After a couple of songs, with our hearts pounding, we sat down scattered around floor pillows and couches for some connecting time. For us, that means having everyone in the group share about how their week unfolded while the rest of us offer empathy (i.e. listening for their feelings and needs) and occasionally honesty (i.e. expressing what we are feeling and what needs are being met by what we heard the other person say). We expressed a desire to have everyone share before 10 PM (when some of us start getting sleepy), and asked people to limit their sharing to 5-10 minutes? We haven't quite figured out how to put limits on sharing, but we were able to get to everyone this time.
Before the sharing began, one of our music enthusiasts played a couple of classical pieces and asked us to draw and/or express what came up for us. I immediately interpreted the music as sad (I experienced sadness), and I drew a cloud passing over a valley with tears falling from it into a vast and deep well, which looked more like a lake (see picture). To the right of the well were the "Green Rolling Hills" from my prior poem.
After the musical part, we went around the room and everyone chose what they wanted to talk about (i.e. the art, their week). The sharing of one particular person resonated with me as she spoke of her pain and how in her experience it had given her a capacity for joy that she wouldn't have otherwise. I was touched by what she shared as it met my needs for authenticity, connection, and shared experience. -- particularly, since my drawing and the start of my poem coincided so powerfully with what I was hearing. And then she read a poem by Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet" called "On Joy and Sorrow". Her sharing and poem coincided in spirit with the drawing and poem that I had started earlier. The start of my poem -- the words that I wrote under my picture that evening are the following:
"Sweet hopeful sadness which feeds the well
which runs deep inside
energized sadness gives me life
as I feel the pain inside me"
"Remembering the times which are no more
I am glad that I am here, and yet I am drawn to what was"
which runs deep inside
energized sadness gives me life
as I feel the pain inside me"
"Remembering the times which are no more
I am glad that I am here, and yet I am drawn to what was"
This is all that I wrote that evening; and like last time, I woke up the next morning and finished the poem and sent it out to my friends. I am willing to send a copy by request, provided that you agree to keep it to yourself.
Has this moved anything in you?
2 comments:
I have been reading your website and blog this week, James, and am finding lots of good stuff to ponder in what I’m reading. This week, I went for a hike in the green rolling hills above my home. This particular trail is my favorite of the trails near my home because it leads you higher up and deeper in to a canyon with a rushing stream at the bottom, hundreds of feet below you. As you climb higher and deeper in to the canyon, the elevation of the stream also increases, and you come closer and closer to the stream, until, at last, the trail meets the stream. When you reach this point, you can sit beside the stream, touch it, even dip your feet in to the cool, refreshing, flowing water. The stream flows particularly strongly after heavy rains such as what we’ve had this winter, and during the rainier winter months, the experience of the hike is enhanced by the sound of the rushing water echoing from hundreds of feet below you as you climb up in to the canyon. As I hiked my favorite trail this week, your image of green rolling hills and tears filling up a well or lake came to my mind as I climbed up the steep switchbacks in to the canyon.
As I began my climb, I was aware of the dull rush of the 210 freeway and the city echoing from the LA Basin (in this first section of the hike, it’s not possible to hear the water because the trail has not yet turned in to the canyon, you are climbing the hills in front of the entrance to the canyon). Then, after about 15-20 minutes of climbing, the trail took a turn in to the canyon, and suddenly the sound of the freeway faded away and all I could hear was the sound of the rushing water below, and there was an immediate sense of retreat and going deeper, on many levels. I thought again of your image and experienced that it was only by climbing deeper into the hills that I was coming closer to the inner water of my personhood and what it symbolized to me. To me, it symbolized hope, love, centeredness, connectedness. As I hiked higher and higher, taking in the ever-changing panorama of green hills with waterfalls far below, I thought of your image of rain as tears, filling up the well inside, and how this connected to my experience of the stream flowing so strongly and loudly with hope at this moment mainly as a result of the recent heavy rains, and how the beauty of this canyon had been carved and shaped by this very stream. Thank you for sharing your image and excerpt from your poem. It enhanced and made more rich and meaningful both my physical journey of the hike and my inner journey of self-understanding.
I am coming to think that there are times when people are able to connect with the same source of wisdom that might have generated both my poem, the Gibran's poem, and the story that my friend shared in the group. I actually thought I experienced this again on Sunday when I was videoconferencing with my friend Juergen in Germany. As I was explaining what had happened on "another evening of connecting", and how sometimes sorrow and joy can be felt at the same time, he said something to me (I wish I remember what) that caused me to think of a translation of John 1 that rung true for me in the past and seemed relevant in the moment. I asked him if I could read it to him, so I did (I am grateful to Dan Tocchini for this translation by Erasmus). And afterwards, we experienced a very deep connection as our conversation progressed (these words don't do it justice and I won't try). Here's the translation:
"It all arose out of a Conversation, a Conversation within God.
In fact, the Conversation was God.
So, God started the discussion and everything came out of this and nothing happened without consultation.
This was the life, the life that was the light of men shining in the darkness, a darkness which neither understood nor quenched its creativity.
John, a man sent by God, came to remind people about the nature of the light so that they would observe.
He was not the subject under discussion but the bearer of an invitation to join in.
The subject of the Conversation, the original light, came into the world, the world that had arisen out of his willingness to converse.
He fleshed out the words but the world did not understand. He came to those who knew the language, but they did not respond.
Those who did became a new creation (his children); they read the signs and responded.
These children were born out of sharing in the creative activity of God.
They heard the Conversation still going on, here, now, and took part, discovering a new way of being people.
To be invited to share in a Conversation about the nature of life, was for them, a glorious opportunity not to be missed."
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