Bravo! Inspiring us all, gently and warmly, to take the right option! There's really only apocaloptimism or giving up, and I know which I prefer!
Having confessed in an earlier comment that poetry is the form of the arts I find least accessible, I am also delighted that you quote from the one I most relate to - the spiritual giant from my hometown of London, William Blake. If I may, I'll offer back another line from the same poem: "Across all human lands, tools were made, and born were hands". This line for me evokes for me a world founded on humanity and human participation. A vision which certain apocalyptic forces now seek to eradicate. A vision which you and I and a great many others strive to keep alive. And we shall.
Michael, what a gorgeous addition to this essay. Absolutely... returning to a world based on humanity is our task. The sooner we understand that, and knit our visions together, the faster we shall prevail!
I find it so interesting that Blake (I'm a huge fan, too) placed the tools first, then the hands. It feels similar to the coining of the word preceding the action or attitude it describes. I've often sensed that art calls into being that which already exists on another plane.
Thank you as always for continuing the conversation!
That feels kind of right – that everything exists already in the spiritual world. However it could get tricky – it might then seem to negate human creativity. For Steiner, ideas and archetypes are the same thing. So all ideas already exist, and we just learn to connect with them. But when we light them up in our individual consciousness, they are coloured by individual feeling. They are manifested in a unique way. Creativity still lives!
Yes! I believe all creativity is actually co-creativity, as we human beings are able to provide the physical vehicle -- including individual feeling -- to bring ideas into form.
Apocaloptimist...that's a word that could only have been coined for our chaotic times.
The wisdom in your essay, summed up by Blakes poem:
We were made for joy and woe,
And when this we rightly know,
Through the world we safely go
Our hearts are safer when we rightly know this. When we understand that both joy and sorrow are part of life and if we keep our hearts open through both, we can stay optimistic until the end. As long as we're still here, the story isn't done yet. So we may as well become the change we wish to see while we play it all out. Glad Samson got a reprieve and you got a great hug from Henry!
It's remarkably difficult to actually open our hearts wider when we encounter pain, yet therein lies safety, as you so beautifully summarized, Katie Grace! A lovely comment. Thank you so much.
I second your nomination. I find myself among the handful of apocaloptimists and think myself in good company.
What a wonderful article to wake up to this morning. Beautifully intimate and expansive at the same time. I thought you were gonna write about Samson's parting and I swear, I think you would have crumbled me to a heap of tears.
Your family sounds so lovely, Mary. Wishing you an apocaloptimistic new year!
Just read this through a second time.. and will read it again. When I have had similar experiences, bridging from joy with friends to a family crisis, more often than not I have resented the challenging situation. I would like to think I have grown to the point now where my experience is more like what you describe... so.. admiration.
What a beautiful story and important truth. Thank you for sharing. 🙏🏻. We need people like you who can lift us up, help us keep perspective and carry a light of hope.
I so understand the lean toward resentment, because I've been there myself very, very often. I think that's why I felt the need to write about this experience -- it was a welcome departure from business-as-usual... :-)
Thank you for offering your honest take, CM. No surprise! Your writing is always filled with truth.
What a beautiful - and beautifully written - story, Mary. Thank you, I really enjoyed it. I'm most definitely an apocaloptimistic. Nice to have a word to capture that. (Though as your story makes clear, it's underlying feelings of love, radiating out, that heals and guides and reminds us, even when it all looks like shit, it's still deeply well.)💞
I'm so glad you enjoyed it, Kathleen. Having appreciated your work for a while now, I'm not shocked to discover your apocaloptimistic underpinnings... :-) Happy to be playing on the same team!
Just enjoying this again.. for a little pick me up. I do hope you get back to writing plays - or some longer, more broadly distributed format- someday. You are a very talented story teller!
