Step Outside Tonight

I have a friend who told me of being at a retreat with the mystic, Jean Houston where the leader took everyone outdoors on a clear wintry night.  All the participants were standing in the cold within earshot of the conference center.  Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony boomed into the night air.  Jean invited the participants to “conduct the Ninth Symphony” imagining they were conducting the stars.  They were encouraged to assign to the stars the qualities they sensed they needed for their own life’s journey;  things like faith, honesty, playfulness, joy etc.  I can only imagine doing this… seems so powerful!

Then this morning I read Rilke’s poem. “Entrance” which I will copy at the end of this piece.  Both experiences seem to rely on the power of the outdoors to bring us closer to our own spirit… to find a way to listen deeply to what is inside us.  We are made by how we see the world.  It is too easy for me to forget or to resist going outdoors – especially at night, especially when it is cold.  And yet, I see the power in both of these described experiences – and I vow to overcome my resistance and to see what it’s like to conduct the stars, or to lift up a huge black tree and “put it in the heavens”…

ENTRANCE.  by Rainer Maria Rilke

Whoever you are:  step out of doors tonight,

Out of the room that lets you feel secure.

Infinity is open to your sight.

Whoever you are.

With eyes that have forgotten how to see

From viewing things already too well-known,

Lift up into the dark a huge, black tree

And put it in the heavens:  tall, alone.

And you have made the world and all you see.

It ripens like the words still in your mouth.

And when at last you comprehend its truth,

Then close your eyes and gently set it free.

Do You Have A "Light Secret"?

I recently read this post  from Rob Walker in “The Art of Noticing”.  Please click HERE to go to his Substack column.  I recommend his weekly posts!

DO YOU HAVE A LIGHT SECRET? from Rob Walker Substack

Recently I read a great, strange, entertaining short story, “Light Secrets,”¹by Joseph O’Neill. I read fiction for fun, not in order to find TAoN-friendly ideas. But the notion of the “light secret” jumped out as a delightful, and I think useful, concept. So I’m sharing it with you here. 

Here’s how it comes up in the story (for our purposes, context and character details can be set aside): 

P. says, “Everybody’s got something to hide. Everybody.” He wears his usual gloomy face. With no lessening of the gloom, he says, “But you know what else is true? Everybody’s done something good that’s hidden—the opposite of a dark secret.”

“A light secret,” I suggest.

“Precisely,” P. says.

“Like an anonymous donation?”

P. shrugs. “It could be a lot more interesting than that.”...

This also reminds me (Penny) of the idea of a “bright Shadow”.  This happens when we are extraordinarily attracted to someone – not physically, but emotionally.  We admire them.  We admire all that they do and how they are in the world.  They seem so special, so talented, so gracious etc.etc.  Sometimes, it is possible that this person is representing to you, something of yourself that you don’t quite “own”.  It could be a characteristic or trait that you greatly admire.  And perhaps the reason you admire it, is because you long to have that trait yourself and on some level you know that you do have it – and this other person is showing that to you. 

So I pose the  question to you – do you have someone who is a “bright shadow” for you?  Do you have a “light secret”.  Time to let those things loose into the world!!

Failure

My friend and colleague Rev. Dr. Kathy Hurt recenlty posted this on Facebook. And, she has given me permission to repost it here! What an amazing thing -- A "Musuem of Personal Failure".

     On my birthday last week, I read a beguiling story in the Washington Post about a Canadian man who set up a “museum of personal failures.”  He was inspired to do so after yet another rejection by one he loved.  Weary of feeling shame, and hearing that such a museum existed in Europe, he decided to set up such a museum in his hometown.

     The story has stayed with me, inviting deeper reflection:  how meaningful, I think, to have a dedicated museum that is not filled with inspiring art or beautiful objects but absolutely human, often predictable, failures.  Apparently people far and wide heard about this and sent in contributions, some amusing (amusing to me, though probably not amusing to the person sending in the object), some heartbreaking, like a statue constructed entirely of job rejection notices and pink slips, an unworn wedding dress in a cardboard box.  I thought about what I might send if I were so inclined, sorted mentally through my quite lengthy list of failures over the course of my life, and came up with a theme of not listening:  many of my failures came about when I turned away from what people were saying, what God/the universe was saying, what my own heart was saying.  Perhaps in this next year of my life, I can listen more often, more carefully, more deeply to all that is said to me, and come away with fewer failures.  If I were to submit an object symbolizing these failures to this museum, it might be a broken phone.

     Of course we would never see such a museum established in this country, where leaders never acknowledge failures of their own, endlessly point out the failure of opponents, and cast blame all about or simply deny anything is wrong.  To be willing to have one’s failures exhibited in a museum requires a degree of humility, a willingness not to take oneself too seriously, an acceptance of human imperfection, all qualities absent in most of those who set themselves before us as people we should admire and support and follow.

     But it gives me heart that in one place, a few brave individuals are openly showing where they have failed.  May more of us find a way to do the same, people who fail and keep going, imperfections and all.