Oh my. Beautiful. Perfect antidote to watching the Trump/Musk inauguration speeches over breakfast - I don't ever learn, although I do feel the need to witness.
The Ayisha Siddiqa poem, so powerful - it deeply answers a question I have been sitting with for ages - in terms of right actions for me, does my energy go to fighting the injustice and brokenness or to building a more loving alternative? Why does one feel like a cop-out even though I am more drawn to it - "Rage against the injustice makes the voice grow harsher yet." Thank you, ties so beautifully with Madeleline's point "love as an act of justice".
Conformity as a cheap fix for separation - I am never going to be able to unsee this.
"What mad fun! Goddamn. It was there all along!" Your writing hums with the perfection of your vulnerability and the honesty of taking this journey alongside all of us. You have my deep gratitude! xo
I like to "witness" what's happening too but I have decided to be careful about what I watch/listen to while I eat. Somehow I feel like I'm swallowing the crap of the world along with my food.
I haven't been able to watch the LA fires...I don't feel there is anything I can say, or there's a need to bear witness (as I do with the Gazan horror). So I have tuned out from it. The "wonderful" thing about algorithms online is that as you tune out, they tune it out even more for you!
I'm with you Karola. I have developed a really low tolerance to swallowing all.the.crap that is constantly dished up. I almost gagged just reading the headlines this morning (I definitely can't do the detail)!!
I think I've already joined Sarah on focusing on the birthing of something much better 🥰
I still feel that history is happening and we have to be alive to it. Maybe the art to it is to not disassociate or cocoon, but to observe it consciously and equally consciously choose put up a boundary.
Love this response Gillian, I believe in the power of building loving alternatives …fighting evil, gives it energy and attention, best to let it wither as all does without love ❤️
I’m so grateful to you for sharing about trying to sit “like a ninja” in the face of personal losses. I feel the gut punches too Sarah.
Yesterday a double gut punch as I lost the friendship of my best friend of 50 years and my other best friend of 25 years - neither of whom I had ever had a disagreement with until now. 75 years of collaboration and closest loving female friendships that covered every part of my life. The love and connection a foundation of my being as every woman knows.
The upsets not connected yet a micro of everything in the collapse right now: from one, a Jewess who felt “triggered“ by me not reading the “right” newspaper article about antisemitism in Sydney and the world .. the other a quarter of a century collaborating on global transformation not enough because I have not taken to social media to register my obvious horror about Gaza. Apparently I am not a good enough ally anymore. My grief for the world is not enough. My work on reconnection and transformation, my writing and the example of my life are not enough . I keep repeating ‘hurt people hurt people’ as a mantra to try to understand this madness. I am not sharing this story by way of self righteousness at all. I am trying to understand what the lessons are and therefore what the opportunity is as this collapse quickens.
I realize that I too can spread the madness of my own grief. My humanity is just as fragile and full of fault lines that ripple out to unseen impacts.
I have to forgive myself first for not being the friend that they needed, for not loving myself and the world enough to salve the pain of not being enough love.
I’m sharing this not for sympathy either. We are all going through versions of this right now. It is a moment of heartbreak 💔 wide open for each other and our beautiful beloved planet.
Yes love is all that there is.
I’m choosing being creative to express my love each day.
Over decades I’ve spent a lot of time with people dying, as well as my own share of brushes close to the edge and always found it a privilege to be able to be present in that space. The honest and beautiful conversations at the end are often transcendent. I hope to find lots more of these conversations with people here in our coming days.
Thank you 🙏 once again Sarah for your beautiful work. It’s helping me not feel quite so alone right now.
Oh yes...the losing friends things is dialling up. All around me people are saying they are experiencing the same. I've lost three Jewish friends who feel betrayed by my public utterances on the subject and another, too, who claims I don't speak up enough for Gazans. Each loss has really hurt. But I don't know that there is a meta lesson here other than that fracturing is part of this. I've resolved I don't have the space to lament the losses, nor to try to understand them. I accept that this is where we are and try not to have judgement, but focus on holding steady. I marvel at how "reason" and morality is now divvying up...it seemingly does't follow the old lines, the old patterns.
