things to call in, and things to carry with you
{4} interwoven: seeking out our many allies
time tellings
My horse’s downey undercoat is now appearing, their top lines are all fluffy || The sound of Kākā song now loud at dusk as they are free of fledglings and the nest || When the sun goes down, there is no longer heat left in the air
introduction
On rooting in positive resource || understanding aloneness as a state of mis-attention || seeking out our non-human allies.
This week just gone I attended a writing workshop. The premise was to find a way to tell the story you’re too afraid to write, a space for exploring our wanting-to-be-told-truths that were yet to find themselves upon the page.
To be open to expressing challenge, the teacher told us, you first have to anchor in positive resource; to have your hand holding onto something strong and true while the rest of you is free to feel around in space.
She said,
Surround yourself with allies. Call in the rocks, shells, bird nests, and don’t forget – writing transcends metaphysics. What about the loving gaze of a childhood dog, or your favourite sunset, or the memory of that beloved sweater now shredded to softness?
This week, we are calling in our allies. An invitation to pay fierce attention to our natural allies in the world. And beyond that, to seek them out.
Anne Lamott said, I see my mind as a dangerous neighbourhood. I never want to go there alone.
Not going there alone, as David Whyte says, means going in with perspective; the perspective I want to offer here, through the understandings he and many others have taught me, is that we have many allies in the natural world beyond what we might think.
At all times, and in all circumstances,
waiting to befriend us.
if only we allow them.small stories
1.
nesting
A bird makes her nest through a ritual of
repeated tenderness.
She has not been taught or shown; the first nest she understands is the one she is born into, and yet, at the same time, it is the nest she's always known.
For the nest
is as much the bird
as feather is the wing.
When the time comes for her to build her own,
she trusts not the tree
to hold her,
or the alcove
to support her,
but her own understanding
of home making
and belonging
that she carries in
the outline
of herself.