The Generosity Chronicles

A quick check-in tonight, to say hello and goodbye. Tomorrow, I leave the country for a month of sojourns. My travels take me to South Africa, Botswana, the Seychelles Islands, Sri Lanka, and Hong Kong.

As promised, I will be ushering in the next chapter of this year’s Generosity Chronicles: a series of letters written daily to last year’s Star Spotlight recipients (with a few extra brilliant folks thrown in for kicks!). Due to questionable connectivity, I’m not making any promises about daily updates, but I look forward to sharing whenever I can–and definitely, upon my return to the states.

One more important mention: HAPPY SOLSTICE! I am truly feeling the pull of these dark days; the invitation to turn inward, to slow, to contemplate and muck around in the gunk of my psyche. I’m befuddled, bemused, enraptured by the fact that tomorrow, on the shortest day of year, I’m headed into midsummer half a world away. I’ll be so curious to feel how this sharp contrast affects my soulful subconscious.

For all of you in the Northern Hemisphere, however, I leave you with this tonight, from the beautiful Seattle poet, writer, teacher, activist, and feminist Jody Aliesan, who died of ovarian cancer in 2012, at the age of 69. She famously lived a life devoted to “telling the truth, and speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves.”

Winter Solstice

Thinking only makes the heart sore. – I Ching

when you startle awake in the dark morning

heart pounding breathing fast

sitting bolt upright staring into

dark whirlpool black hole

feeling its suction

get out of bed

knock at the door of your nearest friend

ask to lie down beside ask to be held

listen while whispered words

turn the hole into deep night sky

stars close together

winter moon rising over white fields

nearby a wren rustling dry leaves

distant owl echoing

two people walking up the road laughing

let your soul laugh

let your heart sigh out

that long held breath so hollow in your stomach

so swollen in your throat

already light is returning pairs of wings

lift softly off your eyelids one by one

each feathered edge clearer between you

and the pearl veil of day

you have nothing to do but live

by Jody Aliesan

Grief Sweat, Broken Moon Press 1990