I can feel those gut punches and your devastation through your poignant words Kaama. But I also see the strength of a woman who is true to herself, despite the loss and grief.
Thank you for sharing your vulnerability and strength 🥰
Thanks Ellen. I hope you’re right. As I sat to write this morning I found I’m up to a chapter in my new book all about ‘Letting Go’ . Gotta laugh or I’ll cry. It’s been quite the 24 hours for all of us hey?
Gosh Kaama - “75 years of collaboration and closest loving female friendships that covered every part of my life” thats a deep surrender but what grace and clarity for you ahead as you live in your truth. I have experienced similar surrenders but not such long friendships. Take care
Kaama, I'm so sorry for the breadth and heaviness of this loss. I can feel it's hugeness in your words. May the beauty of your faithfulness to remain open to love despite what it has cost be a deep and abiding form of connection and healing.
Thank you, Madeleine. I think 'as above so below', so to speak, for us all. I will always be open to love, even in the face of hatefulness and untruth. Resignation, doubt, and cynicism have seemed to me to be the pernicious woes for us humans.
Thinking of this manifesto for love that you published today Sarah and I'm just hopping back on here super quick to share this video of Valerie Kaur. For those who have not heard of her, She's a lawyer, activist, Sikh, and a spiritual leader, and in this clip she's at an event with the Rev. William Barber III, a huge figure in the current civil rights movement. She is talking about America about 8 years ago in this clip, but I think what she says applies to the world now too. "Maybe we can choose to see the darkness we find ourselves not as the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb". YAAAAS QUEEN! 🔥
I've heard that line before, perhaps you shared it with me. The darkness of the womb and tomb...in some ways, in the cycle of life, they are the same vessel.
Thank you for sharing this! Being reminded of the darkness that is inherent within the womb is so powerful. We can give birth to something beautiful if we choose love, as Sarah says.
You and me and many people here, Karola. I pulse between the emotions, and I allow this. I work to not get stuck in grief, anger etc, however. Because it is very easy to. These emotions have to pass through. I find they pass through when I allow my heart to release into love...and, yes, often via absurdity.
Karola, this brought tears to my eyes: "this has meant that I have been able to completely and finally let go of some old grievances that had a deep hold on me". Oh, my soul, some grave clothes fell off right there -- I hope that you feel the warmth of life on your skin that doesn't need to be hidden anymore, and the warmth of your innate goodness as you turn towards possibility. Thank you for posting about what you allowed to die. I had goosebumps reading it.
I've been trying to recall who said something along the lines of, "What if climate change really IS a hoax, and we end up restoring the earth's waters and air and soil for nothing??"
I don't think we'll get to choose which way this goes, but I do know the right choices to make so that I can live with myself.....and others.
So much in both the chapter, and these comments. As I sat in bed this morning, having carefully read it all, I knew the important question for me right now is 'how can I love more?' That brought to mind David Whyte's story about his own burnout: racing into a meeting at the charity where he worked and asking 'has anyone seen David?' Mortified by his mistake (he was the only David working there) he took himself home where his friend (a Franciscan monk I think) was due. When he arrived David said to him, in the manner of the confessional, speak to me about exhaustion. To which his friend replied 'the remedy for exhaustion is not rest; it is wholeheartedness'. The world feels like an exhausting place to me; I'm going to try as much as I can to meet it with wholeheartedness...
Yep I'm with you on this. I think we need to go through the loss to really appreciate what we have left and realise what is important. My relationships are the most important thing to me. I have also learnt that my capacity for love and my integrity can't be taken. All of the memories and experiences that live inside me and have shaped who I am cannot be taken. The Janis Joplin quote that you mentioned sums it up perfectly "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose”.
