Places to Heal

Most animals if they are hurt will go to a den or a covered place, there they don’t have to expend a lot of effort while healing. If they sense they are safe their wounds will naturally heal faster than if alone. The community I am part of in Austin, Texas is a safe place to heal. My part is to show up best I’m able at the time, do my best to be present-the rest is innate to the tradition.

 

I recently audited a writing class lead by a professor^[1] that emphasized the idea of writing one’s truth when using words as metaphor to convey life: this class like the SSW(Seminary of The Southwest) community relieves one of having to be “on guard” or expending energy in protecting your tender parts-it’s a more spacious environment than the alternative, pretense and illusion. Living in an environment with people more interested in being true, vulnerable and gracious toward Life, it’s hard not to be moved toward being whole, healed.

 

I came to this school to learn how to communicate the passion I have for dirt, roots, rocks, thin air, germination, uncharted trails, and animal screams. I love to be in uninterrupted distance…to be justly small and full of awe, but solitude needs community to call one on his or her shit, ego. It takes authentic people living in real time and space encountering pain and joy without denial of either, to heal other people-to call them out of themselves into a Self. I have experienced healing here, without being smothered with the directions or fantasy of others. It is true what my first advisor^[2] said, “Well, it seems you will need to learn a new vocabulary for this desire you have”. I couldn’t agree more, so on it goes-the gathering of truth.

 

It’s a mystery to me, but if you want to go to the edge of a wilderness, physical or internal, it is imperative you be in a community available for the truth to move, and open to what may show up in the Un-Calculated.^[3] Nature seems to love diversity and play, “divine grab-ass”(watch animals at play), I need some healing……

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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^[1] Thanks to Dr. Claire Colombo and the creative students of F2015, Writing as Ministry.

^[2] Dr. Steve Bishop, Spring Semester 2013.

^[3] If I come to any insight about solitude and community, it is because of Henri Nouwen.