Interconnection

the weave of one another

Hello Friends,

Lately, I have been a little quieter here on Substack, but that is because I am leaning into the summer of things, soaking up quality time with family and friends that the pace of my school year makes nearly impossible by June. I went on a gorgeous one-day retreat led by Alix Klingenberg and Erin Browning called The Space Behind the Mind. It led me on a delicious breathwork journey of pause to feel the interconnection of my body, and the ways that I can breathe (and write!) into each part. Certainly, a huge part of that particular magic was being in the company of other creatives and sharing that collective energy.

My family then went to the White Mountains on vacation, and I found myself nostalgic as the children get older, and how someday Santa’s Village might not be our favorite place in the world. I held my breath until I saw the lupines growing on the edge of the road, the way that they do each time we head there, drawing me back to the words of Barbara Cooney who penned the delightful children’s tale Miss Rumphius about a woman who sought to make the world a bit more beautiful by planting lupines in the wild.

This past week, breath has held a heavier weight. The skies above Massachusetts have been hazy and dense, the smoke from the Canadian wildfires drifting on the wind, almost as if nature wants to remind us that we are together in this destruction. We do not get to look away. We are all pieces of a net held together in both joyful moments and terrible ones.

This week, one of my communities here on Substack had me soaking into the ancient meditation of Indra’s Net, reflecting on how each jeweled piece of our world reflects the light and the wildfire of one another. We cannot untangle our own threads from the whole. Gaza is enduring a genocide, Ukraine is still fighting for freedom, and on and on it goes. Sometimes, when the ache of communal pain becomes too large for me to focus my pen, I use a poetry container to hold my words. This week, I chose the mini-son (14 lines with 14 letters each). As I meditated on our world, this is the poem that came to mind, weaving in the reality of the greed that creates many of these preventable tragedies.

Caught 

Sunlight warmth 
on freckled skin,
refracting each
jeweled color of
polished stones:
amethyst for the
divine dwelling, 
opal reflection 
of each past self,
yellow sapphire
teasing at greed
for more of what is
an unearned gift, 
intended for all.

Photo by Barış Selcen on Unsplash

Much love to you all,

Abbie