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Julie's Blog
​
 World into Word & Action

​The Heartbreak that brought us here

1/29/2020

4 Comments

 
Picture
Winter Friend, Stewart Park, 2020

I wasn’t sure what to write for you today. My brother Ricky passed away Saturday and everything is touched now by his absence. I know that sending out this blog, like sending out a letter, poem, book or article is a way to send up a smoke signal: I am here. This is me. Where are you? Who are you? 
 
My brother was a closet-poet and filled journals of his poetry throughout high school. He was a big thinker who lived courageously with schizophrenia his entire adult life. Those poems have long been lost. 
 
I will let my heart continue to break open on the page, and off. I will read poetry and essays that lift my spirit and reveal to me a path through this winter loss. I will take my daily walks and listen.

I will let spring arrive on its own, as it will. 
 
 I am here. This is me. Where are you? Who are you? 
 
 
WINTER GRIEF
 
Let the rest 
in this rested place 
rest for you.
Let the birds sing 
and the geese call
and the sky race
from west to east 
when you cannot raise 
a wing to fly.
 
Let evening
trace your loss 
in the stonework
against a fading sky.
 
So that 
you can give up
and give in
and be given back to,
so that you can let
winter
come and live
fully inside you,
so that
you can
retrace
the loving path
of heartbreak 
that brought you here. 
 
So you can cry alone
and be alone
so you can let 
yourself alone
to be lost,
so you can
let the one 
you have lost
alone, so that
you can let
the one 
you have lost 
have their 
own life 
and even
their own 
death
without you.
 
So the world
and everyone 
who has ever lived 
and ever died
can come and go 
as they please.
 
So you can
let yourself 
not know, what 
not knowing 
means.
 
So that
you can be
even more generous 
in your letting go
than they 
were 
in their leaving.
 
So that you can
let winter 
be winter.
 
So that you can let 
the world alone
to think of spring.
…
WINTER GRIEF
From
THE BELL AND THE BLACKBIRD
Poetry by David Whyte
APRIL 2018 © David Whyte and Many Rivers Press 

“The grief of losing a loved one, the need to walk, to remember, to heal when you cannot heal, to remember what you do not wish to remember. The unconscious call for invisible help, and the not knowing consciously, how, in any way, to ask for it, the way everything refuses to console until we are ready for that consolation. The way winter turns to spring.“  David Whyte 
 

Picture
Winter Grief, 2020
4 Comments
Deniece Carver
1/29/2020 11:59:41 am

So sorry, but you know that.

Reply
Jill Brown
1/29/2020 12:08:27 pm

Julie, I am so saddened to hear of your brother's death. Be gentle with yourself. Honor the way you need to grieve as you navigate this new phase of life.

Reply
Nancy
1/29/2020 02:44:41 pm

My condolences to you Julie - what a difficult loss. Take care of yourself.

Reply
Wayne Brabender
1/30/2020 08:39:48 am

Julie, so sorry to hear about Ricky. I've never met him, but I feel like I knew him through our discussions about Yahara House. Sounds like he had insurmountable challenges. What a loss that both he and his poetry are gone . . . but not forgotten. Take care.

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    Author and counselor Julie Tallard Johnson
    I live in Mount Horeb WI where I walk (snow shoe in the winter) my dogs through Stewart Park or Military Trail, garden my corner lot, wear a mask in public (and a cape at night). I love to write & connect to writers and spiritual seekers. My book The Clue of the Red Thread is my latest of eleven, written in collaboration with Parker J Palmer and poet Rebecca Cecchini  The Clue of the Red Thread: Discovering Fearlessness & Compassion in uncertain times  came out in January, 2021 through Shanti Arts, Nine Rivers Imprint. 

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