I will be borrowing your timeless point of view once again, a grain of salt to put in my pocket like a talisman. I too have been healthier and less happy.
Can’t believe your book is arriving so soon! It will be a celebratory day for all of us. WE LOVE YOU 🧡
Thank you, I’ve been lying in bed for days, slowly concaving into self pity. This pulled me out, I sighed relief reading your words. They are beautiful.
This is beautiful, made even more sweet because I was gifted paperwhites this year for the first time and have absolutely marveled day by day of just how high they climb, so high it seems unreasonable. I find myself wondering as you write, are you connected to or following Andrea Gibson? Your ability to find such presence and perspective and joy in the midst of such deep pain and challenge is so aligned with theirs. I am deeply excited to receive your book, and entirely grateful to be reminded, through your wisdom, of how good presence can feel.
Thank you so, Jeanette! Yes, watching my paper-whites grow has been like an externalized reminder that green exists under the snow and ice and that a body can thaw into greater ease. I love Andrea Gibson's work so much as well.
I am grateful to this for a funny reason. I love the image of the moment after deep pain as a moment for breathing in gratitude and letting it fill one’s lungs—one’s being. But ever since childhood I have hated the scent of paperwhites. The very pain of the memory passing gives me gratitude. Anyways, the funny reason is that I was just in conversation with a Christian friend about “love” trying to explain the challenges I feel in talking about my spirituality with Christian and Native friends simultaneously. As one Native friend once told me: the word “love” as Christians use it leaves me cold. I think for him, and for far too many others, the association is with the crimes of eurochristians—crimes beyond what the mind can grasp. But in the relief I felt at the joy your essay conveys I feel better about paperwhites. I tend to overintellectualize my spirituality and, as a result in part of your writings, find it very helpful to ground my thinking in my intuitive sense of what my body knows. Receiving contradictory signals—the memory of the smell of paperwhites and the joy in the present of your words—reminds me not only of the primacy of what is presencing but also that it is perfectly fine to take physical joy in words. I think of every body in the universe—from the smallest subatomic particle to the largest supercluster of galaxies—as a unique expression of everything else in the universe. This is for me another way of saying that everything is made of love—even paperwhites!
I love the smell of dirt — and especially of petrichor. I won’t share what paperwhites smell like to me (at least in my memory; I might give them a second chance)… They remind me now of the phrase “child of God.” A Native friend of mine, JoDe Goudy, was asked by a Christian friend of his, who explained that he saw himself as a child of God, how JoDe saw himself. After a moment’s reflection, JoDe replied “of creation.” Thinking about this as a Jew who was also baptized in 2006 I find JoDe’s answer closer to what I identify with in both Judaism and Christianity than any other answer I have ever heard. When scripture says we humans are made in the “image” of God, I think this means that we are made able to love one another—and meant to love one another—as God has loved us: in alignment with the goodness of Earth and Heaven. But then i think this is also true in its own way of each and every entity in creation—the universe and everything in it is alive and sacred and can be felt as such so i will give paperwhites a second chance even though i think our spiritual responsibility is to love everything and not necessarily to like every being…. I am deeply looking forward to your book!
I can relate. Thank you for so uniquely putting words to the experience of eating after a prolonged absence. After 4 days in the hospital for a nephrectomy and not being allowed to eat any food until I passed gas, the moment arrived with a bowl of tomato soup that tasted so exquisite beyond my wild expectations. It was heavenly seasoned with gratitude.
I will be borrowing your timeless point of view once again, a grain of salt to put in my pocket like a talisman. I too have been healthier and less happy.
Can’t believe your book is arriving so soon! It will be a celebratory day for all of us. WE LOVE YOU 🧡
So so much love to you Anna!
" Give me this wonder at the beauty of every mundane second of every extraordinary day even in if it comes into my faulty organism."
Thank you for this and huge congrats on your book!!!! Can't wait to read it <3
Will you be doing any readings in LA?
I wish I had the health to travel but alas I don't think so as of right now! That being said, I would LOVE to find a way to come say hello!!
Thank you, I’ve been lying in bed for days, slowly concaving into self pity. This pulled me out, I sighed relief reading your words. They are beautiful.
Love to you Emily, from one bed to another. 🛌 🌸🕊️
🩵
This is beautiful, made even more sweet because I was gifted paperwhites this year for the first time and have absolutely marveled day by day of just how high they climb, so high it seems unreasonable. I find myself wondering as you write, are you connected to or following Andrea Gibson? Your ability to find such presence and perspective and joy in the midst of such deep pain and challenge is so aligned with theirs. I am deeply excited to receive your book, and entirely grateful to be reminded, through your wisdom, of how good presence can feel.
Thank you so, Jeanette! Yes, watching my paper-whites grow has been like an externalized reminder that green exists under the snow and ice and that a body can thaw into greater ease. I love Andrea Gibson's work so much as well.
I am grateful to this for a funny reason. I love the image of the moment after deep pain as a moment for breathing in gratitude and letting it fill one’s lungs—one’s being. But ever since childhood I have hated the scent of paperwhites. The very pain of the memory passing gives me gratitude. Anyways, the funny reason is that I was just in conversation with a Christian friend about “love” trying to explain the challenges I feel in talking about my spirituality with Christian and Native friends simultaneously. As one Native friend once told me: the word “love” as Christians use it leaves me cold. I think for him, and for far too many others, the association is with the crimes of eurochristians—crimes beyond what the mind can grasp. But in the relief I felt at the joy your essay conveys I feel better about paperwhites. I tend to overintellectualize my spirituality and, as a result in part of your writings, find it very helpful to ground my thinking in my intuitive sense of what my body knows. Receiving contradictory signals—the memory of the smell of paperwhites and the joy in the present of your words—reminds me not only of the primacy of what is presencing but also that it is perfectly fine to take physical joy in words. I think of every body in the universe—from the smallest subatomic particle to the largest supercluster of galaxies—as a unique expression of everything else in the universe. This is for me another way of saying that everything is made of love—even paperwhites!
I love this unexpected outcome Steven! They ARE a unique scent. Almost dirt? Almost bodily?
I love the smell of dirt — and especially of petrichor. I won’t share what paperwhites smell like to me (at least in my memory; I might give them a second chance)… They remind me now of the phrase “child of God.” A Native friend of mine, JoDe Goudy, was asked by a Christian friend of his, who explained that he saw himself as a child of God, how JoDe saw himself. After a moment’s reflection, JoDe replied “of creation.” Thinking about this as a Jew who was also baptized in 2006 I find JoDe’s answer closer to what I identify with in both Judaism and Christianity than any other answer I have ever heard. When scripture says we humans are made in the “image” of God, I think this means that we are made able to love one another—and meant to love one another—as God has loved us: in alignment with the goodness of Earth and Heaven. But then i think this is also true in its own way of each and every entity in creation—the universe and everything in it is alive and sacred and can be felt as such so i will give paperwhites a second chance even though i think our spiritual responsibility is to love everything and not necessarily to like every being…. I am deeply looking forward to your book!
I can relate. Thank you for so uniquely putting words to the experience of eating after a prolonged absence. After 4 days in the hospital for a nephrectomy and not being allowed to eat any food until I passed gas, the moment arrived with a bowl of tomato soup that tasted so exquisite beyond my wild expectations. It was heavenly seasoned with gratitude.
"Give me this wonder at the beauty of every mundane second of every extraordinary day..." is my new prayer. Thank you. I just ordered your book!
Sophie, Your writing is so poignant, so alive and heart-opening. Sending oodles of love and care, may it all spill into your senses. Carol