My son-in-law took this photo of our granddaughter Flora, who is closing in on four years old. She had stayed up a bit late the night before, and took an extra long nap the next afternoon. When she woke up, she was out of sorts and eventually sprawled out on the landing on the stairs, completely surrendering to her funk.
Something about this photo just grabbed at my heart and made me laugh and cry at the same time. Here is a girl who honors her own heart. A girl who has no guile, who is fully in touch with her feelings and who will not let anyone get in the way of feeling them.
In the midst of my laughing/crying at this photo, I turned around and recognized the beast that has been hunting me for ages. I’ve been pushing it away and at the same time I’ve been reading about it, talking about it with friends and meditating with it. This week I named it. And I’m feeling it, Flora style.
Photo from Our Kindred Home, by Alyson Morgan.
It’s real and it’s scary and it’s overwhelming sometimes. Maybe you feel it, too?
Here are some words that I have copied into one of my notebooks. An assortment of wisdom. Words to consider. Words to chew on. Words of comfort, words to challenge. Maybe they will resonate with you too?
Soul and soil are not separate. Neither are wind and spirit, nor water and tears. We are eroding and evolving, at once, like the red rock landscape before me. Our grief is our love. Our love will be our undoing as we quietly disengage from the collective madness of the patriarchal mind that that says aggression is the way forward. -Terry Tempest Williams
In order to survive these times and stay human, we will have to walk with one hand holding the grief of watching the dying world and another hand holding the light so that we can find our way towards the new world which is being born. -Laura Matsue
Our grief is not the weapon. Our grief is the wound and our grief is the needle which sews the wound and our grief is the silk which threads the needle which sews the wound and our grief is the hand which holds the silk which threads the needle which sews the wound. -Althea Black
In our time of disturbance and radical change, we are crossing a threshold, a portal, or an unseen bridge from one world to another. It could be said that the bridge is either collapsing beneath us, or being made as we walk together, in the long twilight hours when one civilization gives way to another. -Geneen Marie Haugen
I never have been in despair about the world. Enraged. I’ve been enraged by the world, but never despair. I cannot afford despair…you can’t tell the children that there is no hope. -James Baldwin
I have a kind of courage you do not understand. I am far from blind, far from indifferent, but I will not indulge in impotent, passive despair. I will not add to the despair of the world. I am working on counterpoisons, I create space in which people can breathe, restore their faith and strength to live. -Anaïas Nin
I keep All We Can Save, Truth, Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis close at hand. A book of essays edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katherine K. Wilkinson, it’s a great one to pick up for a quick read. Check out their website.
So, I thank Flora for reminding me to feel all the feelings. I thank fine thinkers and writers for their insights and words. And I know that for me, when things feel overwhelming, I have the sanctuary of the present moment to duck into. A place to breathe and recenter myself.
Here’s an update on the 100 days of stitching project…a few more pages for the book. My 15 minutes of centered needlework. Thread the needle, stitch, breathe. Stitch, breathe.
Six hand dyed fabrics, made with tansy, indigo, marigolds, onion skins, and Hopi Black dye sunflowers and two scraps of William Morris fabrics.
A napkin from my Grammie Lowry’s collection, embellished.
The piece on the left is in process.
So that’s it for today, friends. Let me know if you can relate to Flora’s situation. :-) oxoxoxoxox
