Human to Human: Blog and Podcast

The American Southwest is beautiful country. I am in some of that now, having driven yesterday from Albuquerque to Gallup. It is unique. In someways stark and barren. Bushy Junipers somehow finding way to scatter and grow in dusty, red earth. But these are big sky areas too. Long, reaching, cloudless blue punctuated by red mesas. The contrast is deeply alluring, pulling my eyes to to wander, to expand. When seen close up, those mesas feel very alive to me. Like grandmothers and grandfathers matriarching and patriarching generations of family. I feel words in me, emotions pulled in me when I am nearby. Longings.

I continue a stretch of working and travel. This week with good life friends and companions, Chris Corrigan, Caitlin Frost, and Teresa Posakony. My time to write in times like these mostly shifts to words spoken aloud with one another and with the group of people that participate in our workshops. This week, tomorrow through Thursday, about 40 from Navajo Nation that work in health promotion. There will be longings there too.

John O’Donahue has become a favorite poet for me. I can almost select randomly from his writings and find something deeply satisfying. The poem below, a blessing, For Longing, is one that I have been been both feeling and sharing these past weeks. May it inspire. It does for me.

For Longing by John O’Donohue

Blessed be the longing that brought you here

And quickens your soul with wonder.

May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire

That disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.

May you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease

To discover the new direction your longing wants you to take.

May the forms of your belonging–in love, creativity, and friendship–

Be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul.

May the one you long for long for you.

May your dreams gradually reveal the destination of your desire.

May a secret Providence guide your thought and nurture your feeling.

May your mind inhabit your life with the sureness with which
your body inhabits the world.

May your heart never be haunted by ghost-structures of old damage.

May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.

May you know the urgency with which God longs for you.

 

 

Over the last year, I’ve done a lot of thinking about “home.” Home as place. Home as geography. Home as being with friends. Home as memory. Home as comfortable in one’s skin. Ah, there it is. Comfort. Maybe what carries across all of these aspects of home is a feeling of comfort, of belonging. 

I’m in one of those stretches of the calendar where the home that is geography is quite welcomed. Six of seven weeks are on the road, away from the home that is Utah. This includes all good things — a board meeting for a non-profit, four Art of Hosting events (reaching 200 people), and a healing retreat. I am “home” now, today being the third of four days in such manner. To be with my kids. To eat Sunday dinner. To walk my dog a few times. To take a long, hot bath. To catch up to email and tasks that have had to wait while I’ve been hosting. To prepare for the events that are coming. To stack up essential phone meetings that can’t wait another two weeks. It is full. I am full.

Perhaps “home” is a marker for the deep longings that so many of us feel. In a way, with my kids, all I’ve ever wanted is to be a good dad. I love them. I love watching them grow into their adult lives. Hearing what they are studying. Hearing what they are questioning. I love playing games with my youngest, now nine. Laughing. Teasing. Being dad is a home for me. I know that I am uniquely fed by being with my kids, even in the ambient togetherness that is doing separate things under the same roof. I believe they are fed by being together, even in the simple touchstone that is a Sunday dinner with overcooked chicken.

Our longings feed us. Our “coded for together” feeds us. These are impressions that ground me while I’m here, in the home that is family. And they are impressions that I will carry with me into the next two weeks, where others, from other homes, will turn to each other with longings, and likely, surprise belongings.

 

 

Though the poem below  is entitled “Walk Slowly,” the last ten days have ran very quickly for me. Much of that was being with my mates preparing and offering The Art of Hosting on Bowen Island, a small but beautiful section of it shown in this photo.

The next two weeks will also be full with upcoming events. I know during these times that my attention is on the events — it means I don’t blog in the rhythm of Monday – Thursday that I have been practicing.

So, for now, I love this poem, used during a circle on the second day at Bowen. To close a very well hosted set of simultaneous circles in groups of eight.

 

Walk Slowly
Danna Faulds

It only takes a reminder to breathe,
a moment to be still, and just like that,
something in me settles, softens, makes
space for imperfection. The harsh voice
of judgement drops to a whisper and I
remember again that life isn’t a relay
race; that we all will cross the finish
line; that waking up to life is what we
were born for. As many times as I
forget, to catch myself charging forward
without even knowing where I am going,
that many times I can make the choice
to stop, to breathe, and be, and walk
slowly in the mystery.

Remember the animated film, Dumbo? I do. I remember watching it on TV as a kid. I was probably snuggled in on the couch with my parents, my sister, and likely our dog named Boo. I also remember watching Dumbo with my kids. Particularly my two oldest, who are now 19 and 17 respectively. Again snuggled in on a couch. Dumbo with his giant ears. The other elephants made fun of him. Dumbo was sad. It turns out Dumbo, the mean nickname that the others gave him replacing Jumbo Jr., could fly. That film came out in 1941, 74 years ago, which kind of wows me.

As I remember, Dumbo’s mouse friend Timothy gives Dumbo a feather and proclaims it to be magic. He gives it to Dumbo when Dumbo is doubting his ability to fly. The short of it is that it works. Dumbo believes it. Flies. Is shocked and afraid to fly without the feather. Gets over that fear. Saves his mom. Even acts out a bit of revenge shooting peanuts at the mean elephants. Earns the respect of the other elephants and animals.

One of the aspects that I remember from the movie, and that wows me still today, was Dumbo’s magic feather. The feather was what I would call a talisman. Some might relate to it as a good-luck charm. Regardless, the talisman is enough to convince Dumbo of an ability that he already has. He can fly with those big ears. He just doest fully know it in himself. The talisman convinces him of an internal, inherent ability. It is a kind of placebo.

These kind of talismans are very much a part of my life. If not to improve an ability, to hold a memory just a bit closer than it would otherwise be. I often carry a small stone in my pocket to remind me of a person, or sometimes a place. One from a coastline on Whidbey Island in the US Northwest reminds me of powerful meetings that I’ve had with colleagues on that island. The stone brings back the feeling of friendship, colleagueship, and soulful collaboration — and invokes it in the present moment. Another talisman, also a stone, is from Greece. It reminds me of the Dad / Daughter trip I took two years ago with my now 19 year-old daughter. That stone brings back the Kastri Beach in a heartbeat, the feel of the sun, the beauty of the water, and the deep love I feel for adventure with my daughter. It brings family and adventure into the present.

Talismans like this may be made up, creating an attractive make-believe — that is one purpose. Yet they still invoke an emotional state. Arguably a alternative time reality, a kind of transportation to that physical time. Talismans bend time. They can bend reality also, which, in the end, perhaps is meant to be bent.

All of this from Dumbo and his friend Timothy. More later.