Author Archives: Sarah

Writing and the Sacred and Why I Can’t Write This Essay

I can’t write about writing and the sacred. It’ll take me two stories to tell you why. 

Story one: I’ve nearly finished the manuscript for my first book. Only the epilogue remains, and lumps of it stare at me from my laptop, which sits on a desk in the monastery I’m visiting. I’ve had breakfast and coffee, and it’s 9:00 and why not work on the epilogue? I just want to see if anything will flow. 

Something does. It gathers strength as the morning passes.

I want to take my usual 10:30 break, but the flow won’t let me. At noon I’m starving and they’re serving lunch and the aroma of cheese wafts into the room, but the words will not stop. I barely manage to run to the dining room for an egg before hastening back. 

Then the flow turns into a flood. My fingers keep typing words I don’t recognize and they rush pell-mell onto the screen. It’s like speaking in tongues that way, the arrival of language from somewhere else. The end of the session is the end of the book; the last glittering sentences tumble out at 3:00. The sacred being what it is, the sentences are perfect. 

* * *

Story two: Many years ago I built a business. Part of that business—the OCD part, which comes into everything I do—demanded that I keep timesheets down to the minute. After all, clients shouldn’t pay me when I’m not working, not even for bathroom breaks, right? The timesheets helped me draw clear lines between work and non-work, productive and unproductive. 

Then the Spirit nudged me to write about spirit. 

Timesheets were useless here, because writing about spirit demands flow, and how do you time flow? Snippets of morning prayer would show up in my journal, journal insights would inform blog posts, blog posts would blossom into articles would become a book the insights in which would feed my inner work in morning prayer. Productive? Unproductive? Who knew? 

Also, the flow didn’t stop. At first I wrote an occasional weekend or two. Then an hour a day. Now it’s spilled over into every morning, and the water keeps rising, obliterating every clear line I’ve ever drawn. 

* * *

You may think these stories really are about writing and the sacred. But they’re not, not really. By the end they’re only about the sacred. The sacred takes over the writing—not just the words, but the process; not just for one ecstatic day, but for a lifetime—and draws it gently, lovingly, irresistibly into itself. 

And that’s the point. Writing becomes part of the sacred like everything becomes part of the sacred. Including us. 

It’s like water. We can direct it for a while, with dams and levees and conduits, control the flow to serve our ends. Beyond that, though, the water will have its way—its subsuming, life-giving way.  

As a spiritual director and monastic associate, John Backman writes mostly noncreative nonfiction about contemplative spirituality and its relevance for today’s deepest issues. This includes a book (Why Can’t We Talk? Christian Wisdom on Dialogue as a Habit of the Heart) and articles in such places as Spirituality & Health.

Revisitation

It is a full moon night.

I drive my car halfway
across the levee of Enid Lake,
this large, man-made lake,
park the car, and get out
to stand on the levee.

The moonlight is a silver highway
stretching to the distant shore.
The cattle graze in the pasture
far below me, content in their world.

I look up to see a million stars in the sky,
jewels sparkling on a black canvas
endless in dimension, it seems.

I have been here many times before,
on nights just like this, in wonder
and awe of this place, this world
and its beauty. And now, as before,
I ask where it all came from
and what it all means. I wait in silence
for an answer, as I have so often before…

and I get none. Time passes…
and taking one last look at the majesty
and beauty all around, I get back in my car,
drive slowly across the long levee,

and head for home.

Wil Michael Wrenn is a poet/songwriter living in rural north Mississippi, USA. He has an MFA from Lindenwood University and is a songwriter/publisher member of ASCAP. His work has appeared in numerous places, and he has published a book of poems. His website can be found at:  http://www.michaelwrenn.com/

Party in the Sky

When the sun dissolves
into thin air and mountains
crumble into the sea
I will sit on my cloud
and thank the heavens.
The doctor could keep
his medications while
I have a party in the sky
with the moon and stars.
The worms will look up
at me and count my days.

