A bird hits a window in a tower
in Dallas, startling a man at his
desk. A bit of feather and blood
is stuck there. He calls maintenance
but no one comes. It’s all he can see.
He doesn’t want to die while filling
out another form. In the same mo-
ment, an old rancher in Montana
drops his hammer while nailing a
fence his father built. As he dies,
the extra nails fall from his mouth.
In the same moment, a waitress in
New Hampshire, late for work, thinks
she might rush that left turn off route
13, but she waits. While waiting, a fox
appears in the snow. She’s never seen
a fox. As she makes the turn, the fox
disappears and the canopy of maples,
growing toward each other for years,
welcomes her to a timeless place
where windows and fences and
rushing can’t go.
A Question to Walk With: Describe a recent instance in which you wandered beyond all rushing. Where did this wandering lead you to and what did it feel like?
This excerpt is from my book, The Way Under The Way: The Place of True Meeting, 2016 Nautilus Award Winner.
*photo credit: Pixabay
**Note: This Friday, November 17 I will be at New York Open Center in New York City for an evening workshop celebrating the publication of my new book, Things That Join the Sea and the Sky, in which I share bare and honest reflections drawn from my lifelong journals.
In this reading event and workshop I will guide participants into conversation with their own journey, while speaking to the nature and process of journaling, offering ways we can begin or deepen our own practice of journaling. Through poetry, story, dialogue and writing exercises, we will explore the many ways we’re asked to listen and participate in the world by looking at archetypal thresholds we all face, such as “Stopping the Noise,” “Unraveling Our Fear,” “The Gift of Deepening,” and “The Radiance in All Things.”
For me, journaling is an ongoing inner practice through which the work of introspection keeps removing what’s between us and life—to keep us vital and to bring us alive. Just as we practice breathing constantly, we need a place to practice perceiving and feeling. The journal is one place to deepen our practice of being alive. I will present journaling guidelines, and offer journal questions to work with, to encourage participants to engage in their own conversation with the Universe through the art of journaling.
I will sign books after the workshop.
An Evening Workshop & Book Signing
Friday, November 17, 2017, 7:00 pm – 9:30 pm
Members $40/ Nonmembers $45
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In