Claiming and Letting Go

November 7th, 2023 | Click to Comment

I’m learning that there’s an important discernment to be made about when it’s time to claim something and when it’s time to let it go. Another pair for Ecclesiastes. We do what we can to make things work, to play our part, to live well and care for others, but the outcome is out of our hands. This is true in love and work, art and politics, small projects and major endeavors.  

A photo taken as I was leaving my polling place after voting today

Life teaches us about differentiating between what is and is not our work to do; it accomplishes this by placing people and circumstances firmly outside our control. We can do harm to ourselves and others when we go flinging ourselves against what is. While the deepest desire of our heart can be a guiding star for our lives, our more casual or conditioned wants are a burden. Many of our ideas about how things ought to be bring more pain than guidance.  There’s a difference to discern between acting on our preferences and the right action to take.

Our habits of attention and patterns of emotion narrow our vision and cause us to focus on what distresses us. These habits create thorns that we believe indicate that something is terribly wrong and must be addressed. Our automatic way of moving through the world creates urgent problems to solve, and we believe that if we have agency at all we must solve them. We can’t see or feel anything else until that thorn is removed.

What we don’t realize is that we choose to prick ourselves with those thorns. The pain we put ourselves through is neither necessary nor helpful. We have the power to place our attention somewhere else, and to live differently.

Letting go is the practice that allows us to find out what is essential and what we’ve manufactured through our habits and conditioning. We develop our preferences and expectations over a lifetime, but when we make them a requirement for happiness these inclinations become a prison.

Letting go of who we think other people should be, and what we think should happen, is a lifetime learning project. And life helps us with it, showing us over and over again that people will be who they are and things will happen as they happen.

Our agency doesn’t extend to controlling people or events, yet we do have agency. Acting not from our habitual patterns but from our essential being—the higher, wiser Self who can see clearly what’s needed—is how we can act most effectively for good. Acting from this conscious awareness, rather than being driven by unconscious emotions, is the way to be accurately perceptive, genuinely strong, and truly loving.

We might never choose to do the deep work of this kind of discernment, except that life brings experiences of disappointment, pain, and failure that demand a reexamination of what we thought we knew. Over and over again, life invites us to loosen our grip on who we believe we are and what we believe matters. As we accept this invitation, the world grows larger than the parameters of our preferences. We realize that we don’t always know what’s best for us, and learn to hold less tightly to what we thought we wanted. And in the process, we come to see ourselves as part of a mystery more vast and beautiful than our smaller self could have ever imagined.  

Susan Christerson Brown

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Considering a Rule of Life

August 5th, 2023 | Click to Comment

I’m reading Cynthia Bourgeault’s The Wisdom Way of Knowing, a small book about the teachings that have long helped humanity find connection to the spiritual source of life. We have always been in need of greater wisdom, strength, and guidance than our own devices offer, and these teachings help cultivate a way of life that helps us be receptive to higher knowing. Bourgeault traces the Wisdom teachings that have appeared, gone underground, and reappeared for thousands of years. They have given rise to various religions, tend to fall into the shadow of the very human institutions that arise from the initial religious insight, and continue to find new ways to emerge into human consciousness.

The Benedictine rule of life is one of the practices she names that has come down to us from the Wisdom teachings. Bourgeault anchors her book in the early days of her teaching about spiritual awakening. In an intentional retreat setting, she led a small group in living their version of a Benedictine rule of life. Their days were a rhythm of physical work, prayer and meditation, learning, and rest.

In this retreat setting, among kindred spirits and in a structured rhythm of daily life, they experienced the gift of seeing the unity and the beauty behind this world of ten thousand things. They had a direct experience of this life as a manifestation of the love that is the Source of everything. She attributed their experience to the power of the rule of life, practiced in a devoted community.

