“A Duet of Wonder and Grief…”*
Oh, folks.
What a wacky and wild world.
So much beauty. So much grace.
And so much unknown. So much pain.
How can it all exist in almost the same breath?
I remember when I got sober, the huge realization:
Oh!
There’s a feeling.
Here’s!
A feeling!
That was a—revelation and I use the word specifically:
A surprisingly and unknown fact especially one that is made known in a dramatic way…
And…
A divine or supernatural disclosure to humans of something relating to human existence in the world.
Like, really? Feelings?
A revelation.
I was so filled up with a total inability to be with myself,
I ran like wildfire from the moment.
I ran like wildfire from any feeling in the moment.
Then, eventually, the next leap into my most arrested development was:
Now there are two feelings?
Who knew?
Maybe even two contradictory feelings?
Unfolding
And
Dancing together?
WTF?
Yes.
Contradictory feelings
Doing the
Cha-
Cha-
Cha.
~~~
We get it all.
Trying to protect ourselves from the fear, from the grief—
Trying to protect ourselves from the—
What the f… is going to happen?
I want to know.
We want to know.
Yes, I do./No, I don’t.
Yes. I do.
I think.
That struggle blocks me from seeing
The red-winged blackbird celebrating life
On the skinny branch,
Chirping with full-bodied enthusiastic delight at the heavens.
We get it all, friends.
Wanting only the good ones,
The feelings we call good—
It is a futile desire.
Our grief is the doorway to grace.
Our laughter, the flip side of heartbreak.
All are true.
All are sacred.
All are inevitable.
OH.
The
Freaking
Awe
Of
This
Glorious planet
Of ours,
Our home.
Matched only by
Its terror,
Its grief,
Its unknown…
It’s all true.
It’s all sacred.
It’s all inevitable.
~~~
Oh, dear friends, this poem, Adrift, by Mark Nepo says it all:
This is how the heart makes a duet of
wonder and grief. The light spraying
through the lace of the fern is as delicate
as the fibers of memory forming their web
around the knot in my throat. The breeze
makes the birds move from branch to branch
as this ache makes me look for those I’ve lost
in the next room, in the next song, in the laugh
of the next stranger. In the very center, under
it all, what we have that no one can take
away and all that we’ve lost face each other.
It is there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured
by a holiness that exists inside everything.
I am so sad and everything is beautiful.
This music soothed me today. I’m grateful to share this video with you:
From the Playing for Change folks, here is Playing for Peace
~~~
Dear Friends,
May we abide the losses.
May we ride their waves
With body
And
Breath.
May we continue
To delight
In the glory
Of this magnificent world.
May we touch the heartbreak.
May we witness the grace,
Hand-in-hand.
May we dance,
Bellies open,
Between
The
Two.
As best we can.
And when we can’t,
We practice kindness
For ourselves.
May our time together,
May these words shared together,
Benefit all people.
Stay blessed,
Aruni
*Adrift, by Mark Nepo