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
4 Comments
Deniece Carver
1/29/2020 11:59:41 am
So sorry, but you know that.
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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.
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Nancy
1/29/2020 02:44:41 pm
My condolences to you Julie - what a difficult loss. Take care of yourself.
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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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All Write Wednesdays: World into WordAll Write Wednesdays is a blog about living the writer's life. Everything in our lives is material to explore & write about. Here, the spiritual path meets up with the writer's path. Read the All Write Wednesdays posts.
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I live in Mount Horeb WI where I walk (snow shoe in the winter) my dogs through Stewart Park, garden my corner lot, wear a mask in public (and a cape at night). I love to write & connect to writers. My book The Zero Point Agreement is my latest of ten. I do love to write! My up coming book: the Clue of the Red Thread: Discovering Fearlessness & Compassion in uncertain times comes out this January 26th, 2021 through Shanti Arts, Nine Rivers Imprint.
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