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. 