I was in a car crash recently and my van which was my last remaining prized possessions (I already lost my house, relationship, community and self esteem) was written off. I lamented to my daughter that the universe hates me and her reply was this "Mum, no-one was hurt. The universe loves you, the universe is looking after you" (my daughter is 13 and much wiser than me). I like to believe that the universe is preparing me.
Maybe it matters, maybe it doesn't but one thing for certain in the vastness of it all is that
Kristy H was ere (not sure if this is just an Aussie thing)
That is super beautiful, Kristy. I had a big warm fuzzy seeing my name there. Seeing your self respect, integrity and love in all your comments, and feeling a tonne of respect for you.
Children are excellent at seeing things differently- glad you were okay and sorry you have lost so much beforehand. The vastness and infiniteness are great reality checks, hey? Out existence is the merest pinprick in two endless stretches of time that bookend our little moment in the sun. We bear witness.
I love this, Sarah, and agree that love is the best antidote to the horrors that are taking place all around us, although it's something I need constant reminding of, as I'm finding it very difficult to shake off the anger, rage, despair and overwhelm at the moment (I guess that all of these feelings can somewhat co-exist with love though - and can be kinds of love, just not always expressed in ways that move us forward).
I'm sitting in a café in Ubud at the moment and as I was reading this post, this song started playing over the loudspeaker, and it felt like a perfect accompaniment to your words:
Also, I watched this wonderful talk by Bayo Akomolafe the other day (a group of us here in Bali have just started a 'making sanctuary' group / fortnightly gathering to discuss Bayo's work and ideas), and these are a couple of the quotes I noted down, which also feel relevant to what you've written:
"The very resources we deploy to address our oppression… reinforce that oppression. We need a way through. We need a third path."
and also:
"We need to be composted. We need to fall apart, but we need to fall apart together."
Sending love to you and everyone in this beautiful community (and sorry I've been quiet here lately), Siobhán xx
Separation, yes! From each other and from nature. Mine is not as jaw dropping as Ayisha but I have been trying to bear witness both in painting and in words all the things that have made me catch my breath in the last little while. Maybe someone out there can relate...i've been looking to see a blue banded bee for years!
Requiem for a dying planet
The perfect glass bead of dew clings to a brassica leaf.
Gloriousness made plain by the proximity of a bedazzled spider web;
perfection, glittering in the buttery sunrise.
God’s fingers reaching down from bruised clouds as if to spotlight the glory that is,
Every.
Day.
If you take the time to look.
A blue banded bee zips excitedly between purple borage stars
Neighbouring European ones comparatively lackadaisical
The call of a yellow tail black cockatoo sounds like the cry I feel in my very soul
when I look at all the surrounding beauty
that is part of us,
but which will be, is being, lost.
Left as a whisper in the memory of those who noticed.
Iridescent purple tendrils of an artichoke
almost too bright to believe.
The soft fluff and peep of a newly hatched duckling
When you find your path , or when you are truly in the world. The path disappears and your life begins, lived not from your fevered mind , but from your heart , and the hearts of others
Beautiful words and insights Sarah thank you. I love Ayisha Siddiqa’s poem. I’m reminded of a quote in the Course of Miracles - “The holiest spot on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love.” This quote to me speaks of the need for a focus on love over fear … forgiveness and the absolute power of love. And adding a WOW to Bishop Mariann Budde’s inaugural prayer service! Divine feminine in action.
Love this!! Best thing I’ve seen/read lately and so glad I read this today. I have a few friends in mind that I’m going to share this with, thank you so f*cking much for writing this!
Such a powerful chapter. Feeling so grateful to be part of this evolving narrative.This one I'm just going to soak up. I have no other words. Love and thanks.
Oh my. Beautiful. Perfect antidote to watching the Trump/Musk inauguration speeches over breakfast - I don't ever learn, although I do feel the need to witness.
The Ayisha Siddiqa poem, so powerful - it deeply answers a question I have been sitting with for ages - in terms of right actions for me, does my energy go to fighting the injustice and brokenness or to building a more loving alternative? Why does one feel like a cop-out even though I am more drawn to it - "Rage against the injustice makes the voice grow harsher yet." Thank you, ties so beautifully with Madeleline's point "love as an act of justice".
