On Fragility & Resilience: cradled in the roots of hope

bumblebees collecting nectar in the garden of broken things

Begin at the beginning I tell myself. Start somewhere, anywhere, just type. I was reading something yesterday that I wrote last year and remembered I might have more to say. Its been a long silent season since I've sat with the intention to write more than a paragraph or two. Since I've been able to make contact with the impulse that fires the synapse fueling the head-heart-voice-fingers-keyboard physics that lands words on the page. Being unconnected with writing I've put my head and my hands in the sand, waiting out the winter blues, the spring surges, the oppressive summer heat. Truth is that pushing through the silence is both impossible and necessary. Truth is that, in this season, if I can't push through I will implode. Maybe its the new moon, maybe its the year turning and summer's ending. Maybe its just the personal developmental shift thats been unfolding. This morning I asked the universe for a fresh tide.

Art is remedy even when it reflects despair. This is ancient wisdom, I should not have to be reminded yet I forget again and again. The year preceding this one was rough. Started with a major spine surgery and ended with a life threatening 'cardiac event'. In between there was a national election with dark global consequences unlikely to resolve in my life time. Its easy enough to sum up my circumstances and set them on the page, but seeing the words makes me want to close the screen and walk away. Instead I search on youtube for flamenco music to play through the computer while I write. The rhythm resonating under my typing fingers is alive in elemental flow. I keep my hands on the keys, lean in and then lean in more. Even a clumsy sentence is whole.

Staying in touch with the habit of consistent effort is part of a writer's discipline. Its how our mind choreographs the nuance between a wisp of idea and a cohesive sentence. I used to have a map when I sat to write, not a plan so much as a game-trail to follow through my internal landscape, towards a point I already understood to exist even if I couldn't see or express it yet. I trusted this process for years and since the heart attack it seems I've lost hold of the thread that pulls me through the eye of the needle to a tidy conclusion. Sorting through all this, consciously and otherwise, has been instructive. I've lost confidence in the redemptive lift I was in the habit of writing towards, that light at the end of the tunnel. I've been so reluctant to muck about in the dark that I have inadvertently silenced myself. I am finally considering the possibility that not every redemption is a lift, or that not every lift is redemptive. I am learning anew to breathe, even in the dark.

The winds of change buffet us, ordinary people doing our best to survive the machinations of despots and tyrants. There are unusual masked dangers afoot and humanity's old familiar demons are rising; ignorance, famine, disease, war. One could be forgiven for thinking I'm blowing this out of proportion but here we are. Sometimes I sit at my desk stunned by how swiftly America has been engulfed by christian-derived madness. I go to the store for groceries like I always do and people seem unusually guarded. On the way home I hear that someone not far enough away from here was taken from their car by ICE, their child left weeping in the back seat. Because ICE is making America safe for entitled white people, professing as Christians, to bring on the rapture promised in religious texts. How I wish I was making this shit up! I have to wonder, have I been scared that placing my words on the page somehow gives credence to what is happening? Or makes me vulnerable to being snatched up…? Keeping these words from spilling through my fingertips has not made anything better at all. I ache all over, all the time. I don't feel 'like myself' because my country has been engulfed in hate.

I do not consent to this entanglement with mass social cruelty but, as was made clear in the midst of my recent heart attack, I remain curious and want to stay. Regardless of my opposition, the only way out of the dark we are in is through, even when there is no light at the end of the tunnel to aim for. As a person disabled by a progressive spinal cord injury, and now heart disease, I've had to make friends with profound fragility. Its not how we like to see ourselves but I believe that when we're open to how deeply vulnerable we are our inner strength finds us (I did mention mucking about in the dark earlier). Here's the thing, we have to let go of pretending all this is ordinary. Pretending we aren't scared into keeping our words inside. We each have to get the hang of calculating the risk-benefit ratio of existing in our current circumstances. Its a lot of personal math, and the rate of change is sometimes unbearable. I'm learning to maintain a cache of work-arounds to employ when limited by my own capacity or hindered by systems inconsistent with human decency. I worry what will happen when I encounter an ICE raid in person, what will I do with this rage?

Resolve obstacles and reduce suffering, this is the mission I've set for this lifetime. I find myself regularly biting off more than I think I can chew, and then just doing my best. The terrifying situation on the streets presents a challenging environment for a creative person whose projects are specifically designed to benefit public well-being. Political disruption, weather, and covid make planning and manifestation ridiculously difficult in a country that is firing scientists, closing hospitals, and persecuting farm workers. We make do with less of most of what we need in order to do more good for every one. Hows that for a conundrum!? There's a benefit concert on my to do list, along with hospice story-collecting, workshops to write, and a public-access Labyrinth to bring into being. Because death and grief education is all about celebrating life and I can't think of a better way to resist fascists.

Who is a seed saver? A person who values nature's capacity for sustenance and renewal. Here at the beginning of what looks to be an ongoing international upheaval, it is wise to consider how we'll pass forward all of what is good and whole in us. Because we are the ancestors of the people who will establish a new balance. It is true that there has always been enough for all. Preserved with loving kindness and cradled in the roots of hope, the seeds of a genuinely just human community are our treasure. Meanwhile, we hunker down and keep each other safe as best we can. Even in dark times, accomplishing goals is not rocket science. Getting shit done takes a clear head and consistent effort. Getting shit done, even a little thing like putting these words on a page and sharing, also nourishes our resilience. So, just in case it might be helpful to you, here's a picture of my recent 'life instructions' list. Its taped to the wall above my desk to remind me. I'm not sure it is effective in any practical way, but its helping me get by in the day-to-day. Next time I make a list I'm gonna add 'taste as you go'. Whats on your list?