Her writing inspired me to experiment with looking at my activities through the lens of a rule of life. Not that I had specifically defined a rule of life for myself, much less expected a mystical perception of reality. But I wanted to try experiencing a day holding a balance of four main areas: physical work and exertion, mental effort and learning, cultivation of space for being receptive to the Divine and becoming a vessel for greater love, and rest. Or in other words, the day’s work for body, mind, and heart, plus rest.

Through this way of looking my time, meditation was not so much a singular practice apart from the day, but rather just one part of the sacredness of the entire day. Even housework, those simple, humble chores necessary but discouragingly endless, took on new dignity as an important part of the day’s rhythm. It helped to see that effort as part of what makes up a full life. The work of the mind, too, as I made notes to prepare for an upcoming meeting, took its place as part of the totality of the day—no more or less than important than any other task. It helped bring a greater sense of ease to my work. Exercise was not so much a chore to check off as an important part of a whole life—like one of the wheels required to keep the cart on the road and moving forward.

I’ve long thought of a rule of life as a burden, something that’s “good for you,” something that you really “ought” to do—like removing sugar from your diet—and just as difficult and grim. Discipline is necessary in all sort of contexts, but the very word suggests living without pleasure or comfort. In a similar way, my unexamined sense of a rule of life has felt to me like the prospect of a house with no pillows.  

What if that isn’t true?

What if a rule of life names what matters most, and establishes a rhythm of life that has space for those things? What if it ushers in a life that’s more joyful and more meaningful? What if instead of a harsh list of things I must do, it honors and elevates those things that are difficult, or boring, or depressing, and makes space for the things that are life-giving? What if it eases the continual low-grade fever of angst about things I have not seen to? What if it helps me see the beauty I’m currently missing?

Some seasons of life are more conducive than others for establishing a rule of life for ourselves. Times of transition when we need a new rhythm for our days, or times of stress when we need the support of a healthy routine, both serve as particular invitations for putting into place a rule of life. Yet even in the ordinary times of our lives, it helps to name what is important and consciously make an effort to incorporate it. The only vehicle for our highest aspirations, our deepest longings, is the concrete way in which we live out our days.

I’m interested in experimenting more with establishing a rule of life. But I’m trying to keep it simple and do-able. I’m asking, “How do I want to cultivate my life through body, mind, and heart?” And, “What does that look like?”

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Freeing the Form in the Stone

April 21st, 2023 | Click to Comment

Michelangelo described the process of creating his magnificent sculptures as a matter of seeing the form within the marble and then removing everything that didn’t belong. With this lens on the process, Michelangelo didn’t so much create David as reveal him by chiseling away the block in which he was encased.

Michelangelo placed his talent in service to the image he was given. Through his inner vision he engaged with a reality not yet manifest in physical form. He gave it his attention, recognized its value, and worked to bring that vision into the material world. The profound beauty of the sculptures he created gives credence to his way of working.

Our more ordinary creations may not reach the stature of Michelangelo’s David, but being guided by the end product that we envision makes bringing something new into the world—writing, teaching, decorating, cooking, or any other creative endeavor—feels a little more manageable. A guiding vision makes it easier to recognize what does not belong, and to chip it away.

In the King Arthur legends, the sword of kingship is encased in stone, and only the true king can draw it out. In these stories, what lies embedded in the stone is a true identity, revealed not by chipping away the stone but by extracting the sword. That is another way of describing the challenge for each of us—finding the connection to our own true heart and our own true calling so that we can claim and wield the sword of our unique power and agency.

Like Michelangelo’s freeing of the form within the marble, the symbolism of extracting the sword points to a way of freeing the essential beauty of our soul. Our potential, our creativity, our ability to love, often lies hidden within the hard stone that we’ve learned to use for protection. As life unfolds, we find out more about who we really are and learn to let go of the things that get in the way. In the process, we bring our long-obscured form into the light.  

It would be great to have a clear vision of that final form, but that is not clear to me. Nonetheless, I am getting clearer on the patterns that do not serve me, and I’m working on letting them go. In that way, I’m chipping away at what doesn’t belong.