Along the Susquehanna

Every day they arrive and by dusk they are gone
Rain on the river brings the eagle and the white heron
They know that brooks can run dry
but this is a river

The eagle grips the branches of an old pine
Its yellow eyes pierce the fog
Rain without sound makes the river shiver

The white heron holds its glorious posture on a rock

I watch and as their reflections shimmer in the old river
I listen

Maria Marrero was nurtured on pablum and poetry by her mother who sang her “las
Nanas”, little verses in Spanish. She is a lover of poetry and a lover of
words in both Spanish and English. She has taught writing for over 30
years, and now that she’s retired she finally has the time to write
poetry every day.

Hraunfossar

What happens when you see a waterfall?
Do you reach out to let its mist land on your skin?
Shout of its magnificence to your fellow tourists?
Or do you do nothing because of
what stirs inside and is beyond your control?
This “lava falls,” as it’s known in Icelandic,
greeted me like a friend moments ago
when I stepped off the bus,
its salutation crashing like cymbals
yet hushed and rain-steady.
Now I follow the black-soil path,
reach the bend where the cliff overlooks the river,
and a swell dams my throat.
This waterfall is not like others;
not a tall, singular cascade,
but a long, sprawling multitude,
hundreds of rivulets seeping out of the lava field
into the rapids below.
On and on it flows, and I stand before it,
heart overflowing, because suddenly
I’m not here on the cliff but across the river,
where the porous rock and the glacial melt
are washing my body to the marrow,
scrubbing me clean of hurts I had borne across an ocean,
and my hands and fingers have spread
into the ledges from which those waters leap
and carry the toxins and dead cells of self away.
How do you respond then, when the world
becomes both healer and teacher?
Do you return to a sheltered, stagnant life after this?
Or do you simply go on like the waterfall,
always moving, always whispering,
always persevering?

Sara Letourneau is a poet, freelance editor / writing coach, and columnist at the writing resource website DIY MFA. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in Muddy River Poetry Review, Canary, The Curry Arts Journal, Soul-Lit, Eunoia Review, Underground Voices, and elsewhere. She lives in Massachusetts. https://saraletourneauwriter.com/

Heeding Signs

When the snowy egret appears on your curb
at dusk, offering the cast-off fragments
of your soul a peaceful passage
through the perilous landscape of your life,
attention is required.

When the dragonfly lights on your porch,
observing your pain through multiple lenses,
granting you a chance to grasp the meaning
of that life—sit down, open your own eyes,
contemplate iridescence.

When, in your dream, the giant owl
enters your house, startling you
with its mottled feathers, remember
that something has to die so that something
can emerge. When death arrives on giant wings,
prepare to be a midwife.

Descending

Culbone, 21.10.16

1.

A gust of wind brings
two sweet chestnuts down,
in their diving bells of prickly green

some acorns too, shoe-brown

I pick up the one I can see,
others clatter into the valley…

The leaves are turning, yellow and green
the bracken yellow and brown

Then another behind me—
the wind is a sea

The fruit is on the ground.

The lime-green lichen sponge surreal
a child has made a face on with stones…

small cliffs of it line the bank, then holly, gorse
seedlings as if of everything—all so fertile green

and these closely planted trees forever falling away down steep,
letting go.

To come again here for the healing
like the jagged-edged leaves, falling
ripe to catch if you can—

(you reach behind your head, and miss one)

The boundary fence plank high above the sea
in its swell beneath

at the bottom of the slope

its seething undertow…

And still the chestnuts, beech nuts, falling:

in a crescendo like rain as you see the tiny church spire below.

2.

In the church, under the private pew
reaching deep into the ground…

Silence, such deep silence
healing to the depth of a drop of rain

a globe of rain expanding between my eyes

the rain sinking into the ground
and the leaves falling. Silence.

The flickering mauve tea-light
in the leper’s window

its frame, you say, shaped like an angel.
Had I noticed ?

3.

The sound, the stream, the birds.

Feel this peace everywhere,
lying on your bed at home,
sitting in the green chair
………………………………………..is the message.

This Timeless Moment of the place we enter and re-enter,
that it never leaves—only as we do, climbing
as the twilight descends

And up above on the Lovelace seat
where a whirring of wings lands just above your head…

and darkness closes the book.

