Kinship compels my days and my being, I think of kinship as equality consciousness for all species, all animate nature. I am compelled to further my understanding of ecosystems and translate that for readers. I am compelled by the active, muscular hope that we will treat each other well if we understand our reciprocal relationships, the agency shared between humans, land, rivers, bird, insects, animals and every being.🌱
As I near 60, I am compelled by the thought that I have not experienced the world the way I thought I would as a young woman. I am compelled to seek out new experiences - from the depths of my unconscious to the crashing waves on a distant seashore. I am compelled to take extraordinary measures to make sure I truly experience what life has to offer before I die.
I am compelled by the desire to help people, especially children, be able to access enough healthful food every day. Without nourishing food, our ability to fulfill our human potential, to learn, to grow, to be healthy, to make art, flourish and be in good relationships with others cannot be reached. I have been compelled so far as to be moving far from my longtime home to do this work in large scale food programs and policies.
Blessed to have my parents alive and fairly independent, I am moved (and frustrated ) by their efforts to stay independent as they need more safety. Awake to the passing of time, I am compelled to simplify, organize, and get in place the structure for my safe place before I forget, so that my serenity is secure and my needs do not distract from the serenity of others. From that simplified, safe place, I hope to continue learning and teaching, volunteering and working, breathing in and breathing out to help others find serenity, too, if they want it. The word compel has such strong forward motion that is not impulsive or whimsical but purpose driven. I appreciate this prompt because articulating my response in writing reinforces what I have been saying out loud lately, too. Thanks Padraig: your teaching, traveling, reading aloud, and writing -- your breathing in and breathing out touch many hearts and minds. So many of us are grateful for your forward motion and trust that you also rest and care for yourself. With deep affection, Emily
So many things compel that sometimes it's all i feel. Born into powerful silences i grew up compelled to learn stories and eventually tell stories. Which lead me to feeling compelled to help create, with and for other people, the conditions for storytelling which is about making meaning together which is about compassion and wonder and making a better world.
I spent years compelled to serve children and youth as an activist fighting for proper resources in our public education system. I then had to find a paying job so worked in the mental health field and was elected as a school board trustee (two full time jobs). It was fierce work and I was driven to help but I was wounded by those that saw it as “politics” and did not prioritize what I saw as holy work. In the end, the passion was worthy but it wounded me terribly. I feel a bit lost but the passion to help them still exists deep within me. What happens when the wounds leave you lost?
As I end a year of uncertainty living with the reality of my husbands distressing diagnosis of a brain cancer that will very likely claim his life, I am compelled to be in the present with him , to love him, and to cherish the memories we made over the past 50 years and the present day by day moments we are blessed to share.
“Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing
..the kindness that ties your shoes…”
Tying shoes (the old kind with laces) was a challenge for my 8 year old daughter with cerebral palsy. She was a determined child and going to do it herself. But it wasn’t until she, I, and a fellow graduate from social work school set out on a camping trip to Maine to celebrate graduation that she learned one evening around our campfire with the extraordinary patience and kindness from this new friend.
That memory of an act of simple kindness, that kindness that helped her tie her shoes, remains with me today.
For me, kindness is the most compelling truth in life as evidenced not only by poets and the religious/spiritual (Dalai Lama) but scientists (Einstein), historians and psychoanalysts (Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor) defining kindness as “the ability to bear the vulnerability of others, and therefore of oneself.”
Looking forward to reading your deep sharings of what compels you into this world’s riches of both kindness and sorrow.
I am compelled by my desire to understand the universe. No! That is a lie! I am compelled by my desire to control the universe, knowledge being power and all. So far, I have failed miserably at either understanding or control, but still the journey is enlightening. And, thankfully, poetry helps keep me honest with myself during this journey. As I often say, “Onward out of the fog my friends.” Peace. 🙏
An ecstatic, head-over-heels curiosity and love for nature compels me. It has served me well, yes, and shown me so many reasons to continue falling in love with the natural world, and has protected me from loneliness. I know this because I’m still breathing, my heart is still pushing blood where blood needs to go to sustain life. I’m still wondering and wandering, still finding little, living treasures in likely and unlikely places.
I love this question, Padraig! And I'm grateful you've shared the story of Patrick. Despite my decades of green-clad debauchery, I knew nothing of the man himself. Thank you.
When I finished school in Memphis, TN (oh, hallo!), I proclaimed that I would only apply for jobs in coastal towns. My childhood summers in a remote and sagging cabin on Georgia's intracoastal waterways helped me realize I felt most whole on the edges of continents. Landlocked life was suffocating and the decision felt non-negotiable.