Through it all, I trust that there is some higher wisdom, a knowing that is not fully conscious but which urges us in the direction of wholeness. I try to stay attuned to this lifegiving movement, known by many names: the Higher Self, the Higher Mind, the Divine Wisdom, the Light, the Truth, the Ground of Being, the North Star, Divine Guidance, the Life Force, the Tao, God.

Whatever we call it, I believe that this loving and life-affirming presence does see the essential form that’s possible for each of us. It offers us guidance and direction for chiseling away what does not serve, and setting free what is encased in stone.

Susan Christerson Brown

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The Impact of the Aspens

October 22nd, 2022 | 1 Comment

This fall I visited Denver and the iconic Rocky Mountains for the first time. I knew to anticipate a difference from the familiar green rolling ridges and limestone cliffs of the Appalachians. But the mind’s expectations hardly prepare body and soul for the encounter.

Depending on weather conditions, the mountains are a now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t backdrop beyond the Denver skyline. The changeable visibility might offer a view of distant snow-capped mountains, or the entire range can be obscured by clouds and smog. We were fortunate to have a clear day heading west out of the city on I70.

Even the foothills are jagged and rough, desolate brown on some slopes and filled with evergreens on others. My ears popped as we drove up the steep inclines into the mountains.

White-barked trees with golden leaves began to appear. They glowed as if lit from within, growing in clusters. Aspens. They’re all connected, I learned. Each sends out roots that can grow into new saplings. These were families of trees.

What a gift to see the aspens in their October glory. From a distance, they make threads of light among the dark firs on the mountainsides. The bright lines and pockets of color are like the Japanese art of kitsugi, repairing cracked pottery with liquid gold—brightening, elevating, and making unique the piece that has been broken.

Up close, the aspens shimmer in the breeze with a gathering, rising sound like tumbling water or the sudden flight of a tree full of birds. The leaves are golden coins winking in the sunlight, like the glittering disks of a thousand jeweled belly dancers, held aloft on slender white branches.

There were valleys filled with these trees, like huge golden pools surrounded by mountainsides of deep green. We passed the exit to Golden, Colorado, named for this exquisite swath of color. I no longer think only of beer when I hear that name.

Seeing the aspens comes at a price for an unacclimated lowlander. The body’s strength drains out like water at 11,000 feet. The low ache of a brain in need of oxygen, the effortful thought, the necessary slow pace of movement, the fluttering heart, all mark how it feels to move through these heights.

Physical energy and mental agility grow cloudy in the high mountains, at least in the short time when I was there. I didn’t so much claim an experience as submit to it. It was an encounter: with power, with beauty, with vastness, and even with desolation. We watched a storm gather on the side of a mountain, and found ourselves peppered with snow-encased hailstones on a mountain pass. Temperatures dropped, the sun came and went. A huge ranch spread over a barren-looking plateau seemed to me an image of loneliness. I can still see the woman in boots and jeans unlatching a wide metal gate, the driver’s door of her pickup standing open—and feel her dignity and grit. 

I felt the absence of how familiar terrain cushions our journey through this world. The enormity of the landscape jarred me awake, wide-eyed, as I took in what I could. The mountains inspired awe, and demanded a gathering of one’s own strength to meet them. They evoked humility, effortlessly demonstrating that life is more than I can imagine.

I’m grateful for every part of experiencing the mountains, but it’s the aspens that make me smile. Their gorgeous, golden color amidst the rugged landscape was a kind of generosity. Their inviting shimmer was like the gift of hospitality—a gift shared by those who welcomed us into their homes at the end of the day as well. Beauty and delight touch the heart when we’re traveling unfamiliar territory.

I want to remember the power of connection that I saw in the aspens, and the impact it makes on the landscape. I want to remember that I have the chance to foster that kind of community, beauty, and hospitality in the life I live. And I want to remember how much it matters.

