Category: Tenneson Woolf Poetry

It all goes together. The flowering seasons that are Spring and Summer. The falling seasons that are Autumn and Winter.

Fifteen or so years ago, a friend and I were talking. It was someone that I have much respect for, and that has been an important guide for me many times.

We were talking about how the mix of joys and sorrows live simultaneously. Having a great meal together, resting in the satisfaction of it. And then learning that a tree has fallen, blocking the road and needs clearing. Or seeing the unrestrained joy in a toddler grandchild, and then learning the next day that a dear friend has passed.

“It all goes together,” my friend shared with me. “All of this life lives at the same time, whether in us or in others.”

I have found this “all together” notion an important reminder many times in my own maturing. It’s not, after all, about infusing or obligating doom to a joy-filled moment, nor is it about supplanting real and needed grief with protective sugar. The sorrows and the joys all go together.

For many years now, I’ve been learning to live into the whole of it, into the whole of all of it. We don’t all live in the same phase of life nor circumstance. Of course not. Yet behind many varied life realities lives this essence and principle — it all goes together. I’m glad for those in my life that have guided me with such clarity.

It’s generally not personal — the world surely is out to get us — when something goes wrong. A tree in the road is a tree in the road. Nor when we are tired from many days and nights of utter focus. Tired is tired. The phrase that helps me so often includes acknowledgement — “I am tired; except when I’m not.” It gives me room to welcome the energized in me — it all goes together — “I’m energized; except when I’m not.”

True for joy also. The puppy playing is the puppy playing. The sun rising is the sun rising. How sweet to welcome the joy that lives in the moment, without fear or a need to deny, that sorrow also lives. It always has.

I seek a life that integrates all of this together. Not as an overdone protection. Rather, as a way of continuing to mature and practice wise and kind living. Within myself. With others. With circumstance.

On a Monday morning, sun now rising (an hour earlier thanks to Daylight Savings Time), and with all of this refreshed desire to live in the wholeness of it, these journaled words also arose from the sun within my writer’s heart.

I am this human that I am.
Alive in learning
and feeling.

I am this human that I am.
Alive in struggle
and hurt.

I am this human that I am.
Alive with friends
and love.

I am this human that I am.
Alive with disappointments
and missteps.

I am this human that I am.
Alive in this body
and in this day.

Maybe that is all that there is,
all of it together.

And then I smiled to think of my friend and this conversation that so many of us venture to live together.

It has been many years now 
that I have been in regular morning practice 
to journal and to meditate. 

It is reflective wonder 
combined with 
stillness and breath. 

It isn’t the pages of words 
that are the most defining outcome, 
though that is significant. 

It is the clarity of mind 
integrated with belly 
that has so grown me. 

It isn’t the posture nor yoga body 
that most altars me,
though that attention is also significant.

It’s the fulfilled 
and known feeling 
of source connected.

It is now that time of year 
when it is dark in the morning.

It is 6:40 am. 
It will remain dark for another 45 minutes. 

At this time of year my journalling 
and my meditation 
so often flourish in the dark.

If I were thinking computers, this would be a kind of operating system. It would be a few parts that connect other parts, a few algorithms, some impressive engineering, and some remarkable speed.

But today, I’m not thinking computers. I’m thinking about human life. I’m thinking about human life in the 2020s. I’m thinking about the involved circumstance and pressures that are part of everyday life for everyday people.

Since I’m thinking human life, what follows below is more an orientation. A guide. A few rules of life perhaps. A few values that for me have some roots in my grandparents, my parents, my family, and some beloved friends and colleagues along the way.

So, here’s some clarity for this human life, living in November of the 2020s, sorting through the times, the photos, the images, the crazy-making, and the caring that is these days. Words that come to me in the morning, following the gift of overnight slumber, and from the dark of a day yet to be greeted by sun rising.

Simplify. 
There are clearly times when less is kind, and less is more. 

Get outside everyday.
Nature matters, even a short walk, a glimpse of sky, and wind that kisses face.

Pay attention to body.
It is vessel to hold us in the great changing.

Work shorter hours.
Integration requires wide berth, and is itself, important work.

Accept the pain.
It too is real, and denying it is too consuming.

Follow the joy.
It is a reliable clue, particularly upon accepting the pain.

Receive and give gifts.
Human civilization has always been fed by this.

Carry on with Spirit.
I suspect the Guides understand predicaments.

These are personal. But perhaps also, quite universal. To perhaps, guide, even if just for a few days.