“…the slightest shift disturbs the secret position of our
emotions and yet it transforms our lives forever.” – muriel barbery, the life of elves
i have missed this blog. i have missed the magic of words
conjuring dreams, fascinations, metamorphoses, tears, grief, solace,
inspiration, life, beauty, wonderment, exile, tranquility, reverberations.
i have missed writing.
what have i been doing all this time?
it is true that muses alight on shoulders. it is utterly and
unequivocally true. muriel barbery reminded me of this
long-forgotten truth. the woman is a word-magician. her themes, universal. her
themes are mine and yours; they’re the collective stone paths through the
thicket, out into the clearing. her clearings, much like mine, are swaths of
golden grain strewn with red poppies, bending to the symphony of wind,
bracketed by cool, sumptuous forest.
mayhaps – thanks, brian jacques – i’ve been meandering in
the forest and thickets. not lost, just meandering; rejuvenating on beds of
moss, ferns, and dew. the potions and incantations must have worked. i am
walking into the clearing once more. this dance of life, this path of stones leading
to poppies, secrets cobbled in tempered silence, murmurs of truths
almost-forgotten. i have remembered it all, i reclaim it all.
while reclined on mosses, fed by dew and roots and earth, i
have brought to the surface forgotten knowledge.
we are whole. every single one of us. whatever our
diminutions, whatever our circumstance, or fate, or blueprint. we need not seek
elsewhere other than within. illness is a gift. health, equally so, though more
audacious. or, more soporific of the two. surely when we are full of health, we
are also blissfully unaware of its transience and its polar coexistence with
illness.
truth: we are all whole, no matter the present
circumstances.
truth: the cacophony of life as we know it steadily distances us from our Truths.
truth: wholeness resides in blood, guts, heart, brain, mind,
eye, toes, lips, ligaments, nerve fibers, interstitial fluid. the all of each
one of us is encoded with wholeness and health.
i have been thinking and espousing the three pillars of
mental health. sleep, food, exercise. but so much more than that. a fourth
pillar is added. relaxation. i’ve worn my facial muscles into permanent
expressions iterating these facts. sleep, food, exercise, relaxation. breathe. repeat.
there are no secrets. all is open and free. search for your Truths and for our
Truths. and remember wholeness.
and walk that well-known path pulling you into the clearing.
what do you see?
the song, the poem, the connecting line…
while on hiatus from this blog, i have lived much and
richly. i have learned painful lessons. i have slumbered and awoken to bounteous gratitude. i have been fed and i have fed. i have writhed with anguish and
exploded with cathartic joy. for myself, for my son, for my clients-fellow-journeymen,
for faceless humans the world over, mostly encountered in the in-between pages
of stories. i have been fed
by writers, artists, courageous actors who wrote or painted or acted their
story or their life so as to speak to my experience of being human.
i have worked at healing, surely. what has been healing me these many moons have been the
poet-artists – whom I’ve never met in real life; or, some of whom i have met,
whether in my practice or in elevators, or in airport waiting lounges, or on
stone steps outside of museums – who touched my shoulder ever so slightly, whispering,
“look. just, look and be. it is well. and it is whole. and, so, it is
beautiful. all is to be accepted and taken in. it is your endowment and your
legacy and your library. bind it all in leather, gilt the edges, and shelve it
where you can see and touch it.”
while on hiatus from this blog, i have spoken with courage
and hope and blunders and fear. i have met perpetual hope. these have led me
back to the original source. all we do is in the service of love. all we do, we
do to reach and connect. that is all that matters. perhaps one more thing
matters; but which comes first? vulnerability. the remembrance of safety in
vulnerability. this is the apogee of love – I love (and seek shelter) when i am
vulnerable and i am loved because i (trust and) am vulnerable.
while on hiatus from this blog, i have been nurtured by, among scores of others, kelly brogan, george vaillant, gordon neufeld, gabor mate, muriel barbery,
neil stephenson, andrew wyeth, tango and flamenco, georgia o’keeffe, earth and ceremony, the emdr community, michael gervais, my alma mater, human
potential and vulnerability, the seattle thunderbirds and the hockey community,
old recipes, nourishing traditions, memories of ancestors.
being human – so so much, this invective, this Truth.
