Clear air and stillness. A welcome relief after the thick haze of wildfire air. Sometimes, simply sitting in the stillness, waiting, is brave. Lake Quinault, Olympic Peninsula, Sept 2020. photo by anne richardson.
Autumn’s Dark Mornings : A Natural Time to Reflect
Mornings start in the dark. Reflective gear strapped on. Flashlight in hand. I set out with a few stars visible on cloudless mornings and Mars moving toward setting. It is autumn and the air, despite an unusual warm spell during the daylight hours, has the temperament of fall. A hint of chill. Leaves have begun to tumble downward and are crisp under foot. A crimson thread of light stitches the earth to the sky. As minutes pass, dawn opens its arms to me. Trees that were easily distinguishable on summer jaunts, transform from shadow to shape to friend. By the time I reach The Summit, an hour into my walk, day has arrived. My mind is streaming with snippets of poems or pondering an essay or talk I have heard. And I am ready to drop into my daily gratitude practice at the highest point in my neighborhood where outlines of cityscapes and mountains merge in the distance.
When the Air Became Grief
It was difficult when this ritual was inaccessible during the smoke-filled days. The days wildfires raged throughout my state. So close to friends’ homes, they evacuated. When to leave the confines of my home could have endangered my health. The invitation to walk inner landscapes eluded me. The way I make contact between my inner and the outer world filled with static. The refresh button on my browser to check air quality seemed more important. It’s not that I didn’t reflect. Didn’t express gratitude. But the haze that settled over the city as the fierce wind that stoked the blazes died down, seemed to settle in me. Or perhaps it was the grief held in the smoke that infiltrated my porous body. All the collective loss waiting for a chance to cry out. Lament. For the trees, the moss, the birds, the squirrels, the deer, the homes, the livelihoods, the mementos, the humans, the humans, the humans to be wailed. All lingering in the smoke. Waiting to be released. But to where?
This year seems to be one long-lasting threshold event. Hall of Mosses, Hoh Rain Forest, Olympic National Forest. September 2020. photo by anne richardson.
Breath is Integral to the Story
This was happening in the time of the pandemic. The time of protests. Times where breathing is integral to the story. And now another story about breath. Where taking in a breath was threat. I will admit to feeling overwhelmed. I was relieved that I already had a long weekend away planned to the Olympic Peninsula, where air quality was “good.” Where I could be immersed in a temperate rain forest thick with moss, maples, ferns and firs. To have calm lake water close at hand. And my beloved Mother Ocean ready to receive the sun’s setting as if to say, “The risings. The settings. Each day an opening. Each day a closing.” She had no answer. Simply stating the obvious.
When we stopped for lunch and the smoke was out of sight, I gulped down first clear breaths like I had won the lottery. It was medicine. By the time we returned home, I felt recalibrated. And rain had washed the air at home clean while I was away. Though our fires are not out, the energy of fire had been soothed by water for the time being. There had been a collective exhale as the season changed from summer to autumn.
Shifting Perspectives
My own season is changing. Shifting. Something I've felt coming on for a while now. A call to be in stillness. To ask myself what it means, in the words of poet David Whyte, to be Half A Shade Braver. To be “radically vulnerable.” (Something I first addressed in my blog, Lessons from the Pandemic: On a Pilgrimage with Grief.)
I have taken three series with David Whyte during the pandemic and the next one, The Invitational Identity, The Art and Practice of Shaping a More Beautiful Mind, will be in November. Each one has invited me to reflect on my journey. To dive beneath the surface of my “self.” To look at my beliefs. To “turn away from from soul-sapping surface conversations and wake into my body.” To question what “vows” have I made that need to be broken. To strip myself down to my essence. To ask, in a paraphrase of David’s words, if I will allow myself to be an apprentice of my being. To embrace the pilgrim way. To live, as Rilke said, into the questions. What does it look like to live a radical, simple life where I allow doubt? Where I acknowledge my desires? To be just Half a Shade Braver?
I have don’t have any answers to these questions. And I wonder what these thoughts might be stirring in you? If you sense your own season changing?
“I moved my chair into sun
I sat in the sun
the way hunger is moved when called fasting.
”
Peering beneath the surface down into one’s inner waters does not provide clarity at the outset. photo by anne richardson.
