Book club
Welcome to week 3, by Maria Rodgers O’Rourke
(A quick note from Tracey: If you are having trouble keeping up with writing and reading and are reluctant to comment please don’t be! There’s no RIGHT WAY to do this. Do it in the way that works for you. Meaning, the extent of your writing can be leaving a comment here, if that’s all you have time for. Let involvement with the community be enough. You can return to the book and your journal in the future should you desire.)
Here we go!
I love it when what I need to hear, or read, shows up just when I need it.
Two weeks ago, my family sustained a shocking and tragic loss. A dear friend of my 21-year-old daughter died in an accident. We were numb after we got the news. My daughter reached out to me, her dad, and close friends for comfort and a loving space to sort her feelings.
A few days in, though, I realized I was grieving, too. My heart went out to this friend’s mother, and the unspeakable pain she must be experiencing. But my heart also ached, for me, in the loss of this young person, so full of potential, taken from this life. My own maternal instincts, that had gathered this friend of my daughter’s under my wings, felt the loss deeply. The familiar symptoms of grief – fatigue, sudden tears, feeling tender, forgetfulness, low appetite, restless nights – all appeared. A haunting song I once loved and had forgotten, emerged in my memory. “Since the last goodbye…it’s all the wrong way ‘round,” sang the Alan Parsons Project. The song has played on a loop in my mind. It’s soothing and stirring this grief, and that from past losses, and the grief I think we all carry these days during the pandemic.
As we ended one of our conversations, my daughter reminded me of the angel’s lesson in the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” – how all our lives are interconnected.
So, of course, within days of this talk, I read in “drinking from the river of light” about another conversation – Mark Nepo’s with his friend, Gail (p. 61) – “about the mystery of being here.” They spoke of the myth of Hades, the Greek Lord of Death, as a metaphor for what we humans experience when someone dies. Hades pulls a loved one from our midst, and the network of relationships connected to that person, into the underworld. To grieve feels like we’re being “tugged underground.”
“This metaphor helps us understand the impact of grief on the living. We’re all connected, and so we can’t help but be pulled toward all that lives under the surface when someone dies…. When Hades takes someone we love, we go under too. When someone we love is pulled under by grief, we are not separate from them but part of the tangle of relationships that binds us. And so, we are all pulled in varying degrees when someone dies. Everyone is affected.” (p. 61-62)
I wish I could wrap up this post with a few insights on what this round of loss has taught me, but I’m not there, yet. Each day, the darkness lifts a little. Yet, it also settles in a bit more, too. Part of me has been tugged underground. My mind expects me to be over it, then a wave of grief comes that takes away my breath and my resolve. What I can do, for now, is be okay with that. And I can attend to the ways I’m being held in this moment – through music, relationships, the wisdom of “the river of light”, coincidences that aren’t truly random – however creation is showing up in love.
Earlier in this reflection on metaphor, Mark Nepo writes: “My passion now is to stay as close as possible to the pulse of what is kind and true – to stay in conversation with whatever happens and to experience more and more ways to listen” (p. 60). Maybe this is one of the lessons this loss offers me – to listen for and abide with all that is kind and true.
What spoke to you from these sections?
SAVE THE DATE
What: Mid-way Zoom meeting
When: Sunday, October 24 at 1 pt/3 ct/4 et
Zoom link will be emailed to you ahead of time. Reminder: there will be no reading assignment or post for the week of Oct. 21 so you can spend some time that week thinking about what you’d like to discuss on the Zoom.
The duration of the zoom is dependent on the conversation, but you should feel free to hop off when necessary.
Schedule to date:
- Week #4 The Inner Experience of Truth through Feelings Are Paints, Tammi Scott, Sept. 23
- Week #5 <<<Break>>> pause, breathe, and catch up, Sept. 30
- Week #6 The Energy of Hope through Love at First Sight, Kim Prendergast, Oct. 7
- Week #7 Living a Making through Drifting in Immensity, Joan Sherwood, Oct. 14
- Week #8 <<<Break>>> pause to prepare for Zoom discussion, Oct. 21
Optional Art Prompt
Can’t take the credit for this one. It comes straight from the section Releasing the Divine. It’s an invitation (just not with words.) On a blank page in your journal, imagine that the design is waiting, fully formed, in the blankness, waiting for you to release it. Be still and quiet until you begin the conversation with your supplies and the paper. See what happens. (We talk about this in class ALL the time. Work in concert with the process, letting go of the need to control it, letting go of the judgment around whether it’s “pleasing” to you or not.)
