Out beyond the pain, what is your desire?
A Christmas morning meditation
There is a Rilke poem, translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows, that I have turned to so often I practically have it memorized, especially these lines:
Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
We each have our “quiet friend” who accompanies us through life. Inevitably, we encounter moments of darkness, which we can, through the meditation of our attention, turn to bells that send sonorous vibrations out into the night, liquid notes that rhythmically transform pain into strength and insight.
Each of us has the potential to turn whatever bitterness has crept into our lives into the sweet nectar of well-aged wine.
The second part of the poem speaks to our essential oneness with our Mother Gaia, which goes far beyond our more superficial connections with ordinary human society.
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.
This holy season can be a painful one, as expectations are disappointed, absences grieved and we realize how far we remain from the moral ideals laid out for us by the ancients.
I turn to another favorite poet, Rumi, to help me understand how to move deeper “into the change” I want to see in the world.
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened.
Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
The way to cope with our fear and distress, Rumi says, is not by listening to others, but by creating our own forms of beauty, by singing our own songs.
On this Christmas morning, though I can feel the suffering that blankets our planet like a dense fog, I choose to “kneel and kiss the ground” by celebrating the human potential to creatively transform pain to insight.
I choose to take myself to that field “out beyond ideas of right and wrong,” into the sweet soul matrix in which there is no separation between me and the fecund earth and nourishing waters of our Gaian home.
Both Rilke and Rumi invite us to listen to the “secrets” whispered to us by the more-than-human world.
“Don’t go back to sleep,” Rumi repeats. Stay awake to “the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,” the open threshold between the material and the spiritual worlds.
And remember, Rumi says somewhat sternly, “You must ask for what you really want.”
Listening to these brilliant poets, I will try to stay awake to the suffering while offering my heart as a bell that can transform bitterness to wine, through the alchemy of my heartfelt desire that peace, love and connection become the dominant forces on this planet.
On this Christmas morning and forever more, may it be so.
Come Write With Me Online!
1. The Things We Carry: Writing Transformational Travel Stories
Four Fridays in February starting Feb. 2, 9-10:30 am Eastern.
Hosted by Il Chiostro, $120 for all four sessions.
Find out more and register here.
2. Exploring the Many Faces of Love
Four Mondays, February 5, 12, 26, & March 4, 6 - 8 pm Eastern.
Hosted by the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia; $169 for WFNS members, $234 for non-members (includes membership).
Find out more and register here.
3. Speak Your Truth! Leadership, Writing & Public Speaking for Social and Environmental Justice
Four Fridays in March starting March 1, 12-1:30 pm Eastern.
Hosted by Bioneers Learning; $349 includes discount pass to the Bioneers Conference!
Find out more and register here.
Come with me to Tuscany next spring!
I’ll be leading another fabulous Il Chiostro writing workshop May 25 - June 1, 2024 at the luxurious Borgo San Fedele, a meticulously restored monastery set in exquisite gardens amid a classic Tuscan landscape of olive groves and vineyards.
Our days will unfold in a perfect balance of guided writing and productive sharing; excursions guided by our Il Chiostro hosts to nearby picturesque medieval towns; coming home to San Fedele to relax by the pools and gardens, eat delicious meals and visit with new friends; and taking time for your own contemplative writing and thinking.
You’ll come away from this magical sojourn simultaneously enlivened and relaxed, with a deeper understanding of your purpose in writing memoir, along with many pages of new writing providing a plethora of potential doorways into the story of your life.
More information (and beautiful photos) here.
Ready to book? Click here.
Come Riding & Writing with me in Iceland next June!
Come along with me for an all-inclusive week of RIDING and WRITING in the spectacular Icelandic countryside, in the height of the bright summer season, June 10 – 16, 2024.
Every day we’ll ride out on sturdy, sweet Icelandic horses through the expansive rolling vistas of western Iceland, led by our experienced guides from Hestaland. Once you’ve experienced the exhilaration of the fast, smooth tolt, a gait unique to Icelandic horses, you may not want to go back to the trot!
We’ll eat delicious meals together at the beautiful Hestaland Guesthouse and participate in thoughtful, open-hearted guided writing sessions.
There will also be plenty of time for sharing and discussing your writing projects and visiting the nearby hot spring spa at Krauma.
Learn more about costs and accommodations on the application form.
Whether you’ve been to Iceland many times, or this will be your first experience there, this trip is sure to be transformative!
More information (and beautiful photos) here. Email me with any questions!
Friends, it’s my pleasure and my passion to support you as we stretch towards living our lives creatively and to the fullest.
Are you ready? Let’s go!
Rumi is a favorite of mine - and Rilke so wise. Thanks for pulling these two passages together to help us celebrate our lives during this season!