When Cut In Two

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

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The cut worm forgives the plow. – William Blake

Think about times you have been cut in two. Divorce. Death of a loved one. Getting fired. Breaking up. The list of cuts can go on and on. Each one tearing us apart in the places that are most sensitive and tender and even fatal. Mark Nepo reminds us that when worms are cut in two, they immediately return to the soil, the soil on which their lives depend for sustenance and healing. In so doing, two new worms form from one. He suggests that what is important is that growth after the cut comes from returning to our soil, our source.

The cut becomes a challenge.

Cuts challenge us to get know ourself better, to rise to occasions (rather than be defeated by them). Cuts lead us to drop our facade of strength and go-it-aloneness that separates us from one another. The truth is that we all get cut and we all heal more quickly together. Cuts challenge us to be our best selves rather than to drop into the abyss of fear or anger. We have a choice when we are cut – we either bleed to death or get help. In extending the worm analogy, we even have the option of becoming twice the self we once were: with twice the capacity to love, to share, and to connect.

The cut becomes a reason.

Let our cuts becomes reasons. Reasons we love more fiercely: telling people we love we love them and showing them every day. Reasons we go after what we want with more clarity and intention: because we are put on this earth to get things done. Reasons we do the hard work of forgiving, listening, and apologizing. Reasons we create experiences that bring us joy and happiness and make us whole.

The cut becomes a blessing.

This is perhaps the hardest part about being cut. When we are bleeding out it is hard to say thank you. It is hard to feel anything other than fear and anger. Perhaps it is easier to find the blessing from the cut from the healed scar rather than the open wound. Perhaps it is easier to be grateful after triage has been successfully administered. Finding the blessing is perhaps the biggest gift in being cut in two.

https://kitt.global/may-21-when-cut-in-two-mark-nepo-the-book-of-awakening/