Turning Towards Life: A Podcast

Out of the blue, I got an e-mail from a stranger named Justin Wise in the UK with a link to a half-hour podcast that he and colleague Lizzie Winn had done, about my poem Fire and what it suggests to them. Justin was reflecting on his habit of piling on more work. And Lizzie, who is three weeks into motherhood, sees the poem as guidance and encouragement. I'm delighted (it's always a gift to know that our work in the world has been of use, near or faraway). The words of the poem are my own. But I'm curious about their take on it. So I listen.

It's wonderful to hear the familiar accent (my British husband David and I spent a month a year in the UK) and the words of the familiar poem. Yet it turns out the poem says so much to them that I seem to have overlooked. And their words come at a time in my life when I have an unusual amount of spaciousness and flexibility (which can be unsettling as well as relaxing). And a time when I am musing about what has the most life and meaning for me in this chapter of my life.

Their insights, their reflections, are fresh and interesting to me-- new insights seemingly destined for me here and now. I begin to take notes, word for word, on what they are saying. I want to share the words that most struck me. The headlines. And below the headlines are my notes about their conversation.

Here's what stands out for me--the headlines taken from Justin and Lizzie's dialogue about "Fire." I hope they tempt you to listen to the entire program (below).

….so much of what is alive and deep in our lives needs us to do something other than keep going…

….there’s a self that’s wishing to flourish

….we are interfering too much

Everything relaxes, the flame that’s here, that’s wanting to burn gets to have a life that is intended for itself.

We’re letting each other breathe.

The ordinary state we walk around in is a state of contracted anxiety. In our contraction away from life we want to fill all the spaces.

….if I’m on it all then I’ll be taking care of what I love-- but it is a fear-fueled way of trying to exercise care.

…..to see that another kind of life is possible not from giving up but from relaxing enough.

…..the harder I try the more elusive it becomes….it's so non linear, loosening our grip…(a grip) that began out of love, but it’s not the way that life works, so I have to find a way to regulate myself so that I can live well, and not always just follow my distorted loveness…

The paradox is we let go and we get met by something.

Turning toward life.

Fire

What makes a fire burn

is space between the logs,

a breathing space.

Too much of a good thing,

too many logs

packed in too tight

can douse the flames

almost as surely

as a pail of water would.

So building fires

requires attention

to the spaces in between,

as much as to the wood.

When we are able to build

open spaces

in the same way

we have learned

to pile on the logs,

then we can come to see how

it is fuel, and absence of the fuel

together, that make fire possible.

We only need to lay a log

lightly from time to time.

A fire

grows

simply because the space is there,

with openings

in which the flame

that knows just how it wants to burn

can find its way.

Judy Sorum Brown