Conformity as a cheap fix for separation - I am never going to be able to unsee this.
"What mad fun! Goddamn. It was there all along!" Your writing hums with the perfection of your vulnerability and the honesty of taking this journey alongside all of us. You have my deep gratitude! xo
I like to "witness" what's happening too but I have decided to be careful about what I watch/listen to while I eat. Somehow I feel like I'm swallowing the crap of the world along with my food.
I haven't been able to watch the LA fires...I don't feel there is anything I can say, or there's a need to bear witness (as I do with the Gazan horror). So I have tuned out from it. The "wonderful" thing about algorithms online is that as you tune out, they tune it out even more for you!
I'm with you Karola. I have developed a really low tolerance to swallowing all.the.crap that is constantly dished up. I almost gagged just reading the headlines this morning (I definitely can't do the detail)!!
I think I've already joined Sarah on focusing on the birthing of something much better 🥰
I still feel that history is happening and we have to be alive to it. Maybe the art to it is to not disassociate or cocoon, but to observe it consciously and equally consciously choose put up a boundary.
That’s true Sarah. I don’t have the capacity to participate in all the torrid detail ATM so I’m practicing setting boundaries like a boss 😜
Ha! Such good advice, no doubt why I have felt nauseous all day!
I din't think about the timing, but, yes.
Gillian, thanks for picking up on the subtleties in what I wrote, as always x
Love this response Gillian, I believe in the power of building loving alternatives …fighting evil, gives it energy and attention, best to let it wither as all does without love ❤️
I’m so grateful to you for sharing about trying to sit “like a ninja” in the face of personal losses. I feel the gut punches too Sarah.
Yesterday a double gut punch as I lost the friendship of my best friend of 50 years and my other best friend of 25 years - neither of whom I had ever had a disagreement with until now. 75 years of collaboration and closest loving female friendships that covered every part of my life. The love and connection a foundation of my being as every woman knows.
The upsets not connected yet a micro of everything in the collapse right now: from one, a Jewess who felt “triggered“ by me not reading the “right” newspaper article about antisemitism in Sydney and the world .. the other a quarter of a century collaborating on global transformation not enough because I have not taken to social media to register my obvious horror about Gaza. Apparently I am not a good enough ally anymore. My grief for the world is not enough. My work on reconnection and transformation, my writing and the example of my life are not enough . I keep repeating ‘hurt people hurt people’ as a mantra to try to understand this madness. I am not sharing this story by way of self righteousness at all. I am trying to understand what the lessons are and therefore what the opportunity is as this collapse quickens.
I realize that I too can spread the madness of my own grief. My humanity is just as fragile and full of fault lines that ripple out to unseen impacts.
I have to forgive myself first for not being the friend that they needed, for not loving myself and the world enough to salve the pain of not being enough love.
I’m sharing this not for sympathy either. We are all going through versions of this right now. It is a moment of heartbreak 💔 wide open for each other and our beautiful beloved planet.
Yes love is all that there is.
I’m choosing being creative to express my love each day.
Over decades I’ve spent a lot of time with people dying, as well as my own share of brushes close to the edge and always found it a privilege to be able to be present in that space. The honest and beautiful conversations at the end are often transcendent. I hope to find lots more of these conversations with people here in our coming days.
Thank you 🙏 once again Sarah for your beautiful work. It’s helping me not feel quite so alone right now.
Oh yes...the losing friends things is dialling up. All around me people are saying they are experiencing the same. I've lost three Jewish friends who feel betrayed by my public utterances on the subject and another, too, who claims I don't speak up enough for Gazans. Each loss has really hurt. But I don't know that there is a meta lesson here other than that fracturing is part of this. I've resolved I don't have the space to lament the losses, nor to try to understand them. I accept that this is where we are and try not to have judgement, but focus on holding steady. I marvel at how "reason" and morality is now divvying up...it seemingly does't follow the old lines, the old patterns.
