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Through the lives we lived, I learned the harshest gift-lesson to accept, and the most powerful I know - that is, knowledge, an absolute certainty that life repeats itself, renews itself, no matter how many times it is stabbed, stripped to the bone, hurled to the ground, hurt, ridiculed, ignored, scorned, looked down upon, tortured, or made helpless.
I learned from my dear people as much about the grave, about facing the demons, and about rebirth as I have learned in all my psychoanalytic training and all my twenty-five years of clinical practice. I know that those who are in some ways and for some time shorn of belief in life itself - that they ultimately are the ones who will come to know best that Eden lies underneath the empty field, that the new seed goes first to the empty and open places - even when the open place is a grieving heart, a tortured mind, or a devastated spirit.
What is this faithful process of spirit and seed that touches empty ground and makes it rich again? Its greater workings I cannot claim to understand. But I know this: Whatever we set our days to might be the least of what we do, if we do not also understand that something is waiting for us to make ground for it, something that lingers near us, something that loves, something that waits for the right ground to be made so it can make its full presence known.
I am certain that as we stand in the care of this faithful force, that what has seemed dead is dead no longer, what has seemed lost is no longer lost, that which some have claimed impossible is made clearly possible, and what ground is fallow is only resting - resting and waiting for the blessed seed to arrive on the wind with all Godspeed.
Excerpt from The Faithful Gardener ( 1995, Harper Collins) by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
photo: India Flint, Botanical Alchemist
Ik ben een grote bewonderaar van Clarissa. Dankjewel voor deze post!
ReplyDeleteDank je wel, Witte Wolf - ja, Clarissa is een grote inspiratiebron. Deze tekst komt trouwens uit het boekje "De Gastvrije Aarde'' , maar dat wist je waarschijnlijk al.
ReplyDeleteNee, dat boekje ken ik nog niet van haar, maar ik ga er eens naar op zoek. Dankjewel voor de tip!
DeleteClarissa Pinkola Estes wonderfully points to the irrepressible will of life in spite of any obstacle placed before it. We can certainly sense this as the season of spring progresses. It is wonderful to see the freshness of the young green plants shooting up from the earth, and the swelling buds on the trees with the promise of bounty. The longer days and the warming rays of the sun make palpable life's tremendous energy. There is something inherent in the cosmos that holds the intelligence of life. Even if takes eons to manifest the embryonic potential already exists, and there is a sacredness in knowing that life is all around us waiting to emerge more fully through the many forms life may take. "...what has seemed dead is dead no longer, what has seemed lost is no longer lost..."
ReplyDeleteThank you, Joseph, for painting this vivid picture of spring and of the will of life.
ReplyDeleteClarissa's text here reminds me of a quote by the 19th- century author Thomas De Quincey: "I sometimes think that the least things in the universe must be secret mirrors to the greatest."
What a profound reflection this is...Thank You Emma for sharing this tender reminder. My heart opened a little wider because of it.
ReplyDeleteThank you, dear AkasaWolfsong.. I too need to hear these words every now and then. Dr.Clarissa PE offers so much positive hope here.
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