Susan Christerson Brown

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Presence without Answers

June 11th, 2022 | Click to Comment

In my mom’s new electronic photo frame, images from across the decades show up in delightfully unexpected order. Our family keeps it interesting by continually sending new pictures—some recent and some from the past. Yesterday the display showed a fabulous picture of my dad from the late 1950s. He was in his mid-twenties, leaning against his Chevy and looking like he was going to own the world. Then a recent picture of my thirty-six-year-old son came into view. Stretched out on the floor with his baby daughter, his face expressed a more mature kind of optimism. He showed the peace, strength, and love I knew from my father, years after that youthful snapshot.

Seeing the younger generation at a later stage of life suspended my usual sense of the passing of years. It bent time to see the grandson older than his grandpa. The daughter who would be me was not yet born; in that juxtaposition of photos my baby granddaughter was older than I was!

There’s a rare and treasured picture of four generations of mothers and daughters in our family taken when I was a baby. My mother is now about the age of the great-grandmother who seemed ancient when I was young. Somehow, I’m now in the role of grandmother. Decades after that picture was taken (and still many years ago) I took my place in a different photo of four generations, posing on the porch of the same house. I can still hear the ringing metallic creak of that screen door swinging open—a sound that announced love and welcome, remaining constant through all the changes from childhood into my years as a young mother. In this front porch snapshot my daughter was five or six, and my grandmother had become her great-grandmother. My mom in the photo is a little younger than I am now. How can this be? As with so many before me, I understand my elders better with each passing year.

My beloved grandparents passed on long ago. Recently I’ve lost my dad. A friend says one of the gifts of grief is the appreciation of what’s here, of our time with each other, and how much it matters. How brief it is. Another gift is the perspective on what has real weight and what doesn’t. It helps us see difficulties as the passing circumstances they are. It can remind us not to fritter away our energy and attention on things that don’t really matter.

Ironically, it takes a long time to understand how short life is. For much of my life the years seemed to extend far in front of me, and I took them for granted. But it’s not just the brevity of life that we’re slow to appreciate. There is also the mystery and gift at work through the living of our days. We have access to the Source of life, but it usually takes a long time to wake up to that reality.

Regardless of whether we’re awake to it, the Life Force moves and animates us in amazing ways. What unfolds is glorious. Looking back from a distance is like watching time-lapse photography of a flower bloom. In those earlier years I thought that living a life was my own doing. Now I know that my actions were more a matter of Life moving through me. Sometimes I was in the flow, sometimes I resisted it. On my best days, I showed up fully for what unfolded. I responded to the ways Spirit nudged me forward. Am I doing that now? I hope so.

One thing I know is that life is short, and I don’t want to miss out on it by not being present. As I experience time bending, connecting the generations, I see the fleeting beauty of the time that I have. I want to savor it, or at least show up fully for it. And I’ve learned that engaging in some kind of creative work helps.

Creating calls forth our best self. It asks only that we show up and engage. In making art, or taking it in, we engage with Presence. Art doesn’t provide us with answers; it doesn’t have to. Its job is to be present. It invites us to attend to what’s real, and to experience how reality shows up in the beauty that passes away. It helps us hold the questions, and to allow life, whatever it brings, to flow through us.  

Like a Rothko painting, art can be a doorway into a temple. Engaging with art creates a still point in a turning world, the axis mundi that makes an opening for eternity.

Susan Christerson Brown

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Courage and Tenderness

January 19th, 2022 | Click to Comment

It takes some courage to take on what’s new, to try something new, to live into what’s new. Right now it takes courage to keep going through the rumbling storms into the new year. Marion Gilbert observes that this new year will be what every new year is: a continuation. That’s helpful. Remembering that a new year doesn’t arrive fully formed makes meeting it feel less daunting.