A link will remain here to week 1 in case anyone wants to review the spearheading guidance. Week 1.
Oh, Maria, I am so sorry to hear about this young person, who was interconnected with family, yours and of course so many more. I appreciate you sharing your feelings and pain with us. Your daughter is very fortunate to have you and the rest of your family to help her sort through her feelings.
Tragedies happen too often. Connecting with others helps us get through the tough times. I think a lot of people grieve privately, or close to it, because death is still somewhat of a taboo subject in our society. But in my experience, reaching out to someone to share my feelings of grief has been soothing and uplifting. “Uplifting” sounds like an odd outcome, but talking about loss not only heals me but I feel it also pays tribute to the deceased.
Music has also played a part in my life when it comes to grief. There are certain songs that take me back… “Love Story (You and Me)” by Randy Newman and “Memories” by Maroon 5 for Richard, “Morning has Broken” by Cat Stevens for one of my grandfathers.
If everyone on the planet took to heart how interconnected we, I think we would live in a kinder and gentler world.
Thanks so much, Sue. I totally understand the disconnect with the word “uplifting” to describe the experience of sharing our grief with someone we love and trust. As you say, our culture doesn’t honor this type of loss very well. The feelings are so powerful, we’re afraid they’ll sweep us away. So, we spend all kinds of energy trying to hold it back, when sharing it is the way to lighten the load, at least that’s my experience, too. <3
That’s good to hear, Maria.
Thank you Susan for sharing those tracks. “memories” by maroon is playing at the back of my head the last 10 days.. I love it! i will listen to the other ones now:)
and yes if everyone on the planet took to heart how interconnected we are.. we can start by quieting the mind. As French mathematician Blaise Pascal once said “every problem in the world can be traced to man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
Eva, I hear “Memories” in my head so very often. I can attest to how over time, memories become sweeter because I think more about when my lost loved ones were healthy & happy than when they were sick.
Oops, Maria. I just realized that your post did not identify the friend who died as male or female. Sorry about that.
I believe that I removed references to gender. Thanks Sue.
Gosh. Like all of you there was SO much I loved about this section of the book. First, thank you, Maria for sharing about your daughter’s friend. What a tragedy. It never makes sense, does it? I guess the most we can hope for when tragedy strikes is that it does eventually awaken in us the knowledge of how connected we are and how deeply losses are felt. I’m sending love to your community and hope for soft and safe places to land as you traverse this part of the journey with your daughter and friend’s family.
The Aperture of Intuition section held me rapt throughout. Stuck to my desk I have a Post-It note that says intuition–what? how? I jotted that down, hmmmm, about 5 or 6 years ago. It was this intangible thing that other people could access but that I could not. I didn’t understand why or what purpose it served. I just knew that I wanted to experience it, get in touch with it, and learn more about what it might show me. Still working on that! I underlined so much, including this: Intuition appears when we get out of the way.
This is an important part of the creative process that I speak about during art classes. We’re so CONTROLLY! Lol… Now, when we’re creating an art page, trying to control the process isn’t the end of the world, not like when we’re trying to control our and everyone else’s lives, but our relationship to creative expression is a sliver of our relationship to life. It’s the safest place I’ve found to meet, again and again and again, the aspects of my personality that I want to enhance, but also to change. Letting go and allowing, “getting out of the way” happens easier for me doing art than it does writing. I’m not exactly sure why, but my years of art practice (combined with doing some meditation and continuing to write) have helped me learn to let go, to allow (more often) the process to unfold. To listen to messages and feelings while I make selections about colors, textures, and designs that I wouldn’t have otherwise made. The challenge, Mark writes, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally, is not to make everything we take in assume our shape in order to enter us. Yeeessssss. This is so true in relationship to my family. What a journey it still is to accept and honor how the people closest to me express themselves!! I’m still trying to improve…to open up so i can “take in things as they are.”
