“The challenge of trauma is the challenge of witnessing to a phenomenon that exceeds the categories by which we make sense of the world.” ~ Shelly Rambo
How do you enter that challenge?
Challenging
Changes
The air changes in the changing of the seasons. What are you anticipating? What are you letting go? What surprises?
Present to the moment
“It is not what happens to us in any given day that gives content to our lives, but whether or not we let it’s experience sink into us.” ~ Elizabeth O’Connor
What floats up when you let yourself sink?
Ordinary particles
All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
.
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
.
did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust? ~ Jan Richardson
Stretching
And the thing about blooming is, nothing about the process is easy. It requires every part of you to stretch upward, with your roots firmly planted in the ground; and in the sun, and in the rain, and wind, you stand anyway, even against the pull of the soil. And through it all, one day you will see all along you were transforming. This took everything out of you, but the struggle was beautiful and necessary for your growth. ~ Morgan Harper Nichols
Where are you stretching upward?
Silence
“Of the little words that come out of the silence, like prayers prayed back to the one who prays, make a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came.” ~ Wendell Berry
With the Eyes of the Heart 