This is the seasonfor disappearing. Slip away to where no one knows to find you. Meet yourself right where you’ve always hungered to be met. Now’s the time to cheaton all the names you’ve taught the world to call you, to be unfaithful to who you thought you wantedto become. Plan a hundred secret rendezvouswith the delicious stranger you’re discovering yourself to be. Don’t tell a… Continue reading Tradecraft
Category: Poetry
How to Listen
I’m not asking youto come down hereand clean out the muddy corners of my life. I’m asking you to be a forestwhere mud and leaves,shadows and light,growth and decayall have their unquestioned belonging. I’m asking you to be an ocean,where even great stormsdon’t trouble the depthsand each tear is welcomedas a homecoming. I’m asking youto be as… Continue reading How to Listen
After Samhain
Now, for a while, the darkstays dark. The long nightswill be long no matter how you pray for light. This god will not be rushed. But she will offer you the thick black folds of her cloakwhere you’re finally freeto lose everythingthat can’t be kept.
November Evening
And then there’sthe yellow trees dripping with after-storm light. And then the busy people’s faces, each with its effortless beauty. And then the steely, spacious twilight glow in the west, and to the east the tall poplar shining dimly against dark gray distant clouds. And then I’m walking in a world once again enchanted, once… Continue reading November Evening
The Simplest of All Regrets
I’m in one right now—one of those days that will nevercome again. The brown puzzle piecesof oak leaves scatteredover the sidewalk, and the sunrisestretching itself into a long,luxurious thing. And yousitting across from me laughingto yourself about somethingon your phone, totally unawareof the alchemical morning lightagainst your cheek. Please body! Please mind! Wake fully into this moment. How… Continue reading The Simplest of All Regrets
October Poem
One Good Wind It’s October so yes, the worldis dying but I always thinkI have another monthat least, maybe two,to marvel in the middleof fall’s kaleidoscope,walking the fractal tranceof kindergarten yellows and(somehow!) iridescent pinks.But then one good windcomes in off the distant Pacific and trees that just yesterday dripped with dazzlestand skeletized, strippedof their abundance for thepromiseless… Continue reading October Poem
This Is Not the End
This is notthe end.News that may comeas a salvein the dry cold of winter,or like an unwelcome tugon the hammockof August.However finishedyou’re afraid you areor wishyou could be,remember:this earth that restsso still beneath youis racing around the sun,teaching your bodyto dance the seasons.You are carriedwith a million yearsof faith: that there is more in youlonging… Continue reading This Is Not the End
All I Mean
All I Meanby James A. Pearson There are a thousand woundsbut all I mean by healingis this: that you learn to hold yourselfin exactly the wayyou were never held. Here’s the homework I got an online course I’m taking this week: To set a notification on my phone that pops up several times a day… Continue reading All I Mean
Self-Compassion Poem
Self-Compassionby James A. Pearson Remember that a lakecan freezeand unfreezea thousand times and feel no shame. A coach I worked with a couple years ago often reminded me that life is a cycle of forgetting and remembering. Over and over. One day you feel close and connected with yourself, with the world. The next day… Continue reading Self-Compassion Poem
The Mud Season
Patience darling,it’s still too earlyto trust the seasonwith that tenderness you holdin your globed hands. I can feel it, too—the yearning to plantyour fingers in the warming earthand release what’s so alive in youinto the scrum of all life. But the ground’s still frozen beneath all this mud.And winter, even on its way outwill take with… Continue reading The Mud Season