About a week ago, I started arting in a new journal. I dedicated the journal to making abstract art. It is a form of expression that is new-ish to me. Most of my art journaling has more of a purpose to it…make a background, add layers, get to a focal image and decorate! There’s nothing wrong with this wonderful form of expression. But, creating abstract art is a different animal. Finding my way towards feeling a page is “finished” is much more complex when there’s nothing “specific” on it to lend that feeling of DONE! I try to complete a page every day, taking breaks in between layers to let them dry and to access my intuition. And I HAVE BEEN FEELING SO FRUSTRATED! It’s like bumping into things when the lights go out. Each page has not been neatly coming to a conclusion…I get confused. Don’t know what to do next. Don’t like the way the process is going. I’m not letting go AT ALL! I knew it had something to teach me, but I wasn’t sure what. Then I read As a Tuning Fork. Mark writes, “I came to understand that the tuning fork is our heart. And letting life strike the chord in our heart helps to alleviate our suffering and inner sense of burden.”
Now, this is all tied together, of course, with being open and letting go and not trying to control the process. I’m frustrated because I don’t feel like I’m getting it “right,” forgetting again that that isn’t the point. Honoring what’s true in me at the moment, letting the strike of the chord be whatever it needs to be in and of itself is what alleviates the inner sense of burden. “To open in this way requires us to be honest, accepting and loving.” Being aware is a hugest first step to entering wakefulness.
I love this! Stepping into the abstract to see what comes up. So courageous!
” Intuition appears when we get out of the way.” Couldnt agree more. Intuition is something that we all possess. Like a resource we all have. I think that getting in touch with our intuition, is as Nepo explains in p.68 about releasing the divine.
“its all here, waiting quietly in the open to be manifest by nothing less than the complete surrender of our attention and care”
For me its all about practicing and commitment in order to strengthen ones intuition and a lot of trust!
Yes! I absolutely agree…the word and work of practice here is the key!
My heart goes out to you Maria. What a horrible loss. Grief is different for everyone and the most important thing is to accept your own process without judgement which you are doing.
So the chapter I am responding to is “The Aperture of Intuition”. I totally agree with Mark when he says intuition is divinely inspired. Whenever I am confused about anything , going within always helps me find clarity. Mark writes” Find the current and things will become clear, the way running water cleanses a rock”.
Sometimes my ego shouts down my intuition and that is where I can get into trouble. In 2017 I attended a spiritual retreat with my daughter Becca for her 21st birthday. The keynote speaker was Ram Dass who by that time was in a wheelchair due to a massive stroke. Despite this he radiated joy and had an amazing sense of humor. One of the jokes
He made was “ Your ego is not your amigo”. The greatest antidote to this is meditation. I
had given up my daily meditation practice but took it up again this February. It is bringing me greater clarity and peace then ever before. When I listen to my head/ego it
often spins me in circles but when I focus on my heart my feelings and my breath the answers I am looking for are right there. My head lies my heart does not. Intuition has literally saved my life in several instances and whenever I ignore it or try to push it away it proves to be a mistake. I truly believe my intuitive feelings are God’s gentle guidance in both large and small matters.
Thank you, Diane. It’s SO ANNOYING to me that our egos do so little to make living a positive experience! Darn it. What’s your answer when people ask you…”If I’m not my ego (or who I think I am in my head, then who am I?” how do you answer? Curious minds want to know.
This is a difficult question to answer Tracey and I do not completely understand it either. From what I can gather the voice in our heads that is constantly babbling to us is not who we truly are. The ego that most people completely identify with as being them , is really an illusion and we need to peek behind the curtain to begin to embrace our true identity. That is why meditation and going within is so important
because it is the best way to connect to an inner voice that knows we are so much more then the many limitations the ego imposes upon us. If the voice in your head is anything but supportive and loving you are listening to your ego. If you get that sinking feeling in your gut you are listening to your ego. If you are in fear you are being controlled by your ego. According to The Course in Miracles the ego is a false belief system about our selves that we must challenge daily in order to connect with the truth about our true identity.
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I absolutely love The course in miracles, so beautiful lessons from this book. Lets do a book club about it! although it might take years..🤣
LOL…yeah. I think CIM might be tough for a book club!
our egos challenge us to become better versions of ourselves 😉 so lets be kind to it.
according to eckhart tolle, a good to response to who am I? is this
“I am not my thought, emotions, and experiences, I am not the content of my life. I am life. I am the space in which all things happen. I am consciousness. I am the Now. I am.”
i prefer to keep it short and simple. I AM LOVE, I AM LIGHT just like you ❤️
Lovely Eva. And I adore Eckhart! And I think it’s hard to understand what the frig he’s talking about, lol. Like, it’s hard to understand someone (like Mark) say that most of the important stuff in life is unsayable who then goes on to write hundreds of thousands of words about what’s unsayable! I agree and also like to keep it short and simple. And I think digging into more language around it from different people in myriad different ways helps us all understand better what is hard to understand! Thank you!
