I dwell in Possibility

When I first started this blog many years ago, it was going to be a place where I reflected on how writing and reading could be vehicles for a deeper spirituality and a deeper commitment to social change. I wanted to explore how (and whether) writing and reading could deepen one's sense of self, one's sense of wholeness and connection to all beings in the world. I wanted to delve into how (and whether) there was any connection between texts (read or written with great care and openness), spirituality, and a commitment to making the world a better place.

These questions no longer plague me. I know for sure that for me (and many others), there IS a connection between the written word and one's spirituality, which now, for me, means a deep sense of connectedness not just to all beings in the world but to all that is--far beyond small, minor planet to the universe's wide expanse. I also know for sure that one cannot feel that connection without wanting to be deeply present with it, and that being deeply present with it will always lead to a desire to take action. There is no real distinction between contemplation and action, between reading, writing, and acting, except that they are different phases of the same cyclical path that is deeply rooted in the first flaring forth that brought our universe (and eventually, much, much later, us) into being.

But to enter that cyclical path is to be wounded again and again. If we read and write attentively, words will bring us to the deepest places of grief and surrender. If we commit to acting in ways that will save rather than destroy the universe, we open ourselves to the deepest pain of our fellow travelers. We get hurt and rejected, and we experience loss. 

We cannot choose whether we'll be wounded if we are on the path--only how we will carry our wounds. Will we hide them, grow angry, begin to act out of rage instead of love, shoving the puss, mess, brokenness in everybody's face? Will we pretend to be OK, wear thicker and longer clothes, refuse to bare ourselves to another's gaze? Will we just jump off altogether, decide to live a life as separate from that deep connectedness and deep obligation to work toward healing as is possible? 

I have used all of these strategies, and continue to use them. I can look back and see when and where I acted in each of those ways, and I can feel shame, and let myself stay there, and then eventually realize I am laughing at myself. I am noticing earlier now when I use these strategies, though not always right away (working on that). I know now how to go back and ask forgiveness. 

I am learning how to stay present each time I want to resort to rage, to closing off/closing down, to abandoning the path altogether. I am learning to get curious about what is happening. I am learning, slowly, to be present with each wound, hold it lovingly. I am coming to recognize who can and cannot gaze at it at any given moment, and to carry that knowing without resentment. I am coming to know that if I share it with someone who can't be present with it alongside me, I can be OK.

I am learning to act out of love even as I carry my wounds. 

I am learning to hold the wounds of the world with deep compassion without confusing them with my own. 

I am learning to be gentle with myself, to do the best I can do each day. This doesn't mean holding myself to lower standards, but knowing two things: 1) that the high standards I set for myself in terms of living out my commitment to social change must take time and 2) the recognition that I can't do it all is not only about deep humility, but also about deep trust in my fellow-travelers, who are also on the path and also working out of love for change. There is still an urgency--don't get me wrong. But there's also a deep understanding that hurrying too much can do more damage than good.

In this process of slowing down, growing more gentle with myself, and seeing the path more clearly, I am slowly returning to my old love of poetry--the sounds and words arranged carefully on a page that first called me to this path. 

This month I focused on memorizing just one poem, an old favorite I had not read in years. Knowing what I know now--so much more than what I knew when I first met this poem at the age of 13, soon after my mother's death--helps me to hold these words as both familiar and strange. I hope I always will.

I dwell in Possibility--

A fairer House than Prose--

More numerous of Windows--
Superior for Doors--
The spreading of my Narrow Hands--
To gather Paradise--

I have a card on my altar/desk that says "I dwell in Possibility," but I couldn't remember the rest of the poem when I purchased the card. When I finally committed to looking it up in one of my many Emily Dickinson editions, this first stanza took my breath away. What would it be like to live in this place that Dickinson describes, a place where anyone can see in and out, where anyone can enter or leave without barriers? If only I could hold life and love that lightly and that seriously. If only I could refashion my idea of home.

Of Chambers as the Cedars--

Impregnable of eye--

And then we move close to the tiny needles of the cedar that so grow close together the spaces between are hard to see. It is interesting that eye is not capitalized; our eye is so small in relation to what it sees, to what it can know. And then: 

And for an Everlasting Roof--

The Gambrels of the Sky-- 

That leap from the small detail an eye cannot see to the open-roofed sky that we can take in only partially because of its wide expanse is a common poetic trick. But of the English language poets of her time, I think Dickinson did it first and best. The leap in language and image--the house becoming chambers as intimate as cedar tree and the roof as broad as the sky--moves us to know small detail and large expanse as equally awe-inspiring.

Of Visitors--the fairest--

In this house, every living thing is a visitor. They can see in. We can see out. There are doors between, used without any holding back.

Of Occupation--This--

And in the end, it is our own small hands that gather paradise, our own openness to All That Is. Our own hands invite the Holy. God, Holy One, Ground of All Being--whatever our name for the energy that both holds the universe together and ensures it keeps expanding--into our present moment, to live in our house.

This summer I am working the newly broken ground of our garden, which we expanded this year to twice its previous size, as well as the well established first small plot. I am outside as much as I can be, sleeping outside on the ground whenever possible. This is a summer of rooting myself to this place, re-making home after the losses and difficulties of the last two years. It is a summer of re-rooting relationships. It is a summer of memorizing poetry, sitting still with my hands open, and staying on the path.