I’m so grateful for your support of Gaza.
I can feel those gut punches and your devastation through your poignant words Kaama. But I also see the strength of a woman who is true to herself, despite the loss and grief.
Thank you for sharing your vulnerability and strength 🥰
Thanks Ellen. I hope you’re right. As I sat to write this morning I found I’m up to a chapter in my new book all about ‘Letting Go’ . Gotta laugh or I’ll cry. It’s been quite the 24 hours for all of us hey?
It has sure been a week of cascading events for many of us, personally and generally. Let's hope it's not an avalanche!
Yes, letting go can be really difficult, as is forgiving yourself. Tread gently 🥰
Gosh Kaama - “75 years of collaboration and closest loving female friendships that covered every part of my life” thats a deep surrender but what grace and clarity for you ahead as you live in your truth. I have experienced similar surrenders but not such long friendships. Take care
Kaama, I'm so sorry for the breadth and heaviness of this loss. I can feel it's hugeness in your words. May the beauty of your faithfulness to remain open to love despite what it has cost be a deep and abiding form of connection and healing.
Thank you, Madeleine. I think 'as above so below', so to speak, for us all. I will always be open to love, even in the face of hatefulness and untruth. Resignation, doubt, and cynicism have seemed to me to be the pernicious woes for us humans.
Thinking of this manifesto for love that you published today Sarah and I'm just hopping back on here super quick to share this video of Valerie Kaur. For those who have not heard of her, She's a lawyer, activist, Sikh, and a spiritual leader, and in this clip she's at an event with the Rev. William Barber III, a huge figure in the current civil rights movement. She is talking about America about 8 years ago in this clip, but I think what she says applies to the world now too. "Maybe we can choose to see the darkness we find ourselves not as the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb". YAAAAS QUEEN! 🔥
Maybe the divine feminine energy that we've talked about in other chapters is our midwife for these times: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1098675671784423
I've heard that line before, perhaps you shared it with me. The darkness of the womb and tomb...in some ways, in the cycle of life, they are the same vessel.
"Maybe we can choose to see the darkness we find ourselves not as the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb". I love this!!!
Thank you for sharing this! Being reminded of the darkness that is inherent within the womb is so powerful. We can give birth to something beautiful if we choose love, as Sarah says.
her book is incredible - See No Stranger
Yes Valerie is amazing and this is such a powerful speech. Divine feminine in action.
YES!! I saw this a few months ago and it is brilliant 🤩
"It’s the giving of love. It’s being the more loving one. It’s fierce."
This really hit me. I have been cycling through anger, grief and despair the past few months and I really needed to read this.
The positive to this has meant that I have been able to completely and finally let go of some old grievances that had a deep hold on me.
I have been on this journey for a few years and I'm still peeling back the layers. I'm getting closer to what really matters.
You and me and many people here, Karola. I pulse between the emotions, and I allow this. I work to not get stuck in grief, anger etc, however. Because it is very easy to. These emotions have to pass through. I find they pass through when I allow my heart to release into love...and, yes, often via absurdity.
Ben Lee sings ‘I refuse to go numb’
(Let the music (love) come, let the music come)
Yes to CHOOSING LOVE; especially FIERCE love.
Yes
Yes
Yes Sarah … crisp mountain top fresh air chapter this one.
Breathe deep.
Pulse is a good word as I feel that's what I've been doing and I have had to work extra hard to not get stuck.
Karola, this brought tears to my eyes: "this has meant that I have been able to completely and finally let go of some old grievances that had a deep hold on me". Oh, my soul, some grave clothes fell off right there -- I hope that you feel the warmth of life on your skin that doesn't need to be hidden anymore, and the warmth of your innate goodness as you turn towards possibility. Thank you for posting about what you allowed to die. I had goosebumps reading it.
Thank you for seeing me Madeleine, that brought tears to my eyes x
I've been trying to recall who said something along the lines of, "What if climate change really IS a hoax, and we end up restoring the earth's waters and air and soil for nothing??"
