“For whatever we lose (like a you or a me), it’s always our self we find in the sea.”
E.E. Cummings
I remember visiting Philadelphia once, after having moved away for years and driving down a road that had been my morning commute as a high school teacher. I started to realize all the iterations of me that drove down the street. The one who wasn’t yet a teacher; the one who was nervous to become a teacher; the one who loved teaching; the one who was afraid to leave teaching; and the one who could not have imagined ever leaving and the one that was driving in the present moment and wondered what else would be on the horizon.
All of that coexisting on a road that traveled from point A to point B.
The same thing kinda happens whenever we drive over the bridge to a little beach town in New Jersey. Once you crest over the back bay, you leave behind the city and at once anticipate your time down the shore, while remembering and being all the moments that have happened and are happening, and all those seen and unseen that were there.
Times change. And somethings, especially East Coast style, stay very much the same. For some, we rail against and ridicule that change and then we return to it. We return for the pastry and the pizza. We sip the same coffee in the early morning and can feel the presence of those that left this life, but wait in our memories. We walk down to the water’s edge and witness the sunrise and for one moment get staggered awake by her beauty, and the reminder of nature’s grandees happening every day, on the other side of the ocean, the other side of the bridge, behind the scenes of our screens if we turn toward Her, nature, and make ourselves available. It doesn’t take much, it turns out, but we have to be available.
I recently had a cranial sacral session where for a split second I sensed how impressionable we really are. That there are images and impressions that slip between our ears and stay, unbeknown to us - especially if we do not ourselves take time to occupy, and sweep the space between said ears, and let the space get unruly with other people’s opinions. Dangerous really. Too many sharp objects about, and windows smudged.
But if we make a little space. Jot down a few thoughts. Turn towards the sky and listen we may just be shocked what we already know. How quickly the floor of thought gets mopped clean and a bright dazzling light of clarity shines through the windows and dances across our eyes.
The idea of writing a year, of having one place to return to is so all of you and all of those that have loved you can remind you just how brilliant you are; how much magic and grandeur life is straining to show us— and how fast it can all fly by if we are not paying attention.
Grab a new notebook, the one that you sweep your hands across the page, feeling the words you are ready to write and join us. This is for everyone who knows the value of listening to the voice inside. No previous experience needed.
We begin September 21st — here, making meaning on The Golden Thread.