Renewal
As we begin a new year, I want to offer to you a poem (by Jeannette Encinias) that speaks to endings and beginnings, loss and resilience, grief and renewal. The title implies a reading for the winter solstice, but I think the poem also works well on New Year’s Day. While these words might speak more loudly to those who have had a hard year, I think we can all relate to the themes of loss and renewal that it addresses. This is, after all, a newsletter focused on love, loss, and resilience, so here you go.
~ Gathering Light for Winter ~
When you have no words for the wounds.
When your body is as hollowed out and dark
as a jack-o-lantern
in November.
When you have lost your north, your south,
your east and your west
stay still.
Words for the pain are forming
beneath the skin of your patience.
Your body is gathering light for winter.
Your compass is emerging through water.
Sometimes dying is the only way to live again.
It may take all your stories away.
It may hunt and kill your pride
so you are left with nothing
but questions and space
howling into the night
What next? What now? What for?
This is when grace
pours her warm milk
into your wounds
and advises you to rest.
To steal the secrets of sorrow
and learn her heavy song
so that you can become an instrument
of resilience, turning ever forward
with more than you were born with.
For isn't holding hands with sorrow
a bridge?
Dying while you are still alive
birthing your next self
and courageously
beginning anew.
Thanks for this powerful poem, Ann! Certainly a resource in hard times to welcome change and all the work and heart it entails. I've coined the phrase "becoming myself beyond all recognition" for such inner journeys.