iives ? His simple "enjoy" became a powerful blessing for you. What a gift
I found Poetry Unbound at a rough time in my life. It was like a lifeboat with every episode. Poetry takes us out of ourselves and brings us into the world of others. Empathy is the greatest comfort.
I am in words and changed by words every day! I am finding it hard to narrow down which words to share.
So the beautiful words of messages in a bottle prompt me to think of my mother in law, who recently died after living many years in dementia. She could no longer share utterances that no one else could comprehend. Speaking to her was like throwing words in an empty bottle and hoping at least some of the feelings reached her. We will not know, but must hope that the words did reach her.
I have a folder on my computer desktop that contains two poems, Osip Mandelstam's "And I Was Alive" and your poèm Padraig, "The Facts of Life." I try to listen to them every morning. Mandelstam's poem reminds me to see the Beauty that exists even in fhe face of the ugliness and turmoil that often surround us and your poem i think of as a blueprint for living: Loving!
It was March 11, 1998. I was in labor; the water had broken and I was 5 centimeters dilated and things were moving along nicely. But then the labor stopped. Nothing changed for several hours. The doctor came in and said if things didn't start moving soon they would have to use some interventions to get the baby out. I was beside myself with dismay and anger, not wanting that. The doctor left. The nurse said, with remarkable gentleness, "is something blocking you?" I said, "well, my mother died." She said, "when did your mother die?" I said, "last week." (In fact, by the calendar, it had been 17 days but in my universe that was the same as "last week.") She said, "oh you poor dear." The inquiry: "is something blocking you?" and "oh you poor dear" were words of perceptivity, and power. This unleashed the weeping I had not yet done, not a single tear up to that minute. The baby came out, whole and beautiful, on a hurricane of sobs not long after. I hold in sacred memory that nurse, whose name I do not remember, and the power that her words-- borne by love-- had to free me to give voice to the grief that had been locked inside my body.
Sounds like perhaps your Mom reached backed through that nurse to help you bring your beautiful baby into our world. Thank you for sharing this sacred memory.
I never thought of it this way. But the idea has stuck with me for three days now - thank you.
What a moving story, Wendy! And a powerful testament to the mind/body connection❤️.
The way my body responded to this loss was searingly instructive to me on this very topic.
Oh my! So much going on in your life at that time! My mother was also gone before I had my baby. I am so glad those words helped you.
That is so beautiful, Wendy. What a gift that nurse was!
So beautiful, Wendy. 🙏🏾
What an incredible story. Thank you!
Thank you for sharing this.
I was going to respond with a contribution I thought was so great I had to share it with all of you. Until I read your story Wendy. And nothing more needed to be written.
Simply, beautiful. And thank you.
Kert, thank you so much for this. I am moved.
I have been changed by the words of others, for better and worse, but one positive one that comes to mind is when, after years of dealing with the secret of my mother’s alcoholism and being finely attuned to my father’s suffering about this, I called, after discussion with my father, the Alcoholics Anonymous hotline, looking for help. “How old are you?” asked the operator. “Twelve,” I replied. After a long pause, she said these works before ending the conversation that I didn’t believe then but started me thinking, “This is not your problem.”
This makes me so grateful for that operator.
Wow. I can just imagine the impact of those words.
Oh gosh. That is powerful, Mona. I’m not surprised she stayed in your memory! What a wonderful soul.
