Poetry and praise take one

Where is the ache today?

Where is the restlessness that makes placidness practically impossible?

Where does it hurt?

Often times our frustrations sit on the back burners of our life simmering and steaming.  The unresolved feuds with family members.  What our co-worker said to us.  The pains that we collect throughout our life.  Eventually, these can boil over, coming out in ways we immediately and instantly regret.  As Richard Rohr says, "Pain that is not processed is passed along."

But how?

How do we process pain?  Because sometimes we think a wound has started to heal, only to be bumped by some other experience/encounter/event...and we can feel like we are right back to square one.  Sometimes, we think we have taken care of that pot simmering on the back burner, only to have it boil over unexpectedly.

For me, music helps soothe my soul.
For me, poetry helps too.

When processing pain, I love the following poem.  Not only reading it, but enacting and embodying it.

The Eye of Despair

Sometimes the best you can do is to howl. 

When the wound is so deep 

you know the hurt will never heal, 

when the world is so broken 

a universe of prayer won’t repair it, 

the best you can do is howl.

Throw your head back and 

(I dare you) 

howl like a banshee, like a she wolf, 

like the wild thing buried in your bones, 

and feel rising from deep, 

dark places with the primal power of your breath 

a sliver of hope to hurl with your howl at the eye of despair.

So, you now have permission (not that you needed it) to howl.  Growl.  Yell.  Let it come from the deep within you.  Not words.  Not phrases.  Just primal/carnal sounds.  Let it rise up and escape out into the universe that griefs and growls and howls with you.  And then, listen again, to the hymn above to see if perhaps...by chance...in some small way...this prayerful act was a balm for you soul.

With love and blessings ~~