christy lee-engel commented on “the quality of exposing/acknowledging/opening the tender underside, one’s down-to-the-ground ordinariness?”
i start to shiver all over thinking about and feeling individuals and whole social systems exposing, acknowledging, and opening to their tender undersides. of honoring down-to-the-ground ordinariness. accepting each other and ourselves, completely as is.
anyone want to share a moment of down-to-the-ground-ordinariness?
i’ll start. right now, i feel that nervous tickle beneath my stomach, that tightens as i pose a question that possibly no one will answer or even read. it’s a “what if” kind of feeling. there’s another piece of my tender underside that keeps looking out the window and melting in the glow of the green. the sun is dancing and reflecting off of the fresh, delicate green of spring. i marvel at how often i keep such treasures and joys of my eyes a secret.
is this related to your original thought, christy?
comments:
thanks christy & ashley for sharing your interchange in the last comment box.
the way i’m experiencing sacred humility & vulnerability lately is when i move between the different “rooms” in the house of my life. in one room, i feel like i am so skillfully riding the surfboard of evolution and expansion. then i move into the next room, where suddenly i am stuck in the mud, head-first. what i used to do was to be in the mud-room as little as necessary, and while i was there, to be reminiscing about the surfing room. over the past couple weeks i am accepting my mud rooms more, pulling my head out, washing my face, sitting there in the mud & being present to the relationships there.
& look, at the edge of the mud in the salt-marsh – an ibis. have you been there so patiently, all along?
chris weaver | Email | 04.04.04 – 5:46 pm | #
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Hello Chris, hello Ashley! Chris, your rare bird on the edge of the mud reminds me of a book I saw of wild animal photos, which included the photographer’s technical descriptions of lenses & film, and clever camouflage, and the incredible patience required. In order to get very close to the water birds, he lay still on a raft covered with reeds and such–as if he himself was mud, basically (though, head-first–that’s advanced!)
Ashley, I sat on the ground in my garden today weeding and planting and thinking some more about sacred vulnerability and humility, and it occured to me that the two might also be distinct in a way:
Christy Lee-Engel | Email | Homepage | 04.05.04 – 2:16 am | #
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because when we step into humility, allowing our ordinariness and partialness, being no higher off the ground than any other one–that might be a position that actually protects the vulnerable places. Whereas those precious and secret and tender parts that we are nervous to reveal, are often (I think) the *extra*ordinary and the particular (and, we’re afraid, the incomprehensible and unlovable).
At the same time, though, I notice that your own brave willingness to be vulnerable, to be seen, to be true, doesn’t try at all to be anything special–so, humility accompanies vulnerability again!
love, Christy
Christy Lee-Engel | Email | Homepage | 04.05.04 – 2:18 am | #
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hmmm… in the mud?
mud bath, mud wrestling, mud wrap, squish it between your toes, use it as warrior paint, mud pies!
christy, thank you for noticing me. i’m still pondering the humility and vulnerability relationship. now i wonder about humbleness…
ashley | Email | Homepage | 04.05.04 – 10:19 am | #
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i remember a wonderful cartoon by r. chast called humble pie. it was a picture of a pie, who was murmuring lots of things, such as: “oh, it’s not me – it’s the ingredients.”
grin.
now that i’ve seen your tuesday sharing ash, there’s now something called a “dallas grin!”
chris weaver | Email | 04.06.04 – 5:36 am | #