I don't think we'll get to choose which way this goes, but I do know the right choices to make so that I can live with myself.....and others.
I think about that, too - it can almost come down to having to live with ourselves and our decisions. Hannah Arendt said something about this, too.
You're probably thinking of a famous cartoon by Joel Pett from 2012 https://www.climateactionreserve.org/blog/2012/08/31/environmental-cartoons-by-joel-pett/
That’s it, Roger! Thank you so much!
So much in both the chapter, and these comments. As I sat in bed this morning, having carefully read it all, I knew the important question for me right now is 'how can I love more?' That brought to mind David Whyte's story about his own burnout: racing into a meeting at the charity where he worked and asking 'has anyone seen David?' Mortified by his mistake (he was the only David working there) he took himself home where his friend (a Franciscan monk I think) was due. When he arrived David said to him, in the manner of the confessional, speak to me about exhaustion. To which his friend replied 'the remedy for exhaustion is not rest; it is wholeheartedness'. The world feels like an exhausting place to me; I'm going to try as much as I can to meet it with wholeheartedness...
Thank you Sarah, and thank you everyone xx
wholeheartedness I think is close to love
Yes, that's what it means to me, opening wide to love xx
Thank-You Jane. I find that story profound! Wholehearted - the perfect concept.
What a beautiful story Jane
Yep I'm with you on this. I think we need to go through the loss to really appreciate what we have left and realise what is important. My relationships are the most important thing to me. I have also learnt that my capacity for love and my integrity can't be taken. All of the memories and experiences that live inside me and have shaped who I am cannot be taken. The Janis Joplin quote that you mentioned sums it up perfectly "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose”.
I was in a car crash recently and my van which was my last remaining prized possessions (I already lost my house, relationship, community and self esteem) was written off. I lamented to my daughter that the universe hates me and her reply was this "Mum, no-one was hurt. The universe loves you, the universe is looking after you" (my daughter is 13 and much wiser than me). I like to believe that the universe is preparing me.
Maybe it matters, maybe it doesn't but one thing for certain in the vastness of it all is that
Kristy H was ere (not sure if this is just an Aussie thing)
Madeleine Urion was ere
Karola was ere
Steve C (and B) was ere
Kei Ikeda was ere
Gillian was ere
Cracklepoint Nat was ere
Sarah Wilson was ere
and all you other beautiful readers are here
That is super beautiful, Kristy. I had a big warm fuzzy seeing my name there. Seeing your self respect, integrity and love in all your comments, and feeling a tonne of respect for you.
I love that, Kirsty H et al was ere...made me cry.
So so sorry to hear about your van, your daughter (like mine) is very wise. I believe the universe is preparing me...I think about this every day.
Hope you're ok x
Thanks Karola, I am ok. I have my family, my self respect, my integrity and love. These things are priceless to me xx
Priceless indeed as is your awareness.
They are indeed priceless Kristy (apologies for calling you Kirsty above!) Hugs xx
Children are excellent at seeing things differently- glad you were okay and sorry you have lost so much beforehand. The vastness and infiniteness are great reality checks, hey? Out existence is the merest pinprick in two endless stretches of time that bookend our little moment in the sun. We bear witness.
Love you to bits Kristy H
Sending love to u and ur legend daughter 🎯
Thank goodness for daughters who are wiser than their years. Sorry to hear about your losses, sending you a big hug. Xoxo
I love this, Sarah, and agree that love is the best antidote to the horrors that are taking place all around us, although it's something I need constant reminding of, as I'm finding it very difficult to shake off the anger, rage, despair and overwhelm at the moment (I guess that all of these feelings can somewhat co-exist with love though - and can be kinds of love, just not always expressed in ways that move us forward).