Every question you ask, Pádraig, seizes me as if i were a fish hooked from the sea. Alas, the first thing that leaps to mind with today's casting is way too many examples of words spoken to me in anger, contempt, paternalist exasperation. And, sadly, they hit me when i was too young or too weak or too naive to bat them aside and they got in me (and sometimes still do) and I changed in unfortunate ways as a result. I've learned better but am still vulnerable. And even now, as i revisit my experience I have to work hard to resist the memory of those many wounds and remember those words that have helped heal my soul or at least soothe it. So... Having just moved to Toronto some time ago, my best friend from Montreal was visiting and, coincidentally, one of our favourite authors was doing a book launch. Eduardo Galeano had just published in English one of his remarkable collections of wee tales, The Book of Embraces. We attended and afterwards, while i usually shy away from the ritual of signing, we lined up. While in line my friend confessed that Galeano was actually friends with her parents with whom he had been neighbours while in exile. He knew the whole family but my friend was the one member he'd not met. When we got to the signing table and introduced ourselves, he was delighted to meet my friend and insisted we join him for drinks afterwards. I was gobsmacked, star-struck, giddy, an utter fan-boy. I tried to act mature but can't be sure I was successful. He was charming, holding court with us like a true professional, kind, funny, charismatic, self-effacing at times. We spoke of writing and his writing and I forget most of what he shared. But i eventually dared a question that had been on my mind for years: "How do you find so many magical things to write about?" This is only slightly less nerdy than asking an author "where do you get your ideas?" Shoot me now, I thought, as i heard myself uttering my question. If you know his work, then you know that he was a master of the short tale, almost all of which are based on historical research or his own experience. He reveals truth and truths like a magician. He looked at me kindly, penetratingly, "ah, you must understand that two or three magical things happen to me every day." And, as if he had just cast a spell, those words entered me and wrapped themselves around my heart and i knew that what he said was true for me as well, and for all of us. His point, i knew, was that he chose to notice. That was over 30 years ago and I have lived every day since with those words as a guide and reminder to notice that magic that is all around us and I have practiced noticing it every day since.
Chris! What a gorgeous and moving reflection. Your story carried me from the pain of how language can hurt, can harm, especially when we are young and more vulnerable, how it can cut so deep that scars remain for decades ... to a place of joy and magic, to the Book of Embraces!!!! G A L E A N O ! I delighted in hearing your starstruck, giddy, fanboy response to having drinks with Galeano. In giddy kinship with you I will share that I love to tell people (and it is true) that “Eduardo Galeano kissed me.” Ok, it is true that he kissed nearly everyone at that book signing, it was his way,... but still! A couple of years after that, kiss ;), as part of my first job out of college at a small publishing house, Monthly Review, I was assigned to “copy edit” or “line edit” or whatever the name was for what I was tasked to do for an anniversary edition / reprinting of Galeano’s Open Veins. Can you imagine my delight?? Lastly.... that Book of Embraces, I’ve kept it all these years, with perhaps the most homemade “post-it” notes of any book I own, that were placed not only by me but by other, beloveds with whom I shared a home (7 people, a 2-bedroom apt) one summer, and many a night reading pages of that very book to each other... You’ve sent me back to this whole other time in my life, Chris! But back to your story - the magic. The noticing. The fact you took in what he said, let the poetry of those words, the spell, work on you, in you, over all these years. How beautiful. Thank you for sharing. 🙏🏾
What an amazing coincidence. And, indeed, i'm envious. To have worked on his work and Open Veins, at that. I do not exaggerate when I say that reading that book changed the course of my life. It lead me to work with the Sandinistas in the Nicaraguan Revolution and pretty much opened the door of the world of popular education to me. Indeed, magical.
Wow. That is so moving; truly magical, Chris! What words can do when they touch, and pierce, and penetrate the heart.... and I imagine it’s that they connected with, resonate with, words that were perhaps unwritten, unformed, but in some way, already there within you. That’s a bit of my magical thinking I suppose!
Thank you for sharing this lovely reminder that magic is all around us--if we take the time to notice!
I love this so much! I’m on my way to find some of Galeano’s work now! ♥️
What a wonderful response!
I went into recovery at 19 - and someone in the rooms said, “You never have to be alone again.” That’s held me for almost three decades of sobriety/abstinence.
I was born and raised in an impoverished farming community. My elementary school consisted of five rooms for eight grades. We had no kindergarten or junior high school. There were 12 students in my 'graduating' eighth-grade class. How was it possible that I leapt into a life of healthcare systems and a university?
A high-school English teacher quite improbably saw potential and challenged a mediocre assignment with the phrase, "You are capable of so much more than that." That observation and a few discussions with her over lunch helped me believe that a different personal trajectory might be possible.
