Eating Cake While Rome Burns

Books keep falling. I keep asking myself, “Am I just eating cake while Rome burns.” I am intentionally mixing storylines of powerful people – Nero and Marie Antionette – who public lore explains did nothing in the face of crises. I have power and I keep asking myself, “How am I using my power for good and love everyday.” Asking myself that question, and repeatedly acting on what I learn, feels like a step in the right direction during crises. Through the wisdom of falling books (written by authors of various genders, races, and orientations), and self-reflection, I learned a few things this week.

Our Roots Run Deep

Adrienne Rich’s essay, “Split At The Root” suggests she has felt split at the root all her life – torn between the religions of her parents. She moves between torn religious roots to the torn roots of gender, orientation, and race. She allows her questions to remain, in acknowledgement that answers are an unending process of unlearning, growth, truth, and healing. Perhaps that process is the annihilation Pema Chodron writes about that happens when things fall apart, before our indestructible nature is found. Roots this week for me have also meant thinking about the lessons from my grandparents garden as I learned about the miracle of mid-June and growing trust from Barbara Kingsolver.

Figure and Ground

I thought about figure and ground this week, too. Paul Elie describes a pilgrimage as experience, and experience is both figure and ground. Figure and ground, in psychological terms, is how we organize perceptions as figure and background to better understand our experiences. That makes sense to me as I struggle with Now. I am continually seeking to perceive and understand – to decide what to focus on, what to listen to, what to see, and what is my work. That is a daily pilgrimage.

Read Weekly Wide-Awake – June 13, 2020 here.