Nothing to say

April 21, 2008

I took a workshop with Brooks this weekend. It was very intense, very butt-kicking, very much excellent … and I have nothing to say about it! I have nothing to say not for any of the usual reasons, but because what we worked on was so far beyond mind, so free of structure, of anything to hold on to, anything describable that, well, it can’t really be described. Not using words in the established, traditional way. And I have realized, while talking about this very phenomena to a friend of mine, that the more myself I am the less I have to say. When I am myself … there is no self, there is everything, and nothing. Nothing can be singled out and described. Cause there isn’t anything. There is only everything. What I can do, however, is write about being in relationship to something. Brooks said once that we only exist in relationship. This is my experience – I can’t say anything about who I am other than how I am in relationship to something. This is, coincidently, what the workshop was about: how to be in relationship as who I am. Not the story of me – but ME. This was the butt-kicking part. It’s not so hard to be oneself, all things considered, when one is with oneself, by oneself. When there are other people involved, when there is the whole of reality involved – that is an entirely different story! So how am I in relationship? I am a space for relationship to happen. I am a space for whatever, whomever I am in relationship with to be fully and completely themselves. I am a space that encourages whatever, whomever I am in relationship with, to be who they truly are. In my experience this is common in nature. In my experience this is the way trees are. They hold space for life. They hold space for expressions of God to open, develop, flourish. In this way nature holds space for us to exist.

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