Human to Human • Tenneson Woolf

July 26, 2017

A Little More Mark Nepo

Just because.

And, well, because this is a clear statement that I so much relate to.

And, well, because, in a conversation with a friend yesterday to plan a series of workshops, we asked each other what was at the heart of it — this was after listing some good skills and expertise that we have individually and together. My answer, as it has been for some time, was because I’m drawn to the energy, simplicity, and practice of being a better human being. Individually and collectively.

From Mark Nepo’s Exquisite Risk,

“I want to open a conversation about the pain and joy of being awake. I want to inquire into the personal practice of being authentic, of being fully here, of being human.”

Enough said.

July 25, 2017

The Nature of The Dance

Mark Nepo remains one of my favorite writers. His poems. His essays. His books. He writes of transitions, struggle, honesty, and the fundamental, yet profound state of being alive. His writings are not flowery to me. They aren’t all about ascendence. There is realness in them that pulls something out from within me that is already there — “the act of being who we are is at the heart of staying well.”

Marp Nepo is also a cancer survivor. Though I imagine this poem to be just a bit about that, it reaches to many realms of human journey, doesn’t it.

The Nature of the Dance
Mark Nepo

Death pushed me to the edge.
Nowhere to back off. And
to the shame of my fears,
I danced with abandon
in his face. I never
danced so free.

And Death backed off,
the way dark backs off
a sudden burst of flame.
Now there’s nothing left
but to keep dancing.

It is the way
I would have chosen
had I been born
three times
as brave.

July 24, 2017

On Grief

Thanks Roq Gareau for sharing this with me. There are few that I know that tend as well as Roq to such earthy, bloody, real soul stuff.

The video is Francis Weller (14 minutes). It’s filled with great insights.

“When you compress grief, you also compress joy.”
“Grief has always been a communal process. There is nothing broken and nothing to fix.”
“Cannot trust a man who cannot grieve.” (Malidoma Some)
“All war is unmetabolized grief.”

July 20, 2017

Wild, Yet Domesticated

I love this daisy patch from my front yard. Full. Vibrant. There’s some flowers that are brand new. Some that are dying. The mix is beautiful to me. Simple reminders of life that would be fun to wax on with — but mostly today I’m just drawn to the beauty of this patch that greets me as I enter and leave my home, and that I can see through my window from my desk where I most often work.

My first association with these daisies is “wild.” These flowers grow like crazy every year. I trim them to the ground in the fall, and usually once in the summer. They reseed like nobody’s business. I also thin them a bit each spring. Ain’t no risk of no daisies next year.

And then, “domestication” comes to mind. These daisies grow in a designated flower and vegetable patch. They don’t grow beyond that into the yard.

Something is important to me in the dynamic that is domestication and wildness. For all of us. I’m drawn to enough wildness, surprise, and creativity. These are forces of life. Essential expressions of life. Without them, we have only two dimensions. And then, domestication is about negotiating norms to levels of cooperation and commitment in support of the whole.

Hmm….

Daisies.