Also, I wanted to add that this is really hard. It can be REALLY hard to say to ourselves I am love. I am light and not feel like a complete imposter/poser/liar. This is one area where the practice comes in. It shocked me, when I got serious about bettering my relationship with myself, just how bad I felt at first saying I like me to myself before even trying to say I love me. I’ve experienced this with people close to me too. I guess it’s part of our ego/human condition..that it’s so hard, but it makes me sometimes sad, other times mad, and yet other times incredulous. But also, it’s so a journey worth taking!
“Your ego is not your amigo”! So true. It does get in the way and tries to edit the intuition. I have the same experience when I take the time for meditation/quiet/prayer. David Whyte calls it the “miracle hour” and suggests that we all need one, every day. My days just go better when I hold space for my intuition, rather than letting the To-Do List run the show.
YES!
Diane,
Thank you and Ram Dass for that gem, “Your ego is not your amigo” That needs to be stitched on a pillow! I recently read a poem that begins with, “my brain and my heart divorced”. It’s really lovely and I will share it in this group if no one has heard it. It’s definitely the struggle between the ego and the heart, and in the end, it’s the lungs that we need to put in charge. When we return to the breath, as you have returned to your meditation, we find the peace we are seeking.
I’ve not heard that poem, Joan. Pls do share it. xo
Maria,
I’m so sorry about your daughter’s friend. My daughter lost two high school friends before she had graduated from college. It is devastating to process death and it’s grip on us at such a young age. Sending love to all of you.
Mark’s conversation with Gail also spoke to me. I have experienced the loss of many family members, grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, and now Hades is creeping down into my generation and pulling us under. I have lost two dear cousins since Christmas. I was shocked at both. My cousin Jeannie’s death was like getting punched in the stomach. It was Christmas Eve when I found out. We were alone, because you know… global pandemic. I couldn’t stop crying, and this metaphor of being pulled under feels so real to me. Over the next few months, I began to really refocus on what and where I want my attention to be. What do I want to spend my time doing, who do I want to spend my time with, where is my attention?
In the “Releasing the Divine” section, I loved “While our being is bottomless, our humanness has limits. That’s the curse-blessing that has us looking everywhere for what’s right before us and within us.” Isn’t that the truth! I’ve been recovering from surgery for the last 10 weeks, and spending a good amount of time resting. I have tried to spend a lot of time outside observing the sights and sounds of nature. When I see a cardinal land and turn to look at me, I wonder if it is a message? When I am questioning something and a breeze answers, is it a coincidence? Is the turtle that just appeared and walked into the woods teaching me that slow and steady applies to healing and not just winning the race? I was walking this morning, and thinking about how I would like to be sitting on a beach somewhere gazing at the ocean, or sitting on a mountaintop asking the universe questions. Then, I remembered that it all lies in front of me (or in my backyard) and then Mark Nepo told me the same thing this afternoon!
“In time, we discover that everything carries the Divine.”
I’m behind, but catching up slowly and steadily. 🐢 Thank you all for sharing yourselves and your wisdom. ❤️
Love this, Joan, thank you. It never ceases to amaze me that two sides of the same coin are pain/suffering (in whatever form) and the divine. It also annoys me! I may have written this before, but well into my healing journey through the suffering I experienced when my daughter got sick, I had started to work of transformation. My therapist at the time asked me if I’d change anything. I would change it all, of course, for my daughter to not suffer..but for myself, I said, I wouldn’t change a thing. Thank you for sharing about your physical healing journey and the gifts it’s provided for you to slow down, to notice and to receive. “Everything carries the Divine.” Indeed.
Thanks, Joan. Virtual hugs to you. <3
“After a lifetime of climbing, it’s clear that the human form of light is love.” Tears are coming to my eyes while I read this sentence.
I remember you. Your time on earth. The time, we experienced each other.
The lessons I learned from you. The tough and the loving.
I feel the pink curtains on my skin like a veil of protection.
I remember your battles, your sufferings and your sorrows, the victories and the losses.
Anger, resentment,regret and despair. Sometimes I feel, I try so hard to bring the exact words to my mind.
Perhaps I didn’t pay so much attention to the words. I wouldn’t imagine those were your last ones.
And here you are, like the God, who is finally answering my prayers. The ones I did, as a little girl behind the pink curtains in my room.