My Mentor Grief Weaves the Threads of Trauma Into My Pondering
As if David’s sessions have not given me enough fuel to take a long, deep journey into my interior landscape. I listened to several sessions during the Collective Trauma Summit, (hosted by Thomas Hübl, someone new to me.) It was an amazing online event that ended October 1st. Most of the sessions I watched were, and this will shock you, the poets. Jane Hirshfield, Joy Harjo, Ross Gay, Naomi Shihab Nye, Li-Young Lee, Camille Dungy, Marie Howe, Pádraig Ó Tuamam and David Whyte. The depth of their wisdom left me breathless.
The summit was about the power of collective healing. Discussions about how we swim in an ocean of trauma. Are born into this world of trauma and so it has become our natural way of being—accepting that trauma is our normal condition. To quote Thomas Hübl:
Trauma is not just a personal experience. It is always embedded in a much wider chain of events and history. Examining our collective trauma is the way to tap into the evolutionary intelligence of humanity.
And so it is out of this rupture we continue to harm one another. So much grief. How do we come back into alignment? Again, I am reminded that I am an apprentice to Grief. Grief, my mentor, says there is no one answer. This summit had many threads. “Stay with this,” says Grief.
Creating Space for Stillness in a Chaotic World
The timing of the Summit, the David Whyte sessions, alongside a book I’m reading, Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, nestled within other essays and poets I am exploring, coincide with this call to stillness. Stillness for me isn’t about retreating from the world. It does seem to mean creating a place to allow time and space to merge what I am intuiting/discerning and what I am gathering from outside and weave them into what I am becoming. To sense my role on this earth in this present moment. To connect with the Holy in my life and say simply, “okay.” Does any of this resonate with you? A desire to be still amid all the chaos? To ask questions that don’t have immediate answers?
What lies ahead is shrouded. Hoh Rain Forest. September 2020. photo by anne richardson.
Sitting With the Unknown
The months ahead are shrouded. I have no workshops planned. I feel either new offerings or enhancements to what I already offer will emerge from this time, though I can’t make predictions, for that would mean I was trying to be in control. I will continue to meet with individual clients and am open to new clients. Sitting with others in grief, life transitions or those desiring to explore what radical vulnerability looks like for them is an honor and a call that still feels deeply rooted.
Pre-dawn sunrise on my walk. photo by anne richardson.
Be Still With Me
The sun will continue to rise and set, rise and set, as we go into this dark season in the Northern Hemisphere. It is a time of year I have come to love—burrowing into deep contemplation. And this time of stillness, delving, pondering doesn’t exclude being open to you. To your questions. Your pondering thoughts. You push me to delve deeper too. I appreciate that. We are on this collective journey together. Join me. I welcome your company.
as always, in deep gratitude,
anne
For Your Reflection
What grief are you holding in your body right now? How are you holding it? Gently? Roughly? With cupped hands? Wanting to cast it aside? Ignoring it? Other ways you are treating grief? (These questions reminds me of Denise Levertov’s poem, Talking to Grief. The first line is: Ah, grief, I should not treat you/like a homeless dog/who comes to the back door/for a crust, for a meatless bone.)
As you look back over the last seven months, since the onset of the pandemic and all that has tumbled out as a result, how has your perspective(s) shifted about your beliefs? Have any of them been challenged? What does it feel like to explore the root of your beliefs with curiosity and not judgment?
What would it look like to be vulnerable with yourself? To be “Half a Shade Braver?” To ask yourself a difficult, vulnerable question? What would that question be?
Though the pandemic initially “forced” many of us to slow down, as we have adapted to new protocols there seems to be a ramping up of our collective energy. An urgency “to do.” To keep up. If you have felt this too, how do you cope? Do you feel overwhelmed? How do you balance all the tasks in your life…and how do you decide what “tasks” matter in the longer arc of your journey?
The standard question: What are old ways of coping that are still working for you? Try not to judge them as “good or bad.” Just notice how they help you through the day. What is no longer working? And, have you found any new ways of coping? As always, please be gentle and kind as you reflect.
Let Me Join You On Your Journey
The art of deep listening. photo by anne richardson.
What questions are you ready to explore? Ready to go on a pilgrimage with your grief? Need a guide during this threshold time? Contact me and let’s talk about how having a spiritual companion can be part of your journey. Further information about what a spiritual director/companion is on my webpage.