While I was a stranger in my new coastal town, it still felt like a homecoming. I'm camping by a Florida spring as I write this, and a manatee just huffed out its air as it swam past. Pretty dreamy stuff! So dreamy, in fact, that I felt compelled to share;)...
I was compelled to run away from an earlier life, now I am compelled to turn back into my blurred history, and see what was not seen, because I was running away so fast.
What has compelled me throughout 5 decades is the desire to create. I've found many outlets for this desire, including poetry, pottery, photography, sculpture, printmaking, and cooking (to name a few). If I don't create something every day, I feel restless, depressed at worst. Sometimes I've set creative standards so high that I can't even begin to make something, but expanding my definition of what it means to create by including crafts like baking and arranging the furniture helps a lot (I'm so happy to hear in the current OnBeing podcast that Rick Rubin does this, too!).
I know that living a creative life has served me well because it's what brings me joy, and brings joy to others when I gift the things I've made to others, and their joy brings me more joy in turn. This is where I thrive.
Thanks for asking, Pádraig. Thanks, too, for telling us of St. Patrick's inner life.... and thanks, especially, for sharing that gorgeous image [Graveyard: Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare]. Is that a wee cow in the upper left corner, or just my imagination running wild?!?
Light compels me. My search for it, the way it interacts with other subjects...as a photographic artist, light is the thing that makes the photo possible. As a chaplain, I look for the light that makes life possible, however we choose to identify the light within and around us.
Working with light for many years now has only increased my desire to seek, find, and share it. It always feeds me.
I awoke to these words, this morning, at 3:33am here in Seattle, and scribed them immediately.
“Remember, man is not an island. And an island is never alone. It’s merely a peeking, gasping expression from the submerged parts that connect us all.”
And as I think about what compels me, what drives and thrusts me upward, like an island 🏝️ gasping for air, it is but for for that expression and inspiration that connects us all.
Patrick felt called back by the bones of the Burren held together by tendons of mycelium made of anguish and unresolved earthly grief. So too am I called back in the shelter, to find a home in the world, by another modern day mystic, who some may even call Patrick. ☘️❤️🩹🇮🇪
Kinship compels my days and my being, I think of kinship as equality consciousness for all species, all animate nature. I am compelled to further my understanding of ecosystems and translate that for readers. I am compelled by the active, muscular hope that we will treat each other well if we understand our reciprocal relationships, the agency shared between humans, land, rivers, bird, insects, animals and every being.🌱
As I near 60, I am compelled by the thought that I have not experienced the world the way I thought I would as a young woman. I am compelled to seek out new experiences - from the depths of my unconscious to the crashing waves on a distant seashore. I am compelled to take extraordinary measures to make sure I truly experience what life has to offer before I die.
I am compelled by the desire to help people, especially children, be able to access enough healthful food every day. Without nourishing food, our ability to fulfill our human potential, to learn, to grow, to be healthy, to make art, flourish and be in good relationships with others cannot be reached. I have been compelled so far as to be moving far from my longtime home to do this work in large scale food programs and policies.
Blessed to have my parents alive and fairly independent, I am moved (and frustrated ) by their efforts to stay independent as they need more safety. Awake to the passing of time, I am compelled to simplify, organize, and get in place the structure for my safe place before I forget, so that my serenity is secure and my needs do not distract from the serenity of others. From that simplified, safe place, I hope to continue learning and teaching, volunteering and working, breathing in and breathing out to help others find serenity, too, if they want it. The word compel has such strong forward motion that is not impulsive or whimsical but purpose driven. I appreciate this prompt because articulating my response in writing reinforces what I have been saying out loud lately, too. Thanks Padraig: your teaching, traveling, reading aloud, and writing -- your breathing in and breathing out touch many hearts and minds. So many of us are grateful for your forward motion and trust that you also rest and care for yourself. With deep affection, Emily
So many things compel that sometimes it's all i feel. Born into powerful silences i grew up compelled to learn stories and eventually tell stories. Which lead me to feeling compelled to help create, with and for other people, the conditions for storytelling which is about making meaning together which is about compassion and wonder and making a better world.
I spent years compelled to serve children and youth as an activist fighting for proper resources in our public education system. I then had to find a paying job so worked in the mental health field and was elected as a school board trustee (two full time jobs). It was fierce work and I was driven to help but I was wounded by those that saw it as “politics” and did not prioritize what I saw as holy work. In the end, the passion was worthy but it wounded me terribly. I feel a bit lost but the passion to help them still exists deep within me. What happens when the wounds leave you lost?