At the same time, a continuation brings a lot of old baggage. The heavy realities we carry forward weigh on what’s to come. I think of Jacob Marley’s chain, forged link by link. Bracing ourselves to endure its weight requires one particular kind of courage; allowing ourselves to release what’s not needed is another.

The long endurance that the COVID era requires is a new place to be. We’re having to dig deep for the extended perseverance it takes. Our reservoir of everyday coping strategies ran dry long ago, and we need the kind of spiritual sustenance that cannot be generated by force of will. It’s a fresh challenge, or at least a deepening one, to find those wells of replenishment and to continue dealing with the crucible of our current time.

However we characterize it, this malaise is not just our individual experience. Talking to one another makes it clear that we’re experiencing this collectively. At the same time, when the positivity rate is at record levels in Kentucky and people still can’t be bothered to wear a mask, it’s easier to see the divisions than to feel like we’re in this together. But that’s exactly why it troubles me to see bare-faced shoppers: I know we really are in it together. I pray for anyone who needs a hospital bed anytime soon.

Because I tend to look toward the positive aspects of things, something in me wants to resist saying that we’re in a hard place. I’d rather focus on finding some good that comes from all of this. But as the challenges go on and on there is simply no avoiding how difficult these days are, even for those of us not suffering on the front lines of public contact and health care.

In a recent column, David Brooks points out that Americans are driving less but deaths from traffic accidents are up. Belligerent behavior in hospitals, schools, and in public is on the rise. Substance abuse and overdose deaths are increasing. We’re giving less to charity.

Perhaps healing begins with acknowledging the truth of this painful era. There’s a kind of surrender that comes with looking directly at how things are, showing compassion for ourselves and others as we make our way through it. This kind of surrender is not the same as giving up. It’s more a matter of being honest about the condition we’re in.

Naming what’s real honors the loss we’re all experiencing. Acknowledging the painful realities that we’re trying to cope with brings a tenderness to how I move through the world. The vulnerability and fragility that I sense in myself and others feels both sad and true. It slows me down, and makes me appreciate the genuine moments of beauty and hope.

The courage to abide with what’s true makes us more receptive to what our ego would otherwise dismiss. It helps us to pay attention, to see what we would otherwise overlook, to be truly present. The tenderness evoked by these times helps us appreciate the beauty of caring for one another, of connecting with one another. It shows us how we need each other. Bringing presence to one another makes things better.

Tenderness helps me notice and appreciate the moments of beauty and connection that permeate every single day. Beauty is spiritual sustenance, and even sweeter when shared. As we honor what is true, we can help heal this world by bringing our attention to what is beautiful, sharing it with others, and enjoying those moments together.

Susan Christerson Brown

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All Souls

November 2nd, 2021 | Click to Comment

Ushered in on All Hallow’s Eve, it’s the season of All Saints, All Souls, Día de Muertos. We remember our beloved dead in this chill season at the dying of the year. The red oak is aflame and the veil feels very thin.

The human psyche, our collective psyche, is astonishing in its genius for creating the festivals we need—for layering joy and pain, life and death, this world and the one beyond. What conveys life more than a joyful child? And what depicts the nearness of death more than a skeleton? Put those together in our celebration of Halloween, and there’s the human experience.

It’s fun to dress up in another persona. There’s a thrill in wearing a creepy costume with the power to spook other people. When we’re young it’s a game, then as time goes by we apprehend what gives rise to the whole party.

Through these rituals we remind each other that we’re going to die. We do it with candy to sweeten the medicine, and children to gladden our hearts. Joy and sorrow intermingle, and the poignancy fills me with love for this world.

The generations come together to make this celebration. For some, the air is thick with the presence of those who have passed. For others the world is brand new. Fierce monsters and gentle princesses travel together. We meet the darkness with glowing jack o’lanterns, and greet life and death at our doors.  

With candles of remembrance on All Souls’ Day we honor our loved ones. We recall their light and acknowledge our connection to the world beyond. Through ritual, the generations come together and we bridge the distance between this world and the next.

