Your return to union is your return to love and it is accessed at the center or heart of your Self. Your mind was in need of silencing in order for you to hear the wisdom of your heart and begin your return. Now, in order to complete your return, mind and heart must work as one. T1:17
These are the two photos I took from the airplane as I arrived in New York.
Now I am home.
Luckily, I came in on Sunday afternoon and the Sunday newspaper was sitting on the kitchen table. I needed the normalizing of “coming back.” In the book section there was an article written by Mary Ann Grossmann about Afghan women writing poetry. Farzana Marie collected the poetry and spoke at an event for the collection’s publication. She said, “A vital, powerful stream of poetry runs through (Afghan) culture because if it is in your heart, it can be retained even when everything around you is destroyed.” That sentence, and the entire article, spoke to me deeply. I set it aside to carry out to the cabin with me, thinking that it might inspire this very post I’m now writing.
It is part of my settling process, to ponder what has been in light of its deeper meaning. The womens’ voices spoke to me on many levels. One was in identifying with their realization that their poetry was worth the risk, even of death; it was that essential to them to express what was in their hearts. The other was more related to what is destroyed, to what it takes to leave an old life, an old era, a former time. In the in between, we hold the tension of old and new ways.
Farzana Marie said “Poetry is central to people’s lives in Afghanistan. Poetry thousands of years old is on people’s tongues and minds.” We, too, hold bits of poetry within us, some of it literal poetry, some of it the tone of wisdom words that touch our hearts.
(“Load Poems Like Guns: Women’s Poetry from Herat, Afghanistan,” Farzana Marie, Holy Cow! Press)
The most amazing thing that happened in New York, for me, was the touching of each other. Some of this occurred in words, but much of it was in actual touch. I have never received so many hugs. So many people came to meet me with their hearts wide open, needing to tell me about the affect A Course of Love was having in their lives. Each one was so sincerely heartfelt. And as the weekend progressed, there was what felt like a slow melting of the heart that touched nearly every attendee. This melting caused a blurring of the remaining edges, the division between the words of love expressed in A Course in Miracles, and the words of love expressed in A Course of Love. By the end of the conference, I could feel a sense of unity. It was almost as if we’d come through something together. The magnificence of the event was that we stood within it. It affected us.
We can often make light of our lives and fail to see the significance of the times we pass though, but I do not want to do that this time. I felt such a sense of the impending as I left on this trip, and feel such a sense of the passing since I’ve returned. This feeling relates to these Courses but not only to them. It is a sweeping sort of feeling, a sense, an aspiration for new life. There, in New York, no matter what conflicts or issues we brought with us, there was a sense of certainty in our ability to move beyond them. It was coming from the same central place that keeps poetry essential in a ravaged country: the heart. “The heart is the center of your being.” It was a recognition of what is there in us that seeks only love and that in finding love, unity is regained.
Dear Mari,
Welcome home. I just finished your post for the 2nd time. My heart is beating faster responding to the power of your blog and the power of your time with all the others in NY. The first time I read this post, I ordered Farzana Marie’s book (along with yours). I too saw that article, but had no time then to read it thoroughly. The power of Farzana’s observation “if it is within your heart, it can be retained even when everything around you is destroyed.” stays with me. What wisdom and knowing must be in many of the hearts of people who have had all stripped away.
As far as seeing the significance of what we are passing through, do you think it is possible in the moment? For me, it is in review that I gain the perspective to see the power of a former moment or experience and all the after effects that flow from it. Rather like an onion– later still I see another layer of meaning. That’s one of the delights of living as long as I have, that generous energy helping me view all the events of my life from love’s vantage point, a maturing love that is so different from that which I thought was love earlier.
ON LOVE
I learn to love by failing
A broken heart is my salvation
I am not finished yet
What other answer to life is there?
Written September 2014, Paula Hardin
Oh, Paula, what a fabulous four line poem. You are clearly a poet who must share what is in your heart.
I also love that you speak of “generous energy.”
I do usually see the meaning of events in review, Paula, and I’m sure that I’ll see additional meaning to this one. But I’m writing so much (I realize, as I just posted another blog on new beginnings!) on this topic, because I have felt, of late, as if things are happening that are none of my doing; that for the first time in many years, there is an orchestration going on that I can feel “as” it is happening. Like a hand is at the small of my back, pushing me along. There’s been a sense of “perfect” timing that, for all that it may be how we would ideally see things at all times, has felt almost unnerving. And then the sense grows that it is not only me. That “something is going on.” That there is potential in it. More potential than usual. I don’t generally cotton to such things, but the sense of this is so strong that I keep exploring it just to kind of pinch myself and see if it’s real!
And how uncanny that you and I have both read of this poetry collection and been moved by it. Potential?
I love this post Mari
I love how you describe the sincere thankfulnes, the open hearts and the hugs and the melting of the heart… and the sense of unity as you came through something together…I can sense and feel it all as if I was there… And I love the last sentences:
” it was a recognition of what is there in us that seeks only love and in finding love, unity is regained.”
So many times I find beautiful “qotes “in your writings that say so much in few words and that touches me deeply…Thankyou!
And I love to see all the pictures of you and the people who came to see you.
Thank you so much Anne. Your comments here are as dear to me as those hugs!