Here you are now, telling me that “after a lifetime of climbing, it’s clear that the human form of light is love.” my little girl, you always knew.
Love and compassion are the witnesses this time.
So did you.I reply. Everyone knows it. Everyone is.
Here I am, exactly 10 years after you left, “tugged underground” once again. Hades took my dear friend.. In the last 2 years we had countless conversations, always in God’s presence, in order to understand what this experience, this reality, had to teach us. We both experienced wonderful gifts, valuable lessons, every time feeling rich and grateful. The deeper we dug the more light we found.
On the news of her passing, last week, I froze. Felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. This “nothing” that you understand that something is wrong.
Cultivating my intuition and building a strong connection with the divine has been my priority for the last year or so.
For years I was doubting God’s existence. Growing up in Greece, where homeland and church are the basic pillars of the society, “cool kids need” to doubt and rebel. I feel sorry now for all the moments I missed with God.
I keep staring at my phone, the message I received from her beloved husband, incapable of reacting in any way.
I found myself doubting God once again. A big WHY is blocking any connection of heart and mind.
“My sorrow is too big to put into words, I wish God had listened to our prayers, I wish Love had won.We have to stay strong for her, keep the light on. It is this light that will help her return to her glowest light and give it back to us, as she always did.” I found myself responding to her husband and my friend.
“Love did win. Love is still winning” He replies.
I go up to my rooftop. The beautiful colors of the sunset soften my heart. The bold lines of the skyscrapers and how they drill the sky, remind me of my mind and how it drills my heart. The way the sunset colors blend so wonderfully with the skyline, help me find the balance within. Connect to my center, let go, so I can fully be.
At this moment of doubt, where the light in me flickers, my friend’s husband’s words of courage and love spoke directly in my heart and opened it up for me to see.
My beloved Aspasia, speaks to me now through the sun that is setting. “I know, she says. Let go of the “why” and Trust.”
For 40 days, that her soul continues to wander the earth. I promised her I’ll celebrate her life.
For 40 days, I’ll take the advice of a Tibetan monk and devote my meditation to reflecting on death. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PyhXlHDkNI
According to Greek mythology, the Cyclopes had only one eye after making a deal with Hades, god of the underworld, in which they traded one eye for the ability to see the future. They traded one eye to find out that the only thing that is certain is that they are going to die.
Today is not guaranteed. This is an amazing wake-up call for us to make the most of the relatively little time we all have. Time to be glad and grateful we’re alive. Time to be kind to our loved ones, rather than time to stress about things we have no control over.
Let go and trust. Don’t be afraid to go underground. You will find the light and the courage to bring it up to the surface stronger.
“Each of us when most ourselves are momentary conduits, lightning rods of the whole, transmitting the essence of things to one another.”
ALL ONE. ALL LOVE. ALL LIGHT
Ps. Thank you all for sharing your stories and your wisdom. I am behind but I have a lot to process at the moment and so many things in Nepo’s work I feel inspired to write about, I will find more time soon.. On Monday, school started and 2 days after both of my girls got sick, so together at home again.. Anyhow, just saying to justify my absence. All good, time is an illusion anyway 😉
Wow Eva, thank you. I’m so sorry to read about your dear friend. May her memory be eternal.
Let go and trust. These words are often written together. In my personal experience of living it though..there need to be some “. . .” in between or maybe some “–.” Let go…and…trust. The. .. can represent days, months, years. Letting go can happen in an instant…and then the process of remembering can last, well, forever. But trust. Trust has not worked that way for me. I’m not sure where it develops exactly, or how I’ve enhanced it (I feel a journal prompt coming on here) but the work of trusting, especially myself, which is, of course, the seat of all trust..like doing for the self first is the seat of sharing with all others and the universe (SO opposite of what we learn about selfishness!)…Trusting myself has been a way bigger challenge. Hmmm.
Please do not worry about being “behind.” There is only how the process works…you can return later to anything that calls or requires your attention. Your comments here are such a blessing to the group.
I do want to reiterate, because it is true for me, that one does not need to resonate with the God concept to have a deep and meaningful experience with this material. Any form of “higher power” of belief beyond oneself is sufficient for connection to the material, to our other book clubbers, and to our lives. I respect your journey from rebellion and back again. It’s a rite of passage, I think..the moving away and then “earning” the return. And the “return” can be whatever it is for each of us.
