Rock of Cashel: Tipperary, Ireland
I think of wounds as barriers—obstacles closing off a path I was originally intended to follow. Thus, my new year’s resolutions have often sought to circumvent the pain of my story the way you would finagle faulty electrical circuits in an old house to accomodate a modern, high voltage appliance. I’d write my resolutions in a new journal couched in words like healing, transformation and growth. All good words, but looking back I see my desire was to circumvent my wounds rather than allow them to usher me through a threshold I am meant to cross.
So today, on this day after Epiphany and, more gloriously, my kids’ first day back at school, these lines from a poem by Jan Richardson ignite in me a genuine spark of hope as I face this new decade.
“Singing to the Night”
Who would have thought
the sky could be so pierced,
or that it could pour forth such
light through the breach
whose shape matched
so precisely
the hole in the heart
that had ached
for long ages,
weary from all its emptying?
And what had once been
a wound
opened now
like a door
or a dream,
radiant in its welcome,
singing to the night
that would prove itself
at last
not endless.” ***
How are you weary from feeling emptied by the past or aching from a historic breach of your heart? How might this wound, if trusted, understood and allowed to guide you, lead you closer to the end of a long night? What if, this year, you didn’t seek to be different but only to be whole?
***To read the rest of the poem, download Jan Richardson’s free Epiphany retreat here. It’s seriously the best free thing on the planet! https://sanctuaryofwomen.com/WomensChristmasRetreat2020.pdf