Jay Ramsay, who co-founded Angels of Fire in London in 1983 with its Festivals of New Poetry, is the author of 30 + books of poetry, non-fiction, and classic Chinese translation (with Martin Palmer) including Psychic Poetry—a manifesto, The White Poem, Alchemy, Crucible of Love–the alchemy of passionate relationships, Tao Te Ching, I Ching—the shamanic oracle of change, Shu Jing—the Book of History, The Poet in You (his correspondence course, since 1990), Kingdom of the Edge—Selected Poems 1980-1998, Out of Time—1998-2008, Places of Truth, Monuments, and Agistri Notebook (both 2014). In 2012 he recorded his poetry-music album, Strange Sun. In addition, he’s edited 6 anthologies of New Poetry—most recently Diamond Cutters—Visionary Poets in America, Britain & Oceania (with Andrew Harvey: www.tayenlane.com), as well as many collections for other poets, also under his own pamphlet imprint Chrysalis Poetry. He’s also poetry editor of Caduceus magazine, working in private practice as a UKCP accredited psychotherapist and healer, and running workshops worldwide (www.jayramsay.co.uk).

When I Am Gone

In the late spring of 2014, I left my home in Barcelona to walk in Norway for twenty days with my friend Jeppe. We planned to follow the last 300 kilometers of the pilgrim path to Trondheim, St. Olav’s Way, named after the Norwegian king who brought Christianity to Norway in ad 1033. 

I am not a religious person; I do have not faith in any of the marketed Gods but a strong belief in life. And yet, during this journey, I experienced an encounter with a muskox that I can only describe as healing, perhaps even spiritual.

* * *

On our third or fourth day, Jeppe discovered fur from what he believed was a muskox hanging on the bush branches. The fur was soft and had a strong, seductive scent. We decided to follow the animal’s track and not the pilgrim path. Three hours later, we were rewarded when a muskox passed us running less than 100 meters away. 

Could it smell us? Hear us? 

A few hours later. as we were about to exit the denser part of the forest, another muskox stood less than fifteen meters in front of us. 

“Look. Look!” I said. 

As it began to move toward us, we threw our bodies down and hid behind a bush. We took off our backpacks. I grabbed my knife, and Jeppe grabbed his camera. It all happened fast, as pure instinct. Our actions might be seen as protecting life as well as documenting it, a combination that might actually be perfect. Nevertheless, neither of us was aware of the interval between the impulse—meeting the muskox—and our actions.

When it was less than five meters from us, we ran away; specifically, we climbed up a tree. Our hearts were pumping, our skin quivering. Why? I am not sure. It was bigger than a big cow, but in no way threatening. On the contrary, below us, the muskox strolled by, slowly, confidently, unaffected by our behavior. It wasn’t chasing us. Rather, sensing our presence, it looked up at us. It even paused under my fragile tree. I could smell it. For a few seconds, we made eye contact. Its brown eyes appeared to be glassy, probably due to age. It moved slowly, tired; intuitively I knew that it was facing death calmly. 

Once it had passed us, Jeppe wanted to continue, but I couldn’t leave before the big animal was out of sight. I felt a strong connection to the muskox. Standing on a rock, I followed it with my eyes until it faded into the background of the woods. 

Later, Jeppe seemed to regret his rush. “Why couldn’t I just be there with the muskox?” 

I didn’t answer him, but I wondered why I wanted to be with it. 

* * *

Now, recalling my encounter with the muskox, I can see that it helped me move beyond myself. That is, the desire to be somebody vanished, at the same moment the animal dissolved in the horizon. Meeting the muskox was a way of meeting myself, a part of myself, the imaginary clever know-it-all part. 

I remember thinking while it stood under my tree: This muskox could have been me. In that moment, I thought that being a muskox wouldn’t be a bad life. I felt attracted to it, not only the animal’s smell and graceful moves, but also how peaceful it was as it searched for a place to die. It embodied joy even as it took its last tired steps out of life. It was like facing Socrates! To die at peace, I think, equals having lived a good life. I am convinced that I was the last living being that it encountered.

* * *

A week later, while eating lunch, I was suddenly overwhelmed by a strong urge to follow the muskox, to leave everything behind and just walk into the woods. The power of being fully aware of this vivid thought scared me. I felt nauseous, became cold, and began to sweat. I might add that I am a father of three small children. So, what scared me was not just the thought of abandoning my wife and children for a life as a muskox, but rather how sane and healthy the impulse seemed. 

