Calling Each Other Back From Shadows
Author: Michael Lennon Issue: 2024-07-17
Calling Each Other Back From Shadows
by Michael Lennon
Today I learned of this poem, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other” by William Stafford. (My own title for it would “Calling each other back from Shadows”).
Whether the shadows are “political violence” or “alienation from others in our lives,” having rituals to heal & co-compass back to aspirations GreaterThan our present Selves is a long-established practice recently steamrolled by digital distance. This poem offers a way forward and invites us to continue striving to act towards greater clarity in all our digital (and living) affairs.
In future issues, I will share scientific practices which equip individuals and groups to more reliably explore shadows. Still, poetry can transcend limits inherent in Science and objectivity, so it is proffered as an invitation to co-orient forward.
If you don’t know the kind of person I am and I don’t know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.For there is many a small betrayal in the mind, a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood storming out to play through the broken dyke.And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail, but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park, I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy, a remote important region in all who talk: though we could fool each other, we should consider— lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep; the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe— should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
Related:
- Michael Lennon (author)
- 2024 (year)
- Topics: Wisdom Traditions and Ancient Knowledge