Thank you for sharing! It reminds me of Joanna Macy’s concept of “Active Hope”. Yes, the world is unravelling but our only option is to ACT with optimism rather than idly sit by. It’s our only option 💚
Oh Mary! I love this article!! The power of Source, its wisdom and courage, and your embodiment of it! How lucky we all are to hear and experience your voice! So much love <3
Yes, yes, to manifest through sound. As apocalypse can mean the uncovering or the revealing, it is something that healthy people should look forward to. There may be great pain in getting there because of the threat to most peoples self identity commitments, but the potential joy produced by coming out the other end will make it all worth it.
What are we missing such that society is organized in such a dysfunctional way?
An earnest question is prayer to Creator and I have received answers to this long time question. The words used in my answers do not yet quite resonate with many, but I need to work more on tone anyway and events can unpredictably affect uptake of new ideas.
I see the uncovering to be the realization that the spiritual and the physical are basically the same thing rather than being taken as fundamentally different as is currently believed and imposed on society. One way serves power, ego and objects, the other serves God, authentic self and relationships.
Great comment, Sounder. Yes, the bifurcation of spiritual and physical has led us to some dark places -- particularly in the way we've maltreated the Earth. Where would we be if we viewed everything -- and I mean EVERYTHING -- around us as sacred?
Thank you for your thoughts, and the choice you've clearly made of which way to go... :-)
“apocaloptimism” is word I've also never heard of, but I can guarantee one thing, I've felt everything going completely to shit many times in my life...and every time I've been able to gather internal optimism I didn't know existed and knew everything was going to be ok... Thanks for sharing ❤️
I find it fascinating that we don't know it exists until we call upon it. Reminds of the wonderful little prayer poem from one of my go-to faves, Michael Leunig:
Bravo! Inspiring us all, gently and warmly, to take the right option! There's really only apocaloptimism or giving up, and I know which I prefer!
Having confessed in an earlier comment that poetry is the form of the arts I find least accessible, I am also delighted that you quote from the one I most relate to - the spiritual giant from my hometown of London, William Blake. If I may, I'll offer back another line from the same poem: "Across all human lands, tools were made, and born were hands". This line for me evokes for me a world founded on humanity and human participation. A vision which certain apocalyptic forces now seek to eradicate. A vision which you and I and a great many others strive to keep alive. And we shall.
Michael, what a gorgeous addition to this essay. Absolutely... returning to a world based on humanity is our task. The sooner we understand that, and knit our visions together, the faster we shall prevail!
I find it so interesting that Blake (I'm a huge fan, too) placed the tools first, then the hands. It feels similar to the coining of the word preceding the action or attitude it describes. I've often sensed that art calls into being that which already exists on another plane.
Thank you as always for continuing the conversation!
That feels kind of right – that everything exists already in the spiritual world. However it could get tricky – it might then seem to negate human creativity. For Steiner, ideas and archetypes are the same thing. So all ideas already exist, and we just learn to connect with them. But when we light them up in our individual consciousness, they are coloured by individual feeling. They are manifested in a unique way. Creativity still lives!
Yes! I believe all creativity is actually co-creativity, as we human beings are able to provide the physical vehicle -- including individual feeling -- to bring ideas into form.
Apocaloptimist...that's a word that could only have been coined for our chaotic times.
The wisdom in your essay, summed up by Blakes poem:
We were made for joy and woe,
And when this we rightly know,
Through the world we safely go
Our hearts are safer when we rightly know this. When we understand that both joy and sorrow are part of life and if we keep our hearts open through both, we can stay optimistic until the end. As long as we're still here, the story isn't done yet. So we may as well become the change we wish to see while we play it all out. Glad Samson got a reprieve and you got a great hug from Henry!
It's remarkably difficult to actually open our hearts wider when we encounter pain, yet therein lies safety, as you so beautifully summarized, Katie Grace! A lovely comment. Thank you so much.
I second your nomination. I find myself among the handful of apocaloptimists and think myself in good company.
What a wonderful article to wake up to this morning. Beautifully intimate and expansive at the same time. I thought you were gonna write about Samson's parting and I swear, I think you would have crumbled me to a heap of tears.
Your family sounds so lovely, Mary. Wishing you an apocaloptimistic new year!