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An Invitation to Explore Your Enneagram Type

September 1st, 2021 | 2 Comments

We’ve been through a lot of challenge and change over the past year and a half, both individually and collectively. The outer changes in our lives and circumstances are easy to see, but we’re experiencing internal shifts as well. It helps to have some guidance as we tend our inner lives, and the Enneagram is an invaluable resource.

Enneagram Symbol made with Lavender

The insight of the Enneagram has allowed me to understand myself better, and helped me to navigate changes during this challenging time. Over the past several months I’ve deepened my understanding of this powerful map of the human psyche while working toward certification as an Enneagram teacher in the Narrative tradition. This fall I’m excited to be starting a new group for learning the Enneagram.

The Enneagram describes how, in one of nine different ways, our inner habits of thought and attention shape our outer experience. It shows how our well-worn emotional buttons influence who we believe ourselves to be. Yet we are more than these learned behaviors; life is more than these patterns we’ve adopted for coping with the world. Within us is an authentic self who is wiser, stronger, and more loving than the habitual identity we’ve learned to wear.

The Enneagram holds vital insight for connecting with this essential self and living a fuller life. The Enneagram shows us the habits that take charge when we aren’t paying attention. It names the things we do to try to keep ourselves safe—things that eventually work against experiencing the security, worth, and connection that we most long for. Learning to recognize and relax these automatic patterns helps us show up with a clear mind, loving heart, and grounded presence for whatever the day may bring.

The Enneagram also helps us appreciate how others experience the world. Certainly the pandemic has demonstrated that people are very different in how we see and respond to the world. Learning about the different Enneagram types helps us understand how people differ in what we pay attention to, what we’re sensitive about, and what motivates us. It teaches compassion for ourselves and others, and helps our relationships to flourish.

Maybe you’ve reached a place where you want to understand yourself and others better. Perhaps you’re exhausted from spending energy in a way that doesn’t seem to move you forward. Possibly you’re tired of meeting internal demands that no longer serve to make life better. The outer changes of the past year and a half may have shown you the value of exploring inner growth and change. Or perhaps life is nudging you to get support in finding a new approach to the patterns you’re ready to outgrow.

Whether you want to deepen your understanding of the Enneagram, or learn about your type for the first time, I invite you to be part of a new Enneagram learning group that I’ll be leading via Zoom beginning this fall. We’ll meet monthly, 6:30-8:00 p.m., on the second Wednesday evening of the month. There will be an introductory meeting on Wednesday, September 8, at 6:30. It will be a chance for you to hear about the group and ask questions, and for me to get a sense of the group and how best to proceed with planning the year. We’ll meet for nine months (October through June), focusing on a different type for each meeting, along with discussion relevant to all types. The cost to participate for the year will be $180.

If you’re interested in attending the introductory session and/or being part of this group, just send a quick email to susan@mildlymystical.com. It’s a great time to explore this life-giving tool.

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Fostering New Growth

August 28th, 2021 | Click to Comment

After a recent morning walk, I lingered outdoors pruning the taxus bushes. The day was already hot, but I had some time and wasn’t ready to sit down at the computer. So I kept to the shade as the advancing edge of sunlight nudged me along the length of the shrubs. I had no idea what time the clock read, or how long I had been working, but the sun kept me moving and helped me work evenly along the shrubbery.  

It’s a long, slow process, making these overgrown bushes into something that fits the space where they’re planted. By the time they came into my care they were crowding the sidewalk and blocking the window. But cutting them back wasn’t simple. They had long been trimmed just at the surface, sheared along the top and sides. Only the outside two inches were green, where the tips of the branches competed for sunlight. The massive interior was bare—a skeleton of a shrub wrapped in a green rug. But they were strong plants, with a will to live.

