Gathering Myself

by Helen Sadler

 Response to Invitation to Write #7: Writing by Heart

Throw yourself like seed as you walk, and into your own field,
Don’t turn your face for that would be to turn it to death,
And do not let the past weigh down your motion.

I’ve been through a dozen or so ideas for this piece. I finally decided, after about 45 minutes of just playing my guitar along to some songs, I would sit down here with one of the poems and make my way.

I have been gathering myself this holiday break. Throughout the many activities, visitors, quiet time, and meeting friends, I have felt myself moving forward. Not a new direction, but not stalled as I had been up until about November.

This wonderful time for myself has helped me see exactly where I am. I now see myself as a bridge between the past and the future. I see my obligation to my students and the world in a much larger vision than I think I have ever previously had. This vision is making me brave inside. And certain. And trusting.

This past December 8^th, I wrote a blog about John Lennon and included his video about War is Over. That day, I had a war with my students, and I dropped a bomb. And much like Hiroshima, I now see that the bomb was my way of ending the war. This war has been within myself.

I often use a couple of questions from Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh to help me in the classroom: Are you going to war? Or are you practicing peace?  I have found these questions only mildly helpful. Of course I want to think I’m practicing peace, but I am often at war – not with the students exactly, but with the system.  And anger…oh, the anger.

But now I know that War is Over. If I want it.

And I want it.

This is different than asking myself if I’m going to war.  Why did I ever think giving myself that option was acceptable?  It was pulling the life out of me.

I am gathering myself, and focusing now on justice and harmony and kindness. I’m focusing on the values of taking care of myself, taking care of my students, taking care of my surroundings. I’m inviting them into this place.

I was first introduced to this poem by Miguel de Unamuno in 1996 by storyteller Michael Meade.  I have spent nearly twenty years trying to make full sense out of it. Now I think I’m getting closer than I ever have been. I feel I have shaken off the sluggishness and grabbed my destiny. Abundance of compassion and freedom and  new life is mine. This is not to say everything is perfect – planting seeds does not yield perfection. It yields life and death and growth and loss, and finally, maybe some fruit for all the effort.

 I’m here. I’m open to it all.

Another poem I was thinking of using asks the question, “What will you do with your one wild and precious life?”

I feel closer to the answer than ever.

Throw Yourself Life Seed

By Miguel de Unamuno

Shake off this sadness, and recover your spirit;
Sluggish you will never see the wheel of fate
That brushes your heel as it turns going by,
The man who wants to live is the man in whom life is abundant.

Now you are only giving food to that final pain
Which is slowly winding you in the nets of death,
But to live is to work, and the only thing which lasts
Is the work; start there, turn to the work.

Throw yourself like seed as you walk, and into your own field,
Don’t turn your face for that would be to turn it to death,
And do not let the past weigh down your motion.

Leave what’s alive in the furrow, what’s dead in yourself,
For life does not move in the same way as a group of clouds;
From your work you will be able one day to gather yourself.