Thank you, Tonika. You and I are definitely playing on the same team! And believe me, it gave me infinite joy to write a truly happy ending... :-)
I feel so lucky to be blessed with my family, and a growing friend circle that includes passionate souls like you. xox
That really warms my chilled Midwestern heart, Mary. Likewise. 🤗
Just read this through a second time.. and will read it again. When I have had similar experiences, bridging from joy with friends to a family crisis, more often than not I have resented the challenging situation. I would like to think I have grown to the point now where my experience is more like what you describe... so.. admiration.
What a beautiful story and important truth. Thank you for sharing. 🙏🏻. We need people like you who can lift us up, help us keep perspective and carry a light of hope.
I so understand the lean toward resentment, because I've been there myself very, very often. I think that's why I felt the need to write about this experience -- it was a welcome departure from business-as-usual... :-)
Thank you for offering your honest take, CM. No surprise! Your writing is always filled with truth.
What a beautiful - and beautifully written - story, Mary. Thank you, I really enjoyed it. I'm most definitely an apocaloptimistic. Nice to have a word to capture that. (Though as your story makes clear, it's underlying feelings of love, radiating out, that heals and guides and reminds us, even when it all looks like shit, it's still deeply well.)💞
I'm so glad you enjoyed it, Kathleen. Having appreciated your work for a while now, I'm not shocked to discover your apocaloptimistic underpinnings... :-) Happy to be playing on the same team!
Indeed!😊
Just enjoying this again.. for a little pick me up. I do hope you get back to writing plays - or some longer, more broadly distributed format- someday. You are a very talented story teller!
Sigh. Thanks, CM, you are very kind to say so. I hope I do, too...
Thank you for sharing! It reminds me of Joanna Macy’s concept of “Active Hope”. Yes, the world is unravelling but our only option is to ACT with optimism rather than idly sit by. It’s our only option 💚
You're right on. The path is clear!
I'm not familiar with Joanna Macy, but now I will seek her out. Thank you, Jeni 😊
Oh Mary! I love this article!! The power of Source, its wisdom and courage, and your embodiment of it! How lucky we all are to hear and experience your voice! So much love <3
Thank you Sara, for your loving support here! So glad this essay reached you. Big love right back atcha. xox
Thanks Mary, wonderful writing.
Yes, yes, to manifest through sound. As apocalypse can mean the uncovering or the revealing, it is something that healthy people should look forward to. There may be great pain in getting there because of the threat to most peoples self identity commitments, but the potential joy produced by coming out the other end will make it all worth it.
What are we missing such that society is organized in such a dysfunctional way?
An earnest question is prayer to Creator and I have received answers to this long time question. The words used in my answers do not yet quite resonate with many, but I need to work more on tone anyway and events can unpredictably affect uptake of new ideas.
I see the uncovering to be the realization that the spiritual and the physical are basically the same thing rather than being taken as fundamentally different as is currently believed and imposed on society. One way serves power, ego and objects, the other serves God, authentic self and relationships.
Let's see, which way do we want to go?
Great comment, Sounder. Yes, the bifurcation of spiritual and physical has led us to some dark places -- particularly in the way we've maltreated the Earth. Where would we be if we viewed everything -- and I mean EVERYTHING -- around us as sacred?
Thank you for your thoughts, and the choice you've clearly made of which way to go... :-)
“apocaloptimism” is word I've also never heard of, but I can guarantee one thing, I've felt everything going completely to shit many times in my life...and every time I've been able to gather internal optimism I didn't know existed and knew everything was going to be ok... Thanks for sharing ❤️
I find it fascinating that we don't know it exists until we call upon it. Reminds of the wonderful little prayer poem from one of my go-to faves, Michael Leunig:
"God bless this tiny boat
And me who travels in it.
It stays afloat for years and years
And sinks within a minute.
And so the soul in which we sail,
Unknown by years of thinking,
Is deeply felt and understood
The minute that it's sinking."
Extremely true - I've seen this happen many times to many souls close to me...
Thank you "Queen of the Word." As always, what I needed to read. I love you.
Candi! So lovely to "see" you here. I love you, too... xox