I’m learning how to work with their natural inclination to grow, and to proceed at their pace. Drastic measures are counter-productive; the places where I tried hacking the shrubs down to size resulted in many lifeless branches. But as long as I refrain from cutting off all the green tips at the surface, I can encourage new growth deep in the thicket of bare branches where light could not enter before. I have a general idea of the size and shape and fullness that I want to bring about, but I have to engage with how the plant wants to grow in order to get there. I pay attention to the places where it’s flourishing, and encourage those fecund branches to nourish the deeper growth that can develop.

This more careful tending teaches me about cultivating a full life. Watching for signs of new growth and then making the cuts that encourage it has become a contemplative practice. The life force in the plant shows what it wants to do. That’s what I watch for and work with. I hold in mind what’s possible as I engage with what’s in front of me.

This approach works for tending creative work as well. Revising a draft, for example, involves working with where the writing wants to go and cutting away what detracts. Doing creative work of any kind, including living a full and creative life, is all about noticing the tiny green hint of a bud beginning to form. It’s finding a way to give light and air to the new possibilities stirring, and pruning what would impede the life force from nurturing this new growth.

To do creative work we must arrange our lives to give light and air to our creative inklings. Letting in light might mean making space in our attention for a new idea, or seeking feedback from trusted others about our what we’re working on. Giving it air might mean allocating a regular time for creative work, making space in the day for tending what wants to grow.

The tender, green beginnings are where all new work comes from. Their growth depends on us giving them the care that only we can give them. Unless we make a way for them, they cannot come into the world.

What we tend matters. Fostering new growth renews the world and renews us. It’s part of being fully alive. Yet even though I know this, it’s something I have to remember, and re-remember, over and over again.

The beautiful song, “Now the Green Blade Riseth,” is one reminder that comes to mind. Steve Winwood’s version is lovely.

Susan C. Brown

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Illumination

July 9th, 2021 | Click to Comment

For a few minutes in the early morning, the angle of light from the sun, the tree line out back, the frame of a particular window and doorway, all align perfectly to send a shard of light across the kitchen counter. It illuminates a simple notepad I keep there. This narrow pointer of sunlight travels through the house from another room—an alignment that happens only around the summer solstice.

I’m still learning the light in this house and across this bit of land. Even now as I write, the changing angle of light illuminates a small brass nail on the oak floor. It must have fallen there, unnoticed, in a recent round of hanging art on the wall. For a moment the nail is easy to see, though when the light changes it will disappear again.

This week I read David Whyte’s “The House of Belonging.” There’s a subtle trinity in this poem—of wholeness in oneself, belonging, and connection. Whyte’s words embody a peace that comes from knowing that even in solitariness, he’s not alone. His sense of belonging comes from the connection of the soul to its source, to the mystery and beauty of all things, and to life itself. This connection to life is a connection to his own depths. It imbues every interaction with meaning and vitality. The sense of belonging that arises from this deep presence connects him to his home and the “housely angels” that dwell there. The feeling of belonging also connects him to those he loves, whom he welcomes into his home and his life. Belonging fosters an open heart, where others can belong.

Whyte is describing a moment of transcendence when he can see how his life is connected to a greater reality. Sometimes we can see the connection; sometimes we can’t. The golden threads that link our lives to the divine and to one another only show up when the light is just right. In the holy moments when we are most alive, these sacred threads of connection are illuminated. They show us the beauty of our lives. We see them in the light of a poem, a conversation, a loving touch, an image, a ritual, a prayer, a moment of beauty, or countless other ways.

We so easily lose sight of those golden threads. The light shifts, and the sense of wholeness and belonging that they bring seems to disappear. We forget that we’re connected; we lose track of how much our lives matter. It’s an illusion, of course. The golden threads remain as surely as that brass nail on the wooden floor, hidden in plain sight.

Walk on this earth with bare feet, connected to the ground, feeling for the sharp edges, the prick of the nail’s point. Watch for a new angle of light, revealing what is right there, the truth in plain sight that we’re finally able to see.

Susan Christerson Brown

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