I'm sitting in a café in Ubud at the moment and as I was reading this post, this song started playing over the loudspeaker, and it felt like a perfect accompaniment to your words:
https://open.spotify.com/track/6L9yqQAat0gVXfvpfUMykr?si=981785664ab3440b
Also, I watched this wonderful talk by Bayo Akomolafe the other day (a group of us here in Bali have just started a 'making sanctuary' group / fortnightly gathering to discuss Bayo's work and ideas), and these are a couple of the quotes I noted down, which also feel relevant to what you've written:
"The very resources we deploy to address our oppression… reinforce that oppression. We need a way through. We need a third path."
and also:
"We need to be composted. We need to fall apart, but we need to fall apart together."
Sending love to you and everyone in this beautiful community (and sorry I've been quiet here lately), Siobhán xx
That word again - composting. Joanna Macy also uses it.
Thank you for sharing the track - Happy Sunrise awesome! 🤩
'I'd follow love into extinction!' Wow, Sar! I'm kinda lost for words, other than to say, 'Yes! Yes! Yes!
Thank you for this post. I found it tremendously hope filled.
Much love x
A different flavour of hope!
Its the vanilla in the centre of the Neapolitan.
It was the original. Its not always the first flavour we choose, but its never changing.
And it can go with any other dessert.
Well put …
… love a more balanced flavour profile
Separation, yes! From each other and from nature. Mine is not as jaw dropping as Ayisha but I have been trying to bear witness both in painting and in words all the things that have made me catch my breath in the last little while. Maybe someone out there can relate...i've been looking to see a blue banded bee for years!
Requiem for a dying planet
The perfect glass bead of dew clings to a brassica leaf.
Gloriousness made plain by the proximity of a bedazzled spider web;
perfection, glittering in the buttery sunrise.
God’s fingers reaching down from bruised clouds as if to spotlight the glory that is,
Every.
Day.
If you take the time to look.
A blue banded bee zips excitedly between purple borage stars
Neighbouring European ones comparatively lackadaisical
The call of a yellow tail black cockatoo sounds like the cry I feel in my very soul
when I look at all the surrounding beauty
that is part of us,
but which will be, is being, lost.
Left as a whisper in the memory of those who noticed.
Iridescent purple tendrils of an artichoke
almost too bright to believe.
The soft fluff and peep of a newly hatched duckling
fragile yet fearless.
Unaware.
Perfect symmetry in a seed pod,
ripe with promise.
Falling onto a pillaged earth.
Phosphorescence is a liquid trip
as I glide through the ocean
held in the rhythmic breath of the swell.
I am
awestruck
everywhere I turn.
How can we?
Will soon become
How could we?
Such beautiful words Nicola.
For a moment there, we were meandering together through my garden. It was so lovely to share that spirit space with yo.
🙏
Beautiful Nicola, thank you 💕
The blue banded bees are delightful. I hear them before I see them, they sound more like blow flies.
Stunning thank you Nicola
Thank you Nicola ❤️
https://substack.com/@essayful/note/c-86566379?r=1epmu0&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
When you find your path , or when you are truly in the world. The path disappears and your life begins, lived not from your fevered mind , but from your heart , and the hearts of others
Thanks for sharing here...see my comment to Madeleine above....
Beautiful words and insights Sarah thank you. I love Ayisha Siddiqa’s poem. I’m reminded of a quote in the Course of Miracles - “The holiest spot on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love.” This quote to me speaks of the need for a focus on love over fear … forgiveness and the absolute power of love. And adding a WOW to Bishop Mariann Budde’s inaugural prayer service! Divine feminine in action.
Yes that quote has a chunkiness to it.
Love this!! Best thing I’ve seen/read lately and so glad I read this today. I have a few friends in mind that I’m going to share this with, thank you so f*cking much for writing this!
I hope it resonates with your friends x
Such a powerful chapter. Feeling so grateful to be part of this evolving narrative.This one I'm just going to soak up. I have no other words. Love and thanks.
I love that you're here, too.
“‘You are protected, in short, by your ability to love!’ said Albus Dumbledore aka JK Rowling
That's a fun reframing. Protected by an ability to...
A beautifully intense read. Thank you for the constant wake up call.