Making a case for beauty in times of horror
We need to feel our aliveness to keep from going numb.
Earlier this week, in one of the many exchanges I’ve had about the coming of spring, I remarked, “I feel as if my cells are coming back to life.”
It happens every year, the sense of aliveness that rocks me as soon as the days begin to turn warmer, the trees start budding, splashing their pinks and purples from the sidewalk, and the sun coaxes me outdoors well past 5 p.m. Like so much life that has been slumbering in the long dark of winter, I, too, feel like I’m waking up. Like I am shaking off a cloak whose weight I didn’t realize was so heavy until my body starts buzzing with birdsong, leafing trees, rising sap and all that brims with the promise of renewal.
Perhaps as a Caribbean-born woman, this shift in energy should come as no surprise. The expansiveness, the joy that quickens my limbs and fills my lips with frequent bursts of song may seem only natural for someone who spent the first 10 years of her life bathed in tropical heat.
But this year I have been startled by the fullness of this vibrancy that seizes me, chiming how good it feels to be alive.
On a recent morning, I stood under the boughs of the spruce in my courtyard, with the sun peeking through to my upturned face, the skyward swoop of sparrows and robins a feathered surround-sound serenade as the Earth seeped its redolent thaw into my bones. And I was ecstatic.
I was struck anew by this rush of fervency. How, amidst the horrors of watching multiple genocides across the world, with the relentless dehumanization and decimation we are all witnessing, celebrating life has become even more essential. Not as escapism, a turning away or dismissing. But as a coming home to feeling, to the body, pulsing with this fresh moment, never to come again. I’m not celebrating life as a series of happenings — the milestones, transitions and accomplishments — that serve as markers along our journey, and sometimes as the only pause we allow ourselves to acknowledge that journey’s unfolding,
I’m allowing myself to be moved by the wonder of being alive. Of having breath. Of having senses to take in all the loamy, stirring Earth has to offer. I am refusing to give into despair, to go numb — though the tendency to dip in and out of this state is natural — to let fear have the final word.
And while I’m more present to this vitality with the emergence of spring, it’s also what finds me when I’m dancing or dreaming into new projects and spaces with those whose creativity and vision inspire me.
There’s also the aliveness I feel laughing hard with people I love. And there are countless such everyday moments inviting us to celebrate life right where we are. Being scooped into the warmth of a dear one’s embrace. Listening to the giggles of a child. Taking that first bite of a meal we’ve prepared to share. We invest so much in the big moments, wait for magic to find us beyond the ordinary. Yet life’s daily joys and wonders ask us to bring our full-bodied awareness to the savoring. To make a refuge of the beauty we see and create, the love we give and receive. Then we can make space to take in the ongoing traumas around us, to let our hearts be broken again and again.
It may feel indulgent to allow pleasure at a time like this, to be moved to the point of rhapsody. We may feel guilty for delighting in what so many are losing in acts of unfathomable cruelty. But how else do we keep on loving the world? How else do we deepen our capacity to hold the painful and the hard, to turn with compassion to see another’s suffering as our own?
We need the ballasts of goodness and beauty, of moments that sing us home to our hearts, drop us into the wild exuberance of our bodies, our potent life force. This isn’t denial but necessity, to be a brave and hopeful citizen in this burning, broken world.
How are you holding yourself in these times?
I recently shared with a friend that I’ve been making this gesture more often recently, reaching up to cradle my own face. Often, if I’m guided to place my hands anywhere on my body, I go to my heart or my belly. Yet, of their own accord, my hands have been going to my cheeks, in what strikes me as a gesture of devotion, a tender holding reminding me I am worthy of my deep kindness and care.
I invite you to sit silently for a few moments with your feet on the ground. Connect with your breath. Connect to the Earth beneath you. And then start to scan your body with gentle curiosity. Where are you drawn to place your hands? What does that gesture or body part have to say to you about what you might need right now?
Join me for National Poetry Month
This April, National Poetry Month (one of my favorites!), join me for this weekly self-guided invitation to tend your heart through poetry. Each week, you will receive a video sharing a poem, writing prompts to respond to that poem and a practice to journey a little deeper.
Videos will be sent at the beginning of each week, starting April 1 and concluding April 29. No poetry experience is needed, and while you may be inspired to write poems based on the prompts, this isn’t about the craft of poetry but about having a weekly practice to companion your grief. You will write for truth-telling, revelation, to honor what you’re feeling and to connect to yourself.
Energy exchange is $29- $44 sliding scale.
Registration closes March 27.
Sign up here.
New in-person grief group starts in April
Join me in Bucks County, Pa, for this gentle, non-judgmental space to explore concepts and frameworks around grief while building a grief toolkit and finding a connection to other grievers by witnessing each other’s stories and experiences. All griefs are welcome.
Cost is $150 for 6 weeks.
The group begins Wednesday, April 17, and runs every Wednesday through May 22, from 7 to 8:15 p.m., at Airmid Wellness and Counseling Center. The center is located in the Hartsville Professional Village, 1250-1260 Old York Road, Warminster.
Learn more and register here.
Grief Medicine returns for the spring
It’s always an honor to co-facilitate this space with Amy Hyun Swart. In these devastating times, having our grief held and witnessed in community, with practices that help us embody compassion and expression, is more important than ever.
Learn more and register here.
Beautiful!