However, it wasn't until I started to listen to On Being that I began to believe that it was possible to craft a different type of a civilization (rather than my own individual life) through words. We had neither poetry nor any culture of literature on the farm. The dialogue of many guests began to coalesce into a potentiality of hope - a short of conceptual structure or space where we might imagine together a new civil life - indeed a collaborative life at all - lived in more equitable community with each other and with our planet. Stories shift hearts. We need good stories if we are to have a good future.
I think you are right on with your statement “stories shift hearts”. I think stories enable people to really hear what another person says. A story brings us in to another’s life. I think it has the potential to reach another ‘s heart and soul making change and growth possible.
Stories shift hearts. So true. On Being also teaches me. 😊
A dear friend once said to me, “whatever it is that you are going through, whatever you are feeling and whatever it costs, that is the price of your freedom”. I am still absorbing the impact of those words and trying to live up to their promise. I wish all here the peace and freedom you seek.
Thanks Patrick, that is a deep thought. May I quote you and pass it on to my grandkids?
Yes, please pass it along.
When I experienced exclusion from the community that had been home and was taught the words of Mary Oliver's Wild Geese and Journey and someone sang the song " How can anyone every tell you, you are anything less than beautiful, how can anyone ever tell you, you are less than whole..." Those poems and this song are a very part of my soul.
I love this poem too- the reminder that we belong in the family of things
Thank you for reminding me. I’d forgotten about the song ❤️
Oh, Gloria, those two poems and that song have found and healed me over and over. Thank you for bringing them back into my awareness today.
I love so much your sharing and these prompts, as you bring me into a reflective space, a search inside... and so many, many, many instances come to mind. A beautiful journey through memories.... Including one that was difficult, that involved my language and another’s language, and it changed me. I was treating a patient (with acupuncture) who was undergoing chemotherapy for advanced ovarian cancer. She was resting on the treatment table and I was at her feet, needling some point, and casually telling her about the focus of the treatment, and I said quite casually, “because chemo strips away the stomach yin, it really damages it, it....” I don’t even recall what I said next, because what I noticed next was a whimpering, and then I looked towards the face of my patient and saw her crying, and then she erupted with those words: “HOW DARE TALK TO ME LIKE THAT!” I was shocked out of my “I’m a chill acupuncturist doing my thing supporting people in their healing journeys mode”. For a moment I thought the treatment may have induced a “Shen disturbance” (spirit disturbance) in the patient, and her words were nonsensical. Oh. But she continued. “Watch your language!” Though what followed were words that changed me, I cannot recall them verbatim, but she took me to task for using the harsh language of “chemo stripping the stomach yin” and being “damaging” and schooled me on the importance of my language. I initially felt walls of defenses come up “she doesn’t know me! I’m not that person. I would never...” and then flushes of shame as i realized “but Mona. you did.” And eventually getting to “this doesn’t mean you’re a bad person or a bad practitioner or an anything. But it is an invitation to change.” Ultimately, her words, strong as they were, allowed me to reflect - in a more precise way than I had previously - on how I describe to patients my findings and what it is we are doing in the treatment. In this case it could be as simple as describing it as something like “We are nourishing your yin, and supporting your body’s resources to best process the chemotherapy.” Part of the irony was that she, my patient, was a conventional medical doctor, and part of my bias (and rant) had been that MDs can be so thoughtless and careless in how they use language, harming people by how they speak, leaving patients feeling worse simply because of the language they used and how they spoke! And here I was, the acupuncturist, the Chinese medicine holistic practitioner, being “hit over the head” as if by a Zen master’s stick to say, “wake up!” by a conventional MD.
Though I often believe “I really do not respond well to being spoken to in a sharp tone. I just shut down.” In this instance, the words, and tone, and of course context in which this note in the glass bottle was sent forth, actually reached my heart-mind, and changed me.