As I end a year of uncertainty living with the reality of my husbands distressing diagnosis of a brain cancer that will very likely claim his life, I am compelled to be in the present with him , to love him, and to cherish the memories we made over the past 50 years and the present day by day moments we are blessed to share.
“Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing
..the kindness that ties your shoes…”
Tying shoes (the old kind with laces) was a challenge for my 8 year old daughter with cerebral palsy. She was a determined child and going to do it herself. But it wasn’t until she, I, and a fellow graduate from social work school set out on a camping trip to Maine to celebrate graduation that she learned one evening around our campfire with the extraordinary patience and kindness from this new friend.
That memory of an act of simple kindness, that kindness that helped her tie her shoes, remains with me today.
For me, kindness is the most compelling truth in life as evidenced not only by poets and the religious/spiritual (Dalai Lama) but scientists (Einstein), historians and psychoanalysts (Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor) defining kindness as “the ability to bear the vulnerability of others, and therefore of oneself.”
Looking forward to reading your deep sharings of what compels you into this world’s riches of both kindness and sorrow.
I am compelled by my desire to understand the universe. No! That is a lie! I am compelled by my desire to control the universe, knowledge being power and all. So far, I have failed miserably at either understanding or control, but still the journey is enlightening. And, thankfully, poetry helps keep me honest with myself during this journey. As I often say, “Onward out of the fog my friends.” Peace. 🙏
An ecstatic, head-over-heels curiosity and love for nature compels me. It has served me well, yes, and shown me so many reasons to continue falling in love with the natural world, and has protected me from loneliness. I know this because I’m still breathing, my heart is still pushing blood where blood needs to go to sustain life. I’m still wondering and wandering, still finding little, living treasures in likely and unlikely places.
I have felt compelled for most of my life to try and leave the world a better place than the one I came into. Now, as an elder. I have more humility.
The lines from the poem will resonate with me for a while:
“There we were as if we were the music.
You cannot legislate music to lockstep nor can you legislate the spirit of the music to stop at political boundaries—“
At this stage in my life, I feel compelled to live in harmony with myself, my beloveds, and the Earth while trying to dance toward climate justice.
I love this question, Padraig! And I'm grateful you've shared the story of Patrick. Despite my decades of green-clad debauchery, I knew nothing of the man himself. Thank you.
When I finished school in Memphis, TN (oh, hallo!), I proclaimed that I would only apply for jobs in coastal towns. My childhood summers in a remote and sagging cabin on Georgia's intracoastal waterways helped me realize I felt most whole on the edges of continents. Landlocked life was suffocating and the decision felt non-negotiable.
While I was a stranger in my new coastal town, it still felt like a homecoming. I'm camping by a Florida spring as I write this, and a manatee just huffed out its air as it swam past. Pretty dreamy stuff! So dreamy, in fact, that I felt compelled to share;)...
I was compelled to run away from an earlier life, now I am compelled to turn back into my blurred history, and see what was not seen, because I was running away so fast.
What has compelled me throughout 5 decades is the desire to create. I've found many outlets for this desire, including poetry, pottery, photography, sculpture, printmaking, and cooking (to name a few). If I don't create something every day, I feel restless, depressed at worst. Sometimes I've set creative standards so high that I can't even begin to make something, but expanding my definition of what it means to create by including crafts like baking and arranging the furniture helps a lot (I'm so happy to hear in the current OnBeing podcast that Rick Rubin does this, too!).
I know that living a creative life has served me well because it's what brings me joy, and brings joy to others when I gift the things I've made to others, and their joy brings me more joy in turn. This is where I thrive.
Thanks for asking, Pádraig. Thanks, too, for telling us of St. Patrick's inner life.... and thanks, especially, for sharing that gorgeous image [Graveyard: Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare]. Is that a wee cow in the upper left corner, or just my imagination running wild?!?
Light compels me. My search for it, the way it interacts with other subjects...as a photographic artist, light is the thing that makes the photo possible. As a chaplain, I look for the light that makes life possible, however we choose to identify the light within and around us.
Working with light for many years now has only increased my desire to seek, find, and share it. It always feeds me.
I awoke to these words, this morning, at 3:33am here in Seattle, and scribed them immediately.
“Remember, man is not an island. And an island is never alone. It’s merely a peeking, gasping expression from the submerged parts that connect us all.”
And as I think about what compels me, what drives and thrusts me upward, like an island 🏝️ gasping for air, it is but for for that expression and inspiration that connects us all.
Patrick felt called back by the bones of the Burren held together by tendons of mycelium made of anguish and unresolved earthly grief. So too am I called back in the shelter, to find a home in the world, by another modern day mystic, who some may even call Patrick. ☘️❤️🩹🇮🇪