11­_18_2022

Liberating Ourselves

Recently I have been pondering my own sense of Liberation, a state  prompted by my Unitarian Parish’ monthly theme.  Coincidentally, the three — part November Sunday online poetry series led by the Irish Poet David has approached the topic from a slightly different angle.

When I set out to do some research on the topic for the Small Group Ministry that I facilitate, I expected to encounter perspectives that focused on “liberating ourselves from the control of others.”  Instead, I found that most poetic approaches to the topic of Liberation focused on freeing ourselves from the constraints that are predominantly self-imposed.

Whyte’s November series is titled, Return to Ireland: Poetry, Myth, and Music for the Soul.  Whyte shares that he spent much of his early youth and early adult years in Ireland, and while he now lives on the West Coast of the United States, he attributes much of his orientation to life stems from the imprint of the Irish culture.

I can understand how one can connect one’s orientation to life with geography.  I grew up surrounded by farmland, so I need to live in an area that is resplendent with green and nature in order to feel a sense of completeness.  I’ve also travelled to and spent time in Ireland, and I was deeply moved by the beauty, music, and sense of majesty offered by the exceptional landscapes.

Whyte’s suggests that “we each have at least one place in this world we hold precious in our imaginations — a place where the conversation is both emboldened and in a strange way grounded; a ground from which we suddenly feel we can see a new and much broader horizon.”

This program introduced me to the beautiful poem, Mameem, composed by Whyte:

Mameen

Be infinitesimal under that sky, a creature
even the sailing hawk misses, a wraith
among the rocks where the mist parts slowly.

Recall the way mere mortals are overwhelmed
by circumstance, how great reputations
dissolve with infirmity and how you,
in particular, live a hairsbreadth from losing
everyone you hold dear.

Then, look back down the path as if seeing
your past and then south over the hazy blue
coast as if present to a wide future.

Remember the way you are all possibilities
you can see and how you live best
as an appreciator of horizons,
whether you reach them or not.

Admit that once you have got up
from your chair and opened the door,
once you have walked out into the clean air
toward that edge and taken the path up high
beyond the ordinary, you have become
the privileged and the pilgrim,
the one who will tell the story
and the one, coming back
from the mountain,
who helped to make it.

These resources prodded me to take a closer look at how I was feeling.  Was I excited about pursuing some future endeavor? To discovering new parts of myself?  To explore new experiences?  Time spent reflecting on these questions and sharing my thoughts with trusted others, I came to realize that I had lost some of my “reset” experiences through Covid concerns.

Before Covid I would travel to Western Massachusetts in the Spring and Fall for a four-day silent retreat at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health.  Just having the open-ended time to experience silence and reflection with total freedom to choose how I spent my time was a wonderful way to step out of my life and take stock of where I was.

I haven’t been to Kripalu since our initial shutdown of activities in March 2020.  It was helpful to me to actually realize the broader aspects of what that experience contributed to my well-being.  I have included some experiences that are more short-term and are mostly online, but I hadn’t mentally labeled them as opportunities for me to do resets.

A reset for me involves taking stock of where I am with regard to areas that are important to me, and to envision where I might expand the ways I currently expend my energy and time.  I always came away from the silent retreat experience feeling an uplift, an excitement resulting from a deeper clarity about my next steps.

I’ve also realized with all of my work and research about enjoying the later stages of life that I flourish when I have something new in my life.  It might be a new style of hats, a new fun and engaging project, some new places to explore, as well as the realization that key relationships in my life are gracefully evolving to deeper sharing.

I love the bolded stanza within the Mameem poem:

Remember the way you are all possibilities
you can see and how you live best
as an appreciator of horizons,
whether you reach them or not.

As we age, I think it is critical that we gift ourselves with new experiences.  At this stage of my life, I am trying to simplify, to find homes for things I no longer need.  But I’ve also resolved that I’m open to purchasing something if I want to try something new.  I purchase new kitchen tools that help me cook in new ways, new gardening additions that help me experiment with new plantings and ornaments.  I limit my purchase of new clothes but am happy to invest in select additions that give me a feeling of zest and flair.

Yes, we have lots of possibilities in our lives as we get older, we just have to get out of our own way and allow ourselves to pursue them.  In the words of David Whyte, “Just beyond yourself. It’s where you need to be. Half a step into self-forgetting and the rest restored by what you’ll meet. There is a new road always beckoning.”