Kirk, thank you for your feedback. I am touched deeply that my poem resonates fully with you. I picked the Mary Oliver Poem the Blackwater Woods because I have been meditating on the last part of it for awhile now: "To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and when the time comes to let it go.... to let it go." I am not sure if this part can reach your inner depths, but at the time I heard this I was in tremendous grief over the death of my son. I was just talking with James this morning about how the poems I pick may not resonate with other people at the time. We all are in different places in our growth and path and even daily emotions. I am not sure if between now and Wednesday there might be some part of the poem that speaks to you of holding any part of you or this mortal world close to your bones knowing your life depends on it. My stories and my experiences are how I become aware. My broken heart over my son's death changes me forever. I want to share my stories and experiences with you, and I want you to share your with me. Even the shame, even the embarrassment, even the grief , even the mess you have made of your life: the anger, the ignorance, the unknowing and the mistakes. Share it all. Presence without an ability to share one's history and experiences is not real presence for me. To truly let go of my grief I must share it with someone and be loved and held in love. Grieving it all alone sets up a barrier within me to accept the love from other people. How can I truly realize our interconnectedness if I refuse to allow my vulnerability with other people? "Love what is mortal, to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it." That is where this poem speaks to me.

I hear the question, "why not?"...yes, what keeps me separate? I hear the question, "why not?"... yes, what is it that never stops inviting.

I hear the tenderness of vulnerable acceptance that we are beings needing love.

Thank you Kirk.

Thank you James.

That was very beautiful. Thank you Holly

James, I am inspired by your vision of helping me and other individual people open the narrative of our individual stories. I resonate especially with your statement: "Every human is able to articulate pain and suffering. Every human has the right to ask for and find relief. Every human has the power to create profound and positive change to prevent or minimize future hurts. The right combination of self-exploration, reason, emotion, and experience is what leads to valuable and life-altering transformation." Your vision embraces the reality that given a safe haven to allow my woundedness to come into my consciousness, a safe haven that allows me to embrace my trauma and witness again my emotional abandonment, or abuse prepares me to hear another's story and his/her wounding. When presence in me becomes strong, I am then able to be present with my own emotional responses and reactions to someone else's storm of pain. When I can hold the two together is when interbeing happens. Where the label of helper and helpee does not exist is where interbeing occurs. My recovery and healing work becomes food for everybody's recovery and healing work. Your recovery and healing work nurtures mine. Thank you for modeling how to keep the flow going in our community and world. Holly Myers