What Are You Nourishing?
This summer, I spent four hours every weekend watering trees. This hose wrangling made space for a different kind of attention. There are vivid memories of standing under a plum tree, listening to Rumi.
When I wasn’t sure how to be present to suffering, I sang songs about hope and light that shines in darkness, trusting these vocal vibrations would carry over land and sea to nourish parched hearts. I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a sudden infusion of something new…to be mysteriously carried beyond my capacity.
There is a visual memory…
Water meant to flow into the hose is dripping from the spigot, seeping into the ground underneath it.
This well-irrigated little patch of Earth is incredibly fertile, but has not been cultivated with intention.
I have been watering weeds!
Now that I see this, a new possibility is emerging. Maybe I will work with this “leak” consciously.
The next few days are ripe for glancing at what we notice with the utmost tenderness — noticing where precious energy is nourishing weeds. Is there another possibility?
In this video podcast, Dr. James Finley tells Pete Holmes a story about a nun with anxiety who sought therapy with him to help her stop smoking. She felt so guilty about doing this and went to great lengths to hide it. She wanted to stop, but felt powerless to do so. His response to her is utterly disarming…
“Well, it would be good if you wouldn’t smoke, because it’s not good for your health, but I have another suggestion. Next time you are leaning toward the window, take a very deep drag and blow it out the window as incense to the Divine Mercy that is infinitely in love with you as yousmoke your cigarette, and the smoke will go better.”
“We know that we are compromising our wholeness, and we can’t stop.”
-Dr. James Finley
Finley’s words are precious and totally worth listening to in full. They invite a way to orient to what we notice…
Active waiting isn’t indifference or passivity (e.g., I’ll just keep doing it, I don’t care…), but you wait in a willingness to do it. When the grace is given to you to do it, you’ll do it…and it’s not there yet. And in the fact that it’s not there yet…
I can learn not to do violence to the fragility of my waiting.
Whatever this week holds, let us remember…
“When you go inwards with gentleness, even though the journey may be precarious, you will still in no way be going into isolation. Rather, you will be coming into deeper kinship with everything that is. The mystery of the unity of the world and of the Universe, and of the Earth is that the closer you journey to your own source, the more you come into rhythm and harmony with everything that is actually there.” - John O’Donohue
With you and for you,
Kirsten
Primal Fear & Primal Trust
This quote crossed my path recently and has been relevant and timely in several conversations. I will share it, in case it sparks something in you, too…
“In a talk hosted in 1972, ‘Primal Fear and Primal Trust,’ Gebser considers this inquiry of origin (‘Where do I come from?,’ ‘Who am I?,’ and ‘Whither do I go?’) as a singularly important set of questions concerning the integral human being.
So long as we do not find an answer to those questions, primal fear reigns. From it springs, to the degree that we become aware of those questions, the diverse creaturely, psychic, and intellectual anxieties. It is also, in the last analysis, the trigger for aggression and depression... which can lead to the destruction of others or of oneself. Only (s)he who finds an answer to these questions awakens primal trust and thus is freed from primal fear.
What is most incomprehensible is that in this case, he will have overcome the primal fear forever and is therefore not threatened by any relapse into it."
Seeing Through the World - Jean Gebser and Integral Consciousness by Jeremy Johnson (this is an Amazon link)
This post is drawn from a recent Soulspace Newsletter. If you enjoyed it and wish to sign up to receive these missives by email, you can sign up below.
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