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My partner Andie and I and our 10 month old baby - and our dog - - the four of us live up in the mountains - in Gold Hill outside of Boulder.
And earlier this week we had a night of really strong winds. The metal ridge cap that runs across our roof consistently caught the wind igniting a horn of sound every few minutes.
And I had this steep rise in anxiety. Showing up as some tightness and speed in my chest - a wave of heat through my body. High winds, dry, dry earth.
Fire danger.
Fire - anxiety.
Do we need to pack a go bag? I thought. What even goes into a go bag?
The last time we had to evacuate my mind was scattered and unfocused and I threw random things in the back of my car. I want to be prepared, I thought.
The thoughts and what ifs continued to circle -
If the fire moves really quickly we’ll just grab the baby and the dog and head to the below grown structure 50 yards from our front door. If we lose everything we’ll be ok.
Something about imagining the worst case scenario deflating some of the fear around it…
((breathe))
breathe…return to my breath
We didn’t have to evacuate earlier this week, but others in my larger community did.
Fire season started early this year.
And, less than two weeks prior to this round many in my community had to evacuate - again - too soon after the devastating Marshal Fire left whole neighborhoods in ashes in minutes - - all on the 1 year anniversary of the mass shooting at our King Soopers.
((breathe))
This little snapshot just a piece of the heaviness - I imagine each of you is intimately connected to - the heavy truths of this moment, which doesn’t even begin to name the weight of personal struggles that each of us carry - right now. Diagnosis, divorce, depression.
For me - this pitch of fire anxiety this week overlapped with the first real feelings of spring, which fill my same nervous system with so much goodness.
All the signs, smells, sounds of new life.
The particular beauty of the first signs of blooming.
The first yellow pop of a daffodil, the sight of flickers donning their mating plumage - the smell of spring unfolding. Such pleasure.
The anxiety and the pleasure circling in my system - all at once, together, sometimes simultaneously co-existing other times creating their own kind of tension.
Like this holy week - beginning today with Palm Sunday. The holiest season in the Christian tradition that holds both great celebration and great mourning.
I grew up Catholic - and actually have a lot of fond memories of my childhood church.
And I remember knowing that Palm Sunday was a special day.
We would dress up a little nicer - not quite Easter-level attire but something pretty close - - for what felt like the launch of a festival week that often aligned with the welcome warmth of Spring.
As the story goes - Palm Sunday - celebrates Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem.
Picture a packed parade - children, elders - lining the streets leading to the city center of political and religious power. A big event.
Many in the packed crowd carrying palm branches.
I imagine them long and outstretched creating a celebratory tunnel - or spread on the ground like a carpet of royal welcome as Jesus slowly rides through on his donkey.
Jesus. This radical Jew, preaching the message of freedom for all, sharing a table with all the wrong people,
this anti-capitalist community organizer - this Jesus -
this leader full of promise for a different world -
a different way of being together.
Just days from his death - from his execution at the hands of the state - - at the hands of empire.
Holy week, which ends in - yes, Easter (the hallelujah! the resurrection!) - but is also a full, packed week of happenings.
There’s intimate foot washing with beloved friends - the last supper - a feast of food and wine.
Then there’s the moment when Jesus is betrayed by one of his besties - - Judas - - outing him to his executioners with a kiss. And the long walk to his death - the weight of solid wood on his back - the same crowd that cheered just a few days before now jeering and spitting on him.
All of this - the celebration, betrayal, the hope and possibility of the new, the violence and the despair, the taste of justice, the weight of injustice - - it’s all here in this one week.
I remember being a little confused by it as a child.The rejoicing of Palm Sunday knowing the crucifixion was just a few days away.
…Almost wanting to turn to all the adults in the room and be like - you know, right? What’s about to happen? Do we all know what’s about to happen? Should we be celebrating right now?
I was disoriented by the proximity of it all. Feeling the texture of the palm branch - passed out to each person at the beginning of the service - woven into the shape of the cross. Holding both life and death between my hands.
Can we rejoice in this moment even when struggle is so close? Can we take in the joy, the celebration, the good, the beauty, the life - if it’s somehow not “pure” - as in not the only thing there is?
As in - can we take in the good, when the good is here - - even in the midst of the struggle and the pain, the anxiety and the depression, the loss - the pandemic…the climate collapse…the raging grip of white supremacy and racialized state violence, war.
