Sunday, March 18, 2012

THE WAYS THAT WE ARE BROKEN

They say a winter storm is blowing into Northern Arizona with over a foot of snow expected in Flagstaff.  This follows a day when we had temperatures in the mid-eighties and some time since we had the first thunderstorm of the season.  It seems the weather is out of whack.  Is everything broken?

A friend spoke to me recently about noticing all the broken people and wanting to be careful about absorbing that energy.  And another told me about being drawn to the most challenged ones who walk into her shop in Uptown Sedona.  Somehow these broken ones touched her heart more and opened her to the profound and mysterious connection we all have with each other.

Jesus talked about our seeing him in the “least of these” not the best.  We are all broken, and lately I am beginning to understand how it is not just our holy intentions but all our mistakes and missteps which have brought us to a place of blessing.  We have to see the sacredness in all things and we have to honor and bless all our wandering in the wilderness.

Spirit already knew perfection before it took form.  It does not need that experience; it needs to feel the sacredness of imperfection.  We are perfectly imperfect.  Think about the red rock formations of Sedona.  Their perfect expression is as compressed clay and sand, lying perfectly flat on the sea floor.  But at some point that red bedrock was thrust upward in jagged shards that became shaped by wind and running water. 

Now all those broken pieces draw visitors from all over the planet who take pictures and gawk and otherwise praise them as one of the natural wonders of the world.  Shouldn’t they also be gawking at you because you and I are such perfect examples of brokenness?

Last weekend, at the writing seminar, it became very clear that just talking about or writing about our light makes for something very boring.  Our light is only interesting when we hold it up against the darkness.  We need the contrast.  Our very lives become our greatest masterpieces, works of art when we witness all the brilliant shades of darkness and light.

We do not need to go out and damage ourselves just to make our lives interesting; we are adept at self injury without much effort at all.  I am thinking of Isis floating down the Nile to retrieve all the dismembered parts of her murdered lover, Osiris.  It is said she built a temple at every point where she found one of the missing parts.

So we should also honor all the places where we are wounded.  In our breathwork journeys we often re-member the source of an old wounding and we go in to have it repaired.  But we are also thankful for the path that brought us to this place and the sacred journey, however torturous.

Now, at the next writing workshop we will set sacred space for our writers to liberate the book that is clamoring for release at the core of their being.  We will record the good, the bad, and the ugly.  And we will honor the holiness of it all.

Birth Your Book!  A two-day retreat for finding your voice and sharing your gifts with the world.  With your facilitator, John Berry Deakyne; author, poet, and writing mid-wife.

Tuesday & Wednesday, April 10-11, 9:00-5:00 daily, Sedona, Arizona. 

Limited to ten writers. 
Pre-registration required: john@earthschoolforsouls.com    phone:  707-799-7662












1 comment:

  1. Amen brother john n so well put as always! Luv ya Terese

    ReplyDelete