An few hours later, while I was literally just trying to breathe, I felt a sudden rush of liberation. I accepted that I could never leave my family until it really was my time (that is, if I am lucky enough to reach such a point in life, and not be killed in an accident, or by a intoxicated driver since drinking and driving is common in Barcelona). The point was, of course, not whether I should leave my family or not, but the fact that being alive was plenty. Experiencing the muskox saunter through its last moment of life illustrated how a lived experience doesn’t mean doing a lot of things. Not even being somebody. Rather, it means living intense, that is, being fully aware of what matters. 

This realization was more than the evident fact that my children matter more than my writings. It was more fundamental. Instead of trying to be somebody clever, I just felt empowered by life itself. Now, as I mentioned it, I can see that it sounds like a spiritual experience. And yet it was very concrete and solid. It had a smell, a connective look in-between two sentient beings; there was a way of moving. 

I am tempted to call it a joyous experience. According to the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, joy is “what follows that passion by which the mind passes to a greater perfection. And by Sadness, that passion by which it passes to a lesser perfection.” 

Joy is the opposite of sadness, an emotion that is related to the past, whereas joy is related to the present. I have always had a tendency toward nostalgia, the kind that caused me to feel depressed. That tendency began to dissolve the day I meet the muskox. Why? I don’t know. It was a radical acceptance that my life has no coherent thread; rather, it’s a rhapsodic flow of what affects me. 

To put it even more plainly: Meeting the muskox allowed me to consciously experience the joy of being alive. It’s embarrassingly trivial, but now I don’t worry about being trivial. Life is trivial, not banal. Joy is, after all, a process toward perfection, a passage; it’s something that emerges from between two states of mind, between what is emerging and what is dying. So, between being born and dying you can become livelier, more alive and kicking. 

The muskox’s eyes were glassy with gratitude.

I hope that one day I can kiss my children before I blend in with what is still here, when I am gone. 

Finn Janning has studied philosophy, literature and business administration at Copenhagen Business School (CBS), and at Duke University. He earned his PhD in practical philosophy from CBS. His work has been featured in Epiphany, Under the Gum Tree, South 85 Journal, and Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, among other publications. He lives in Barcelona, Spain with his wife and their three children.

Happening upon Patañjali, author of the ancient Yoga Sutras, in the JFK Transit Lounge

Sir, you would be surprised at what we’ve built.
In New York, we’ve hoisted Himalayan structures,
heated and cooled by underground steam networks;
made innovations in structure and design—
tubular systems, the framing of steel—
so they withstand torrents of every kind.
Many live easily to one hundred years,
taking miraculous potions that halt disease.
Yet republics have splintered and recombined;
their armies still muster to maim and kill.
And we still cannot escape old age and death.

People still hanker after trinkets and baubles;
seek money and sex incessantly, and smoke
on the pyre unfinished and unhappy.
If you stayed, I have no doubt you would be honored:
progressive companies would pay you to speak,
you would be featured in magazines, could
knock Deepak Chopra from his chintzy perch.
But you may be shocked at what yoga has become:
All manner of contortions and twists,
in hothouses and gyms, for “wellness” and stress relief.
No longer needed to find the witness within,
to escape the morbid merry-go-round.

On Hatred of the Enlightenment

from Five Cantos on Enlightenment

My first word as a child was light.
My mother brought me into dark rooms
And spoke the word as she flipped the switch

And one day at around twelve months
I said the word before she did.
I had a concept and its sound: marked by history.

And months before that I had been taken
Away from her and put through
A spinal tap as a neonate

Because I had spinal meningitis.
Twenty hours separated as a newborn
And subjected to excruciating pain alone.

So when I talk to you, when I pose a question
To you, I have come to understand why
I do not wholly expect that you will answer.

During the Second World War it became
Thinkable to hate the Enlightenment,
As Horkheimer and Adorno did.

What do I have left if I join them—
If I try to return to the dark room
And instead of choosing the concept—

Discovering it again as we may perpetually do—
I sit in silence, rejecting the shared word,
The half-credible evidence of a bond restored?

Brian Glaser teaches at Chapman University in Orange, California. His first book of poetry, The Sacred Heart, is forthcoming at the end of 2018 from Aldrich Press.