The spot at Deer Creek Reservoir that I most often go to is about 30 minutes from my home. In the vista above, this is looking west to Mt Timpanogos, among the Wasatch Mountain Range. Yesterday, I delighted in a couple of hours at one of the Reservoir beaches. Mostly sitting in a chair. Reading and writing a few poems. Mostly feeling timeless. Dipping in for a swim on an unusually hot September day.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about nature, as in the inherent qualities that we can’t not be. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how this is an important invitation for the groups that many of us work with. Much of the work that I care most about is getting to the deeply inner (an associative ability, an emotional wisdom, etc.) in a way that inspires and grounds what happens in the outer (the jobs, the todos, the teams collaborating, etc.).
From all of that, these words below. And some encouragement to invite people to explore a bit more, what is in our inherent nature?
In My Nature
It is in my nature
to appreciate a distant horizon.
To see with heart
…the blurred ridgeline.
It is in my nature
to to wonder toward emptiness.
To fill my lungs
…with anticipation.
It is in my nature
to listen for things that don’t have words.
To a silence
…that hums in all.
I kind of love this notion of writing a poem about what is “in my nature.”
Recently, there has been sadness in me around the recurrent theme of loneliness. And the life-long fight to feel worthy. Yes, I know. I see they are connected.
Loneliness, I see you. Thank you for protecting me from getting lost in “the other.” I don’t need you anymore.
Today, I see myself as Brave, Open, Willing to Risk, Vulnerable.
Today, I see myself as Deeply Loved. Happy in this moment. Joyful in this body. Full of aliveness and beauty and Love.
Today, I am bringing my Wholeness. Bringing my Whole Self through the Door and into the Room.
This Room. This Body. This Wild Heart with a turquoise streak in her hair and a saffron yellow scarf in her closet (waiting for cooler days).
Look at me in the mirror. Not looking away. Seeing me, connecting with me.
Me, connecting with Me.
It leads me to remember a verse of scripture that has always intrigued me: Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
I’ve been told that when this was written, a mirror was always but a dim reflection due to the nature of what was available in the way of a reflective surface. A mottled surface, bubbled and uneven. One could only “see” oneself in part.
In conversation with a friend yesterday, I felt myself as “seen.” Fully seen, fully known. And what lingered was a sense, for me, of the belief that having been seen and fully known by a fellow human offers me the opportunity to trust that when I show up in my Wholeness, bringing my Whole Self in the room, I am seen and known and loved as I am. Exactly and precisely as I am. Sometimes lonely. Sometimes uncertain. Sometimes seeking affirmation from the outer, the other.
And I don’t need affirmation from the Other to know this is true.
Is that contradictory? Perhaps. Then I am also Contradiction. And I am Legion.
I am all of that. Not forgetting what Meister Eckhardt taught me: I am (and always have been) a spark of Divine Radiance.
I say, Let It Flow.
Yes to flow.
Yes to learning.
Yes to heart.
Yes to joy.
Yes to lettings go.
Thank you Saoirse for who you are.