~
Pádraig, thank you so much for all your words. I especially am thankful for your reflection on not getting caught up in ideas about your ignorance of what a poem might mean and instead just letting the feeling of it work on you.
oh my. This hits mighty close to home. I have been 'hit', several times, with that very thought of "but [chris]. you did". I think each time it happened (and will no doubt happen again) i learned (after making necessary apologies) but it's hard to know for sure. Such moments have always necessitated me doing some deep digging into my self - sometimes returning to the same dig-sites only to learn that there was deeper to go. Most of my work has to do with confronting unjust uses of power and that has often entailed being in the line of fire (sometimes literally) and in such moments there is often little time for thoughtful contemplation and consideration of one's actions. So mistakes are common enough and sometimes rather loaded. Apropos of your reference to "Zen master's stick" i've learned from aikido (at which i suck) how to take such blows and absorb the energy (or ki, i suppose) while staying balanced - such that the energy can fuel the necessary learning. Perhaps not the smoothest metaphor.
Apropos of Pádraig's question about language, this makes me think of one of the most powerful type of speech act i've learned of recently: parrhesia, a greek word meaning "fearless speech" and which can be roughly compared to the quaker notion of "speaking truth to power." It is a speech act of speaking a "truth" that could harm the person to whom it is directed but which could bring harm upon the speaker. Perhaps a more fulsome translation would be "fearless speech about a dangerous truth." It is usually the case that the truth is spoken by someone with less power to someone with more. If you've seen Alfonso Cuarón's version of The Little Princess, there is a beautiful illustration of this act when Sarah Crewe, our storytelling hero, confront's the cruel headmistress. It is a beautiful moment of fearless speech and dangerous truth. Your story makes me realize how important it is when one is on the receiving end of such dangerous truth to be able to listen and learn. Thank-you for sharing this story which, i'm guessing, is hardly an easy one to share.
Thank you, Chris! Being on the “front lines” as you describe indeed requires one to act and speak without the benefit of time to reflect and refine. So, mistakes happen! What is a life without mistakes, right? Said as if it were easy for me to accept - but, not quite so! A process... I like your aikido metaphor. For me I have to watch getting too identified with any of it. With the “successes” or the “failures,” with the “praise” or the “blame” as it spoken about in Buddhism.
I love this word parrhesia - a new one for me - thank you. I think I love Sarah Crewe already, though I haven’t yet read or seen this story, but I’m going to look into!
Lastly, life is funny. In November, I saw a play by Suzan-Lori Parks composed of multiple playettes, each written in a single day during the pandemic. During this time, my mom and then dad had medical emergencies and I spent weeks in the hospital, rehab center, and at doctors apptmts. And I was HORRIFIED and decided one day I’d write a play, composed of playettes, of these unbelievable (not in a good way) encounters with medical professionals. This morning having this prompt from Pádraig remind me of this encounter, I think if I ever do write this play (we shall see!!!), I’ll need to add in one playette where I am the “guilty” one. Maybe that is the “turn” in a sonnet that I’ve heard Pádraig talk about. So it’s not just the predictable - yeah yeah, we know that the system is broken.... but also, look here mlle self-righteous holier-than-thou, mirror mirror on the wall, what do you see? (hopefully not a solid self, not “good” not “bad”). This exchange is reminding me of the words by Khenpo Tsuktrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, “Making mistake after mistake, I walk the unmistaken path / Forgetting again and again
I rely on unforgetting mindfullness / Experiencing confusion after confusion, I seek out the unconfused true nature.”
I have added Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche's words to my commonplace book. I'm a big fan of such thinking and have encountered this kind of trickster wisdom in many different stories and cultural contexts. I will ponder these words. Perhaps even meditate upon them though i'm a terrible meditator (simply too lazy, i think). This also reminds me of Shunryu Suzuki's famous words: "In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few" which was another candidate for response to Pádraig's question this week. In the 90s I visited the San Francisco Zen Center's Green Gulch Farm a few times and on one visit i picked up Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind and read it cover to cover. It was a rare experience of reading in which i felt as if he were actually talking to me. The locale certainly helped evoke his presence. It was rather eerie and unforgettable. And guides me still.
I love your reference to "trickster wisdom", chris. It reminds me of the "coyote angels" in John Nichols' Milangro Beanfield War. As I now understand them, coyote angels show up to help you but not in any ways that you could anticipate — or even imagine. They provide the surprising twists and turns to your life story. Green Gulch is definitely good coyote angel habitat!