Can we? Should we?
Brené Brown, researcher of human emotions and the human experience, has said that joy is one of the most difficult things of all for us to feel. “If you ask me” says brown what’s the most terrifying, difficult emotion we feel as humans,” she says, “I would say joy.”
According to Brown, the fear of really feeling joy when it authentically shows up is rooted in an anticipatory sense that it will be taken away - that it will end. Why even feel the joy - the beauty, the celebration, the love, the wonder - if it’s - impermanent - and we then have to feel its loss.
I see this in myself. I see this in my work -
I currently serve as a community minister based in Boulder and right now work at a mindfulness based psychedelic therapy clinic.
We partner with both ketamine and cannabis in a safe and sacred way to excavate the depths - to dive into the subterranean layers of psyche and soul in pursuit of healing - in pursuit of - in a longing for - connection, relief, love..joy, vitality, purpose.
And sometimes as things start to subtly shift for those I work with - when we start to see the tender green shoots of new life within - it’s quite common for it to be a struggle.
A struggle to actually let the good in. One of my teachers calls this a nourishment barrier.
On a nervous system level, joy can physiologically be overwhelming to our system if it’s so unfamiliar. This might be because of personal trauma and oppression, yes - but perhaps also just part of what it means to be alive right now…for all the reasons you likely don’t need me to list or name.
What if it’s exactly when suffering pulses through our lives and - life - - that we must remember how to tolerate the joy.
And I don’t mean some big posturing kind of joy. Or the forced kind of gratitude practice. I mean the really true, small - sometimes teeny - and always fleeting moments of - beauty, gratitude, connection often hiding in each day. Starting with what’s true and going from there.
I mean the first sip of coffee in the morning…the warmth of the cup around my hands - - pausing with that, breathing - and taking it in.
I mean a moment of laughter - real laughter, or 3 minutes of a new favorite song (or 6 if you play it on repeat).
Or in the words of Audre Lorde who speaks of the life force of the felt experience of joy: “…the way my body stretches to music and opens into response.”
I mean a moment of noticing physical health in my own body or the body of my child. Breathing - and taking it in. Right now, we are healthy.
I mean the subtle movements of spring, the snuggle from a dog, the news that grey’s anatomy was renewed for a 19th season…
…and staying for an extra breath with it, a beat - the felt sense of it and imagining slowly, gently taking it into your system.
((breathe))
Yes, the joy IS fleeting - the coffee turns cold, the song ends and it most often shows up right alongside the pain and the sorrow, and the loss.
Just like palm sunday.
Taking in the good when the good is here - dressing up and going to the parade when the parade is happening - - is not about turning away from the struggle - it’s not about turning AWAY from anything - but more fully turning toward all of it, which includes the good…
More specifically, let us not neglect the good, then - - not only because it’s true and also here, but because we need it. We need it to keep our hearts open and keep going.
And we get to practice accepting how fleeting it is - like the date fruit from the palm tree growing in and around Jerusalem.
The date palm tree spending most of its energy and resources to create this fleeting and magnificent offering of its fruit. Do we not get to enjoy the sweet taste of ripened fruits in season because we know it will again be winter? Or that we somehow don’t deserve it because there’s so much suffering?
The suffering needs your joy. Please don’t turn away from it.
And if you are someone or somewhere in this day or moment where the fleeting sweetness feels just too far - I see you, we see you. Perhaps someone else in the community can hold the joy for you if you can’t let it in just yet.
And if you find yourself taking a small sip of the good more deeply into your system this week - let it linger - and then share it out.
If you’re like me - you might be in the habit of waiting to take in the good until — after. After you’re “finished” with what you really need to do.
“after” -
after the pandemic
after fire season
after this next email
Because - I think I’m at least starting to realize - that there is no - after. I keep waiting for it. There is no returning to normal - whatever that even means. And I’m here to tell you, as a committed list maker - you never finish, it’s never done.
“Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,
between ‘green thread’
and ‘broccoli,’ you find
that you have penciled ‘sunlight’.”
writes Tony Hoagland from our reading this morning.
And so, as we hold both life and death between our palms - perhaps the invitation is to draw an even deeper breath and grow in our capacity to experience - both - even at the same time.
May it be so. Amen.
xo
kp