it's like this

It feels right to say thank you.

We’re almost eleven thousand readers strong; thank you. This week, learnings from a recent chaplaincy training, one poem from a new friend, and a piece on zazen that I’m keeping close. Thank you for reading. And the recording of our Live Session this month awaits paid subscribers at the bottom of this post.

Gravity, 2024.

From our upcoming group show at Folklore Santa Fe. If you’re in town, join us for the opening on November 22nd.

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Chaplaincy core trainings happen a few times a year. For several days we sit, listen, steep. We learned with true legends last week.

Mary Frances O’Connor, author of The Grieving Brain. Father Greg Boyle, founder of the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world. Dacher Keltner, researcher on the neurological benefits of wonder, author of Awe. Mary Taylor, co-author of Feeling Happy, respected teacher of asana and meditation. Wendy Dainin Lau, MD, author of The Inner Practice of Medicine. Noah Kodo Roen, Upaya Director, with his wife, chaplaincy graduate, singer, songwriter and teacher Nicolle Raigetsu Jensen Roen. Dear teacher Roshi Joan Halifax, Upaya’s Abbot, author of Standing at The Edge. An enriching time to say the least.

Respecting the grieving process in new ways, learning to cherish folks who’ve been marginalized and criminalized, coming closer to wonder and amazement as I engage, caring differently about myself and my formation. These are the tasks and honors of a chaplain; right now I feel like a newborn baby. I’d had no idea how I’d be learning, how grateful I’d feel in this training, or how it would change me.

While I integrate, one poem on the gifts we might be overlooking, a short piece on the gift of practice, and an invitation to join me live tomorrow.

If you’ve been with me in Mentorship these past four years and enjoy our Live Gatherings, or if you’re keen to explore what I’m discovering each month, consider a paid subscription and we’ll be gathering. In January 2025, Mentorship ends and a new chapter begins like this, right here.

Thank you Wendy, dear new subscriber, for making your way to where I’ll be writing.

This week: Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s daily offerings of poetry are medicine. This fall in Telluride I wandered into Atelier, where shopkeeper and designer Joanie Schwartz tells me that if I’m a writer, I need to explore Rosemerry’s work. I say okay, got it. Within days,

Hansa Devi

introduces me to Rosemerry over email, a sign.

Having endured the death of her grown son, Rosemerry’s poems open my heart to how we humans go on. Her new book The Unfolding is a never-ending gift to me, this poem is from that book, I’ll share more in the coming weeks.

“It’s Like This”

The odds of you being alive are basically zero.”
—Dina Spector reporting the work of Dr. Ali Binazir,
Business Insider, June 2012.
 
It’s like this. The sun itself
is constantly moving through space,
and yet it never leaves us.
Add this to the list of marvels—
like how a glass of water
was once a cloud,
like how love can grow in us
despite sorrow, fear.
Given such gifts,
one must wonder how it is
our arms aren’t constantly raised
in spontaneous praise for life.
I know and you know
why sometimes our hands stay down.
But now, standing still together,
even as we’re spinning
and racing through space,
even if it’s only a whisper,
when faced with the truth
that great forces hold
our lives in place,
it feels right to say
thank you, thank you,
eyes lifting, heart trembling,
the improbable earth
so solid beneath our feet.

Her poetry is teaching me. This piece on how we greet each other took my breath away recently.

Next, words on practice is from Zen teacher Katherine Thanas, coming with me into every sit for the time being.

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Welcome to Holding Nothing on Substack. Thank you for being here.

If you choose a paid subscription, you’ll access the entire archives (almost three years), and are invited to comment on all posts (I respond personally). If you have financial restriction, send a note to me—scholarship subscriptions are available. Don’t hesitate to ask.

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