Becoming Visible

Our family's winter houses made to shelter new life.

"...To be human
is to become visible
while carrying
what is hidden
as a gift to others.

To remember
the other world
in this world
is to live in your
true inheritance."
David Whyte *

I finished this week by spending the evening with a group of men. I had the privilege of carrying the singing stones from the fire into the lodge where they were gathered. What an amazing week of beginnings. First, being welcomed into a women's circle to receive their blessing. Then to serve and pray in an all men's circle.

Today i thought how this sense of balance in community is what I have always longed for. It's just the way I arrived is far different than I imagined. So many of a child's dreams shimmer only in the secret world... the other world. When I took my vows this week I stated a commitment to my own life, which is created by God. It's a life which is a miracle just like everyone else's life. The breadth of details and outcomes seem to be out of our control.

Rilke says in his Ninth Eulogy:

"The trees you planted in childhood have grown
to heavy. You cannot bring them along.
Give yourselves to the air,

to what you cannot hold."

I wonder if the task of living is to be born again and again through the many stages of our lives. I'm sometimes shocked that I am here, barely hanging on to land that I love while learning to be present in a family and a marriage. Last night I sat with men who shared from the heart about situations that have challenged them to the core. Then we all sang together as the clouds swirled about the lodge.

This week I have felt welcomed by the masculine and the feminine, mother and father, sister and brother. I want to carry these two ends of the rainbow into my everyday life.

Bless you.
May we meet somewhere in the circle of the heart,
in the safety of brotherhood and sisterhood.
May we meet in the challenge and the afterglow of our journeys.
May we see each other.
May we be made visible in the seeing.

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* An excerpt of the poem: What to Remember When Waking from a wonderful book by David Whyte called The House of Belonging. p.27