… all I can do is let you know
they’re here somewhere.All I can do is tell you
by putting my own hunger on the page.
— Mary Oliver —
that is why…
Today I believe in the possibility of love; that is why I endeavour to trace its imperfections, its perversions.
– Frantz Fanon –
the moment…
The moment when, after many years of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room, house, half-acre, square mile, island, country, knowing at last how you got there, and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.
– Margaret Atwood –
cumming into your own…
… our battle cry for authenticity and the ideas it creates about who we are can sometimes serve to guard us against vulnerability. These places we call “in-authenticity” may just be the edges, or the uncharted territories, of who we consider ourselves to be. Consciously going to the edges of what we feel is “authentic” may actually be an opening to increased possibilities…
– necessary shenanigans, “the practice of play” –
before the fever breaks…
It is often when night looks darkest, it is often before the fever breaks that one senses the gathering momentum for change, when one feels that resurrection of hope in the midst of despair and apathy.
– Hilary Clinton –
a ritual to read to each other…
If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,
but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep,
the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe—
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
– William Stafford –