you only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves. be more hedgehog
Warm New Year Well Wishes.
Since beginning this weekly INKLINGS adventure the atmosphere has shifted. From one of dark belly winter solstice to the gentle dawn of a new year.
Festive socialising has been savoured. I went out dancing twice over the new year, for the first time in many years, and blooming loved it. From the queer friendly Booty Bass gathering to the booze free and chai tea supping of Love Jam. I am enjoying settling into Bristol life and finding spots to gather and connect that feel exciting, interesting, peaceful and homely.
This is also involving home making. Settling into my new home and taking time to make my space beautiful and functional. Carving out spots to work and rest, and for the space between the two in these short days to not be so far apart.
I am with the soft animal of this body - a quote from Mary Oliver’s poem ‘Wild Geese’ - and what it loves, longs for, gets agitated by.
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.Mary Oliver - WILD GEESE.
The flavourful wish for this coming season, and into the following roll of the seasons, is to tend the ground of this life. At this moment this is in small but significant actions: making the bed, tidying away desk at the end of the day, hoovering, making time to roast vegetables and share food with friends, check in on the phone with those far away.
And in this grounding in comes a dreaming, list making, soft planning.
This I was not ready for a mere fortnight ago. Then was not the time.
I search for a pen to make yet another post-it note to self: NEXT WINTER SOLSTICE REMEMBER THAT YOU CAN TRUST THE CHASM OF DARK UNKNOWN. THINGS WILL SOFTLY EMERGE AGAIN IN THEIR OWN SWEET TIME.
I want to listen to the present and past wisdoms. To move slowly enough to hear them. I want to do this for myself and I want to do this for others. To share the experimental findings. This commitment to practice and listening to what the soft animal of this body leans towards and away from. (I am bloody loving the energetic and mental space that being off social media is affording me right now.)
I have listened to David Whyte’s talk “The Poetry Of Self Compassion” numerous times over the last few years, after being sent it by a dear old friend, in which it speaks of the “thousand mile word” found in certain poems.
The ONLY in this line from Wild Geese is one such word.
So much attention, effort, consideration, falling over, excavation, life travelled is entwined in this simple thousand mile word.
To ONLY let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. What an endeavour of allowing, of listening to its language, how we are called to be in the world in our unique way, how this calling is not created from the logical thinking, planning, linear mind.
Over hot orange tea with a friend this week we spoke of the excitement of the new diary feeling (bullet journaling all the way) and spending time reflecting on what processes and systems help us to live engaged lives. Doing what we love and has meaning for us, the dance of earning a living, connecting us to others, and what we need to support this. The roots of it. The ground under the feet, in work, at home, in play and love, work, service and connection.
I shared how I have often felt the fresh bedsheets of a new year get stale by the end of the first week of January when there is a sense of “new year, still me on my same old BS.” I wonder how united I am with others, with you, in this experience.
This year this is not my experience. I am bringing things back to this sweet and soft animal body.
To the gentle rotation of its animalness through the rise of the filling moon and strong winds that batter the bare boughs. To its noticing of the glimmer of blue at the sky corners, or at least a little bright hue, not quite so dusky grey as the rest. To the want for heat on the shoulders, and to stretch slowly, scurrying from its hole for a once around the park before returning to sit quietly. To having a full belly and want to make some things, put some things together in the few daylight hours and then return to softly lit comfort.
Our human world turns onward and to go full hedgehog not as possible as we may wish, but there may be small pockets of BE MORE HEDGEHOG time we can carve out. Whatever our hedgehog likes to do. However our hedgehog is. Soft bellied underneath our defence prickles.
Know that it will serve you well when the spring shoots begin to emerge. The power of 1% more of that ONLY. When the hellebores are prime for your hedgehog munching (my last encounter with a hedgehog was finding it munching a hellebore) you will feel more ready for their delights.
I write to remember this.
This thing I know to be true in my bones.
That I see countered by a pushiness and productivity in our world so painful and toxic it turns my blood into lava. Tongue forked, holding both truths. A whispering from the gullet: let your soft animal body love what it loves. Be more hedgehog.
— KJ
P.S. I have been writing these last INKLINGS straight onto the digitals, and next week I am going to go hand written and simply (another thousand mile word) share what emerges from pen and paper. If you would like to share a simple theme/topic/word I can use as a starting point drop me a message.
GOOD THINGS
• Mary Oliver in conversation with Krista Tippett at On Being. ‘I got saved by the beauty of the world'.’
• ACHE FOR - new track from always centred at night, Jose James and Moby.
• This line read last night in Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine: “She always used the royal we to multiply the censure of what she said by invisible others.” It was one of those Oof. Beautiful. moments reading a new book.