THIS IS JULIE’S COMMENT, copied from last week…
The Web of Metaphor
I found this section of the book to be pretty deep – the idea that metaphors are all around us and just need to be discovered. I appreciated the example shared by Mark about the conversation with his friend Gail in which they discussed Hades “who surprises us all by pulling a loved one from our midst, dragging them into the Underworld.” One year ago this Sunday, a very dear friend of mine lost a young and beautiful niece who had grown up feeling like the black sheep of the family. She died suddenly and unexpectedly and her loss was felt deeply of course by her nuclear family, many friends and relatives. Of course, my heart broke for my lovely friend and I can’t imagine trying to make sense of such a loss 6 months into the very difficult era of the pandemic and our lives being so shut down and packed away from the ones we love. “I imagined him (Hades) pulling someone from us into the Underworld, the way he might fist a set of roots and pull the tangle of roots deeper into the earth… every time Hades takes someone from us he pulls the network of relationships connected to that person as well, and the roots of the living are tugged underground.” Reading this felt so timely for me as my friend is approaching this difficult weekend that marks a year since losing her niece. The metaphor of tree roots and the network of connected humans being pulled underground as well as the person who has died – that idea and metaphor really struck a chord with me.
The Aperture of Intuition
The following section was about “The Aperture of Intuition” and the ideas there really resonated with me – the opposite of rational is intuitive -to trust what the inner heart voice is saying more than what the mind devises. “Reason allows us to think like a ladder, while intuition allows us to think like a constellation.” I have learned a lot about this in the last few years as some mental health challenges have developed within my family. My mind would say, “it needs to be this and this, and let’s fix it using this way, and how can this be changed to improve what is going on?” and my heart would say “just love on it, this journey is not yours in a primary sense, it is theirs and the best I can do is just to be supportive and compassionate and kind.” The mind is still making calls about boundaries and sparsely offering interjections, but the heart has surrendered to understand that this life will unfold the way it is supposed to and the experiences to be had are not mine to control. In these very deep and sometimes very upsetting moments of realization the past few years, I can reflect that they were truly experiences of “indigenous perception” that Mark discusses – accepting bigger truths and seeing what is before me in a more holistic and Universal way. I can offer thoughts and advice, but ultimately this is up to the people in my life to make their own decisions which will propel their futures in one direction or another. Do I love them any less? No. I have needed to let go of what my mind would like to declare in its orchestrating fashion and instead just roll with the tides and let the heart and intuition be louder. I love the quote Sue posted about controlling events and the purpose of will: “the deeper purpose of will is to move in concert with everything around us.” Definitely.
What I appreciate and never ceases to amaze me is just how the Collective Unconscious and our interconnectedness manifests! The fact that Tracey chose you Maria for Week 3 not knowing about the awful loss, nor that part of the book would have such a compelling metaphor about death- is both astounding and somehow not. The “both/and” of life. I’m deeply sorry for the loss that your daughter and you are grieving. I hope sharing it here helped.
This week’s reading was A LOT. It felt dense in some sections. Like my thoughts were covered in molasses as I tried to take in and process the web of metaphor, the aperture of intuition, and most especially the craft of perception.
It probably didn’t help that I had a deadline for a writing piece for a different publication.
Two things: 1) I loved the few covenants he offered around which to meet… LOVED THEM.
2) Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ “How To Write A Poem” made me laugh out loud. The unexpected levity and laughter were a lovely anecdote to feeling bogged down with the material.
Bonus: I ended up actually The Invitation To Discover a Metaphor before I read it! I spotted a small bunch of rust colored leaves in the midst of all the green ones in the tree outside my garden fence, which had me run for my camera to capture this visual proof of the shifting rhythms, season and energy in nature and in myself. Which by the way was the subject of my writing piece!
I agree, Tammi..it’s fucking amazing isn’t it?
That silly ole universe… constantly showing off, lol
yes, the reading is A LOT (even though it’s not officially many pages)..and dense. Several folks are saying this to me on the side..so I’m putting it here. It is A LOT and that’s okay. It can feel hard, scary, annoying, challenging, exciting, and a crap ton of other emotions when we meet new thoughts/information/truths. Thank you, Tammi, for being open about this!
To all: We don’t have to agree or even understand, really, what we’re reading to get something out of it…Let it marinate, simmer, stew. Let it enter your eyes and your brain. The words will naturally distill throughout you whether you realize it or not. Whether you come back to it later or not, you’re getting out of the material exactly what you need right now. XO