Postcards from the Field: Sunday 5.30.21
… it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
— William Stafford, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”
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With the line “… hold to the truth of the image you were born with…” and overall themes of his poem “All the True Vows” , Anglo-Irish poet David Whyte describes this need and challenge to hear and reconcile these equally real voices of the different levels within us.
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“There is no house like the house of belonging,” David Whyte again (unusually chatty this week) portrays a deeply authentic soul-home that’s beyond, not necessarily even similar to, street address or physical dwelling.
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A word about my signature images: the butterfly is symbol for both the psyche/soul and for the initiatory process of transformation (metamorphosis.) And the Eros (love) heart is a reminder for me of the title concept from my professor and friend Veronica Goodchild’s book, Eros and Chaos, which proposes that the opposite and counter-balance to chaos is not control, rigidity, tighter rules etc., but Eros, love. (I visualize this in hand gestures, with the former palms-down and clenched, the latter palms-up and open.) I find both the Eros image and the open hand-gesture useful reminders to sometimes go against my own, very “Logos (word)-happy” grain!