by Terry Tempest Williams

I was moved by these words from Terry Tempest Williams right from the first time I came across them, and this movedness is growing.

Let me tell you why…

Last week I facilitated a ritual in the context of the Work That Reconnects where we stretched our imagination a bit: we divided our group in two, arranged that half of us would remain being people alive in 2019, and the other half donned themselves in some sort of headdress and became a human of the 7^th generation from now, which is about 200 years in the future. We chanted the sound ‘Ah’ together to transport ourselves into Timeless Time, so the future generations could have the chance to ask some questions to the 2019 people.

The ritual was based on the assumption that there are human beings living together in 200 years from now who have cultural and historical memory, meaning that the current human beings they were talking with must have played some role in the transition from what in the Work That Reconnects is called ‘the Industrial Growth Society’ to a ‘Life Sustaining Society’ – for it seems that if we keep going on this industrial growth path, the future is not looking bright for those who are coming after us.

So having arrived in timeless time, the people from the 7^th generation were paired up with their ‘ancestors’. They were given several questions to ask about what it’s like to live in the beginning of the 21^st century, in the time of nuclear weapons, melting glaciers, bleaching coral reefs and unprecedented burning in the arctic and the Amazon. They asked how it was to take the first steps towards trying to contribute to positive change, and what kept their ancestors going in the face of obstacles and an uncertain future?

Having listened to different 2019 people answering these questions, the future beings responded from their heart. Empathy, gratitude and tenderness flowed richly, leading to a profound experience for both groups which together we reflected on in depth.

I guess the context for the profoundness was the concern many of us live with about what the world will be like for those who come after us, and I also experience this strongly in the poem above. So it was really precious to look directly into some of these ‘eyes of the future’ while they were ‘looking back at us’ and to hear their prayer, their gratitude for any acting ‘with restraint’ and for creating ‘room for the life that is destined to come’.

Back in the brightness of day, it’s leading to piercing questions: am I acting with restraint? With grace? Am I protecting what’s wild and gentle? Can I do more?? Not out of some moral ‘should’ or personal martyrdom, but out of connectedness and love for those yet unborn?

So since this practice, I’ve began to include the future generations in my loving kind practice. May my loved ones be well, and my neutral ones, stretching into those difficult ones… and then on to the great-grandchildren of my now 6 year-old son, the offspring of the skylarks that I love to hear singing in the Pentland hills, the future generations of elephants, Soay sheep, narwhals, whoever comes to mind. I wish I felt confident there will be wildness for them to inhabit, or that they’ll be able to come into being at all…

Alex Evans wrote in his interesting book ‘The Myth Gap’ that what is needed is the sense of a ‘larger us’, and a ‘longer now’. Both this poem, this ritual and this practice help me connect with that. They help to stretch to include those I experience as ‘them’, whether geographically, ideologically, or chronologically. And from this larger connectedness, it might be a bit easier to make choices that enhance the chance of the future ones flourishing in their lives. May it be so!

PS If you’d like to hear the words from Terry Tempest Williams in context and from her own mouth, you can go here…

Photo by Lauren Kay on Unsplash

by Theresa of Avila

It surprised me to find that these were the words were written by the 16th century Spanish saint. On reflection, I realise that somehow I – clearly wrongly! – associate Christian mystics with something more meek and mild, or austere and obedient. Nothing wrong with that either of course, but I appreciate the independent daring and the close, accessible splendour these words invite to. Makes me curious about what other misconceptions I carry around, and what ‘mindful poetry’ of cultures and religions/philosophies other than western and Buddhist I may not yet know about.

Sitting here this morning, the words themselves lead to a still place and a soft longing for magnificent refuge St Theresa is talking about. So I guess it’s time to ‘be bold. Be humble’ and see where it leads…

Photo by Javier Miranda on Unsplash

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

By Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Some weeks are more challenging than others, and sometimes some serious showing up is required. It was one of those weeks for me, and this poem goes straight to the heart of the matter. This is what I feel life is asking of me: who are you, and can you be present with all of my invitations? Can you meet the joy, the ecstasy, the beauty of being alive – as well as the grief, the empty moments, the failures and betrayals you might encounter?

It’s so easy to get caught up by what seems urgent and lose sight of what’s important. But every now and then there is a wake-up call to presence, an invitation to review what really matters. Sometimes life offers this all by itself, but I think it’s also useful to check in every now and then with ourselves and see if we’re still on track with living our values. We do this towards the end of the Level 1 training in a particular guided reflection, but also it can be part of getting in touch with our motivation at the beginning of each session. Why am I practising, what am I hoping for in my life, what matters most and how can I be brave enough to meet it all?

I remember first reading this poem as a teenager and being struck by the sense of urgency to not waste time with what’s not important, and to meet life fully. I was interested to read it was the response to an attempt to be sociable at a party, which left the author – a Canadian mother of two – “with the familiar hollow feeling of having gone through the motions.”  She says “I wrote what I need to remember, what I need to hear again and again: that life is full of beauty and pain; that the world will break your heart and heal it, over and over, if you let it, and that letting it do both is the only way to live fully; that we are not alone but deeply connected to that which creates, and sustains all life” (read the full article here).

And to me, this is very much connected with what I am practising both on the cushion  and how I’d like to live… it’s good to be invited!

Photo by Peter John Maridable on Unsplash