Weekly Wide-Awake #13
Invincible Summer
“O light! This is the cry of all the characters of ancient drama brought face to face with their fate. This last resort was ours, too, and I knew it now. In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer.”
Albert Camus
This week summer settled in my bones. I am unsure why I felt summer this week or if it will continue as bright green trees eventually turn toward Autumn. Today, I am thinking of summer. Today, I am thinking about where I find my juice, jazz, and jump. How do I find my rhythm, flow, and center? When do I charge, build, and create? Summer is about finding all that. Somewhere in between vulnerability, integrity, audacity, strength, and knowing, I stop, reflect, and recharge again and again, as much as I can, for as long as I can.
What is the relationship between invincibility and rest? How do they live in the same body and brain? How do they not live in the same body and brain? Katherine May writes about the value of what she calls “wintering” — slowing down, reflecting, chewing, digesting, and healing — and suggests wintering can occur at any time.
Wintering is critical to uncovering our invincible summer. Stay with me. We each know invincible summer — the space inside filled with deep love for ourselves, others, and our world. Rest is the heart of invincible summer. That is where we are. It is summer, and we need to accept the invitation to rest.
MONDAYS ARE FREE 066 — 070
Monsters. Owls. Rest. Honor.
EXERCISE 066: MAKE A MONSTER
all the things the monster can do
Make a monster by taking a known animal or critter and multiplying one of its body parts (600-eyed horse; two-tongued pigeon; four-armpit uncle). Describe all the things the monster can do that it couldn’t do if it only had the conventional number of body parts.
A 1000-ear owl lives in a tree outside my house. I have always been fascinated by owls. Their wisdom and perception. Their serenity and beauty. Their stoicism and humor. Think about how an owl with 1000-ears could listen and hear. What if their majesty was matched by their ability to listen and hear? In a world where information comes at us every minute of the day, making the distinction between listening (giving our attention to a sound) and hearing (the faculty of perceiving sound) is important.
Taking A Walk #15
Gospel. Hands. Tenderness.
Gospel Music Makes Me Weep
On singing into the I am and the not yet
“Spirit of Life, come unto me./ Sing in my heart all the stirrings of compassion./ Blow in the wind, rise in the sea;/ Move in the hand, giving life the shape of justice./ Roots hold me close; wings set me free;/ Spirit of Life, come to me, come to me.” - Carolyn McDade
I already knew I would cry when I read there would be a Gospel choir visiting church that Sunday. Everything about Gospel music makes me weep. Weeping is different than crying because weeping comes from the place in my soul that knows things. Things like — it does not have to be this way and it breaks my heart that it is. Things like — love one another. Full stop. Things like — building the beloved community is painful. Things like — I don’t care why they are scared or angry or “believe in small government.” (I am not at all curious about why they believe as they believe, and I am generally a voraciously curious person.) Things like — I am so damn angry I could bust.
What I Keep Learning
To Rest Like a Tree
Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow come and go like the wind. To be happy, rest like a great tree in the midst of them all. – Buddha’s Little Instruction Book
I love trees. I have a list of my favorite trees from different places I have lived. The cherry tree in the front yard of my first childhood home. The willow trees next to the swings in my childhood neighborhood. The massive oak in the backyard of the house my parents owned for more than 30 years. The tree outside my house in Bellingham framed Mt. Baker. The trees in Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC. The trees in Friendship Park in Cincinnati. The Banyans in my neighborhood in Miami. The trees that line the Atlanta Beltline.
Porch Swing, Summer in a Glass
Porch swing, summer in a glass./ Drinks get named for thirsts we discuss.// Discussions skirt deeper thirsts./Such thirsts burn, turn sand to mirages./ A mirage is a drink the mind mixes./In a glass marked no it pours out yes.// Yes, the sign says, this door is an entrance./At the portal, fields flower without end.// End of the road, grim terminus./We’re thirsty, we get force-fed. — Andrea Cohen
Summer is the time for deep thirst. Something about heat: we long for something. Longing agitates rest. Longing pokes the soft underbelly of rest. We need to escape. We search to fill the empty. We dance or cry. We retreat into quiet or burst into song. If wintering, as Katherine May suggests, is about allowing ourselves to turn inward, reflect, and heal, summering is about turning outward and allowing ourselves to feel deeply and state our desires. Rest, there, looks like relief and laying our burden down. The naming and claiming of our passions, the statement of our most sincere wishes and dreams, the calling into reality a deeply held “yes” is how we quench summer’s thirst and rest.
Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,/ So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. — Shakespeare
Love, like summer, is rest, stillness, and slowing down. Love, like summer, is rejuvenation, quiet, and growth. Love, like summer, breath, beauty, and joy. Love, like summer, is light, brilliance, and warmth.
Paying Attention
The Art of Stillness — Pico Iyer
Shakespeare’s “Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day? (Sonnet 18)”
Porch Swing, Summer in a Glass, Andrea Cohen
How to rest effectively — The Atlantic