The Graze V.133: Loss and Celebration

Dear Friends:

On this post-election, Veterans Day, I am struck by a description of life’s journey by poet, philosopher, theologian David Whyte. He defines the human condition as a conversation between loss and celebration. His beautiful poetry asks us to be present in our lives to this conversation:

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone……..

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

David Whyte, from Everything is Waiting for You

November 11 was originally “Armistice Day.” On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month (11:00am on November 11, 1918, exactly 104 years ago today), the truce was declared that ended World War I, then known as “The Great War” and “the war to end all wars.”

“Armistice” is from the Latin arma (“arms”) and sistere (“stand still”). Imagine the stillness, the quiet that came from laying down weapons on both sides, after years of grueling, bloody trench warfare. Finally a moment to enter the conversation between loss and celebration.

May peace be with us all on this day and may we find ways, large and small to lay down our swords and shields and step into a new stillness together.

Lisa