Holes. Gaps. Cracks. Miracles. Light.

May 18, 2017 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Writing

When you write you have to attempt something greater than you can possibly hope to accomplish. That is the only way you can leave a hole, a gap—some chance for a miracle.
~ Heather Harpham, I Went to the Animal Fair

Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
~ Leonard Cohen

Holes. Gaps. Cracks. Miracles. Light.

These are true words about writing.

We start with the holes: holes in our thoughts, our experiences, our emotions, our theories, our theologies, our relationships, even our sentence structure.

We feel the gaps: between what we ache to say and the words we can (or cannot) get onto the page, between what we feel and what we think, between what we long to articulate and our fear of who will (or will not) read, between edit and “publish,” between what is for our-eyes-only and what we so want to have seen.

We know the cracks: the hairline breaks in the sidewalk we hop over instead of land on squarely (safe topics vs. powerful ones); the crevasses into which we fall when no words come; the faultline between writing for readers’ sake and writing for writing’s sake.

But we also experience the miracles: the words that form, the prose that flows, the poetry that seems to create itself; the truth-truth-truth on the lines and in-between them; the recognition and honoring of a wisdom that is ours, all ours.

And the light. Oh, the light. Words that blaze brilliantly into our own holes, our own gaps, our own cracks – and fill them. Words that miraculously shine like a beacon into our own darkness. Words that somehow, painstakingly, mysteriously crafted are actually and amazingly cogent, beautiful, powerful, even breathtaking. Words that lay all our cards on the table, eliminate shadows, reveal our heart, and offer radiant glimpses of our purest, strongest, truest self.

The truth about writing? It’s one of the hardest and bravest and most vulnerable things we can ever do.

There is nothing more sacred, more spiritual, more holy than having a safe place in which to write/speak your voice, your mind, your heart.

So begin, persist, return, lather, rinse, repeat. Please?

I Am A Medial Woman

May 31, 2014 | Sovereignty, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

The Medial Woman…is a representation of the strong-sighted and deep-hearted self who lives simultaneously in the world of light (our conventional, daytime domain) and the world of dark (the hidden realm of potential, the depths of the Soul and its making of things to bear, balance, unleash in goodness in the topside world). The medial woman in mythos since time out of mind remains rooted in both worlds, and listening to her ways and means in stories, we can hear, see, and feel the guidance this vital and soulful sense grants: “to live so strong, so wide, and so very deeply…as we promised to do before we ever came to earth.” (From Mother Night by Clarissa Pinkola Estes)

These words offer me explanation for my seemingly-endless held breath. I hear my profoundly grateful and redemptive exhale deep, deep within my soul. A “yes” that resounds throughout all time and in this very moment. An acknowledgement and naming of what I feel, where I live, what I know, how I be.

These woffrds oer me explanation for why I feel out-of-sorts. I see, name, experience, and feel the problem(s) with the world of light; the over-culture in which I live and move, but which often harms and increasingly does not feel like home. And I dwell increasingly, more often, way underneath, in the world of dark; the part of me that senses, intuitively and powerfully, that more exists and will not be suppressed… at least for long. My dark world is not easily understood (or accepted) in the light one. And vice versa.

These words offer me explanation for why I feel more tension than rest, more angst than acceptance; why there has been a lump in my throat for weeks; why the continual stirring within me will not be silenced. Thankfully.

And these words offer me explanation for my work, my calling, my raison d’être. I am a carrier of messages back and forth between the worlds. I trust the dark world – my knowing, my intuition, my creative Feminine force. I speak all of that magic and holiness into the light world. And I take what I experience in the light back into the dark – to mull it over; to throw it into my cauldron and let it cook down and burn away; to hear and hold the voices of other dark, sacred souls as they cackle with me in the brilliant gleam of our cimmerian fire.

These words offer me explanation for my very self: I am a medial woman.

And just maybe, these words offer you explanation as well.

May it be so.