From the Sandinistas to Suzuki Roshi! Love it, Chris! ;) And that sounds like another powerful “transmission”. I am so grateful for that very same book too. And beginner’s mind — thank you. A perfect reminder to start this week.
and in keeping up my reputation, more typos! Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche is the teacher’s name.
I love this idea- thank you
How great that you were able to take in what this person said to you, reflect, and then own your words and change your practice.
Thank you, Elaine! 🙏🏾
What a magnificent reflection
🙏🏾 thank you Amy.
I came across this quote by Rilke 30+ years ago and it still grounds me:
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
Rainer Maria Rilke
These words have long comforted me too
August 2009, three weeks after my younger son, age 26, died of opioid addiction. I was less than shadow, had no words of my own to decipher grief. I began to read Joan Didion's "A Year of Magical Thinking" with tears running down my face, thinking "yes, this is what I'm feeling." I began to see how language can help name grief, along with joy, and that is when I began to write poetry.
Thank you for this generous share, Valerie. You've made me think of Ellen Bass' poem, "The Thing Is." I always find my way back to it in times of grief.
My first response was recognition; my next was, "what kind of question is that?" As in, of course I'm changed by words, every minute, every day--reading, thinking, talking, listening, writing. And with that thought, I saw myself in a swirl of words, swimming in all the words I love, have always loved since I learned to talk, learned to read--and learned to listen. For me it's all about connection, with others, and, first and foremost now that I'm a lot older and a little wiser, with myself. I've been taken to deep dark places by harsh words fired at me like a weapon. I've been taken to mysterious places by novels, poems, essays, conversations. And heart and soul have soared with the discovery of my own modest talent as a poet. Words to me are a kind of god, infinite, full of colors, sights, sounds, smells, contact-touch. They center, then take me to the deeper place, the silent center where there are no words. Paradoxically, this silent center is the source of all things, including the words I speak or write, and the words I am present for when I read or listen.
Beautiful! I am still trying to narrow down what to write about here: which words? Every day words!
Yup. Took me decades and decades to learn that the best words come when I offer myself--or take!--plenty of silence. And time in nature.
I was in first year at university, lonely, knowing almost no one, invited to a dinner party. As the meal was being served, the host, an eccentric English professor at the University, raised a glass, said a few words, closing with just one, “Enjoy!” For me, it was a moment. Something in his tone and inflection allowed that word to go straight to my heart. It was as if I didn’t actually know how to enjoy, how to enjoy anything, and he was telling me it was possible, that it was something I had lost in life, had forgotten. That was over 40 years ago. It was so simple, and yet so profound, the difference since then.
Isn't it wondrous how simple, even seemingly unpoetic words can have a poetic impact on our Iives ? His simple "enjoy" became a powerful blessing for you. What a gift
Yes, thank you, Amy.
I found Poetry Unbound at a rough time in my life. It was like a lifeboat with every episode. Poetry takes us out of ourselves and brings us into the world of others. Empathy is the greatest comfort.
I am in words and changed by words every day! I am finding it hard to narrow down which words to share.
So the beautiful words of messages in a bottle prompt me to think of my mother in law, who recently died after living many years in dementia. She could no longer share utterances that no one else could comprehend. Speaking to her was like throwing words in an empty bottle and hoping at least some of the feelings reached her. We will not know, but must hope that the words did reach her.
'there is nothing wrong with you' words by Cheri Huber
I have a folder on my computer desktop that contains two poems, Osip Mandelstam's "And I Was Alive" and your poèm Padraig, "The Facts of Life." I try to listen to them every morning. Mandelstam's poem reminds me to see the Beauty that exists even in fhe face of the ugliness and turmoil that often surround us and your poem i think of as a blueprint for living: Loving!
"The Facts of Life" is one of favorites, I found it during the deep part of the Pandemic, when all things were breaking apart.
I had to do a little searching to find the “Facts of Life” and I am glad i did. Thank you.