Gregory Hoskins:
\nI’m gonna take a little walk through them fields,
\nI’m gonna carry me gently so my heart can heal
\nI’m gonna find me a demon, in a dark dark wood
\nYou can’t come with me. I wish you could.<\/p>\n
from my journal for September 18
\n3rd cup.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m still feeling grumpy, bereft of spirit, caught in the denatured space of bureaucracy.\u00a0 <\/span>Inside there\u2019s a part of me that wants to do away with all that.\u00a0 <\/span>To take a walk down the long road out of town, searching for the demon in the dark wood, so I can wrestle with him, have a conversation, or if not that at least some kind of back-and-forth contact, to be engaged, to push and be pushed back until wrestling becomes a contact-improv dance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nStephen Jenkinson, from Die Wise, pp 376-7
\nDown along the fence line in the back forty of your life there is a pile of stones \u2014 your regrets. \u00a0If you don’t go down there to visit them often, you’ll end up thinking either that they’re not there at all or that they make a pile a mile high. \u00a0Here it is: They’re almost always there, and the pile is rarely as high as you think. \u00a0When the ending of days comes into view, that’s a good time to visit that little altar. \u00a0Here’s my advice. \u00a0Don’t add another stone to the pile by the way you are with the ending of days. \u00a0Just remember. \u00a0Then, climb that little hill, picking up one stone at a time and putting it back in place, remembering. \u00a0It’s not all bad. \u00a0When you get to the top, look around. \u00a0That’s the great pasture and field of your life, with everything it was now visible and lucid. \u00a0You can only really see it from up there. \u00a0That’s the big story.<\/p>\nThe pile of rocks representing regrets.\u00a0I pick up one, it\u2019s Malcolm who I treated so badly.\u00a0I put it down and pick up another.\u00a0I regret that I wasn\u2019t able to keep up friendships with Kathi Brown, Rose Marie, my siblings.\u00a0I regret that I didn\u2019t come to NVC<\/a> until it was too late to use it with Mom.\u00a0I regret that I was never able to make her happy.\u00a0I regret that I find it so hard to tell people that I love them.\u00a0I regret that I didn\u2019t tell Aunt Betty, Aunt Carolyn, and Aunt Mimi how much they meant to me.\u00a0Thank god I at least managed to have one good talk with Mama Greene<\/a> before she didn\u2019t recognize me.\u00a0I regret that I wasn\u2019t able to realize what a fine gift to the world Neskaya was until I had left.\u00a0I regret that I didn\u2019t make friends with Marianne Flack before she died.<\/p>\n
I see that my regrets are all about relationships with people.\u00a0 <\/span>I don\u2019t at all regret that I never had a \u201ccareer,\u201d never had a \u201csuccess\u201d that other people would see was a success: good sales for my book, a second printing, many calls for my \u201cSacred Sites,\u201d<\/a> a PhD in Geology.\u00a0 <\/span>I do regret that I wasn\u2019t able to teach the Sacred Calendar<\/a> more, that was more due to a failure to \u201cmarket\u201d it successfully, and that\u2019s a kind of effort I couldn\u2019t make.<\/p>\n
Then there are things that might have been on a \u201cbucket list,\u201d if my life hadn\u2019t been closed in by PTSD: to revisit Callanish<\/a>, to get to Tibet, or Iceland, or the Faroes…\u00a0 <\/span>I don\u2019t feel any desire to do those things, my time and energy are headed for going in and down, inside myself, down to the depths of Spirit.<\/p>\n
[added later] I realized, walking down to the attic to meet with Barbara, that all these niggling little tasks (deal with my will, get taxes done, etc) keep me away from going deep and I\u2019m frustrated<\/span>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gregory Hoskins: I’m gonna take a little walk through them fields, I’m gonna carry me gently so my heart can heal I’m gonna find me a demon, in a dark dark wood You can’t come with me. I wish you … Continue reading