John Wiercioch
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Reflections on the Art of Living

Roanoke River Float, Day 15

8/30/2019

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My river floats of the last 15 days in a row have been toward one goal that in this unique year matters the most to me: to follow my heart. Following it from January onward has led me into the most delight-filled, sensory-dense, emotionally rich, in turns both heart-rendering and beautiful year of experiences. Living in an “open-hearted way” has come at costs — redefining some dear friendships (as we all are within our own different processes of growing) and even the loss of aspects of my old self. Yet I feel I can not change course, it’s as if the rivers of life are pulling me forward. Though I know not what is coming, I can distinctly feel something is transforming within me. The uncanny irony is that the dearest one that I seem to have lost is the one who led me to float on this river where I am finding myself. Within these two weeks of seemingly directionless, child-like, joyful and meandering floats, although I can’t yet join in, the birds, the banks, the river, the earth, even the ephemeral yet palpable Light, are all offering a soft, beautiful song. 

I take solace in those who have followed their hearts before me. Among them, one of my heroes, the ever eloquent Irish poet John O’Donohue. Below is an inspiring passage from his great work, “Anam Cara.” I consider it a call to being fully alive — authentically; truthfully; recognizing but not being controlled by my fears; not giving in to another’s idea of who we should be or how. Despite the logical reasons to perhaps act differently. Even now, beyond the well intentioned suggestions to stop feeling things which are uncomfortable, these days I’m compelled to feel them fully rather than ignore or stow them away. Despite the embarrassment of my missteps as I struggle to walk this hearty path (including the regrettable pains my misreading of the trail has sometimes caused others), despite some very pains as a result, I only know I must keep on, honor the flow, trust in sincerity and love as my markers and guideposts. 

As I float along this river like so many before me, being attentive requires tuning out all those “voices shouting their bad advice” as Mary Oliver puts it, trusting my inner guides over the desires of others, even those who are very close. To navigate takes a  damping of the ever-present noise, in order to listen deeply to the quiet voice of one’s  own soul. 



~~~~~~~~~~


John O’Donohue:


“Each tree grows in two directions at once, into the darkness and out into the light with as many branches and roots as it needs to embody its wild desires…


Negative introspection damages the soul. It holds many people trapped for years and years, and ironically, it never allows them to change. It is wise to allow the soul to carry on its secret work in the night side of your life. You might not see anything stirring for a long time. You might only have the slightest intimations of the secret growth that is happening within you, but these intimations are sufficient. We should be fulfilled and satisfied with them. You cannot dredge the depths of the soul with the meager light of self analysis. The inner world never reveals itself cheaply. Perhaps analysis is the wrong way to approach our inner dark.


We all have wounds; we need to attend to them and allow them to heal… “The wounds of the spirit heal and leave no scars.” There is a healing for each of our wounds, but the healing is waiting in the indirect, oblique, and non-analytic side of our nature. We need to be mindful of where we are damaged, then invite our deeper soul in its night world to heal this wound and tissue, renew us, and bring us back into unity. If we approach our hurt indirectly and kindly, it will heal. Creative expectation brings you healing and renewal. If you could trust your soul, you would receive every blessing you require. Life itself is the great sacrament through which we are wounded and healed. If we live everything, life will be faithful to us.


In the western tradition, we were taught many things about the nature of negativity and the nature of sin, but we were never told that one of the greatest sins is the unlived life. We are sent into this world to live to the full everything that awakens within us and everything that comes toward us. It is a lonely experience to be at the deathbed of someone who is full of regret; to hear him say how he would’ve loved another year to do the things his heart always dreamed of but believed he could never do until he retired. He’s always postponed the dream of his heart. There are many people who do not live the lives they desire. Many of the things that hold them back from inhabiting their destiny are false. These are only images in their minds. They are not real barriers at all. We should never allow our fears or the expectations of others to set the frontiers of our destiny.


We are so privileged to still have time. We have but one life, and it is a shame to limited by fear and false barriers...


...It is lovely to imagine that real divinity is the presence in which all beauty, unity, creativity, darkness, and negativity or harmonize. The Divine has such a passion and creativity and instinct for the fully inhabited life. If you allow yourself to be the person that you are, then everything will come into rhythm if you live the life you love. You will receive shelter and blessings. Sometimes the great famine of blessing in and around us derives from the fact that we are not living the life we live, rather we are living the life that is expected of us. We have fallen out of rhythm with the secret signature and light of our own nature. 


The shape of each soul is different. There is a secret destiny for each person. When you endeavor to repeat what others have done or force yourself into a preset mold, you betray your individuality. We need to return to the solitude within to find again the dream that lies at the hearth of the soul. We need to feel the dream with the wonder of a child approaching a threshold of discovery. When we rediscover our child-like nature we enter into a world of gentle possibility. Consequently, we will find ourselves more frequently at that place, at the place of ease, delight, and celebration. The false burdens fall away. We come  into rhythm with ourselves. Our clay shape gradually learns to walk beautifully on this magnificent earth.”
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The Depths Reveal Glowing Horizons

8/25/2019

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The Depths Reveal Glowing Horizons 


We don’t probe our depths readily. Naturally we’re drawn toward light,
so we prefer to avoid the dark shadows, and uncomfortable waters.
It’s impossible to resist the ever-shifting currents of life.


Sometimes they propel us into unfathomed realms.
Unforeseen ailments can suddenly shake and shatter our world.
We may even be obliged to face the natural process of death head-on.


There’s unexpected joys too; a simple meet up may evolve into a beautiful friendship.
The untaken path may reveal amazing life-changing experiences.
The random encounter may become the touch-stone of a life.


We are mostly less in control than we want to believe. 
Joy on the surface may be swept aside by an unpredicted storm.
Painful challenges may transform us into wiser more compassionate folks.


There are all types of aches in this life, none quite like 
the grief of a heart rent without warning. A risk-free existence: a loveless life.
Emotional detachment keeps one safely on the surface, never fully in the water.


Still, life’s uncanny synchronicities drift us into each other


Living love is a strange contradiction: Drawing us to connect with others by encouraging us to let go of ourselves, dive in;
Then maturity compels further us to loosen attempts to control our beloved;
and finally, we’re asked to let go utterly in accepting life’s circular flow


Within genuine love, shared compassion doesn’t grasp, demand, or gloat. 
It’s all the small things, really, that make the intimacy 
so very potent.


Eyes discovering new colors in the other’s eyes;
tender smiles at life that needed no words;
hugs that spoke volumes.


To let go means painful losses, in many ways.
Within this transition, sometimes the lost friendship
may cut deepest.


Passages through our swirling dark nights of the soul disorient us, 
with its unsee-able bottom. It disrupts our bearings,
can feel endless, make our horizon seem lost. 


Mending a heart and recovering a friendship 
requires patience and time --
like waiting out the winter thaw.


No matter your earnest, hard transitional work, 
your eager readiness
to again walk in the warm spring sun.


All your sincerest efforts can not 
make the friendship blossoms come forth
before their time.


Only an arrogant fool
convinces himself
he can rush the seasons forward.


Despite your brave acceptance 
of the not wished for new dynamic, 
where you now will play a lesser part.


The focus on your own discomfort 
can cloud the awareness of your heart 
to the struggles of your befriended.


Make you disregard their own most challenging journey, 
begun well before your brief appearance. 
Mountains of old and arduous days still loom large.


Your petty list of questions, doomed before begun, a vain attempt 
to order what can’t be resolved by discreet answers.
The questions are to be lived, not answered. 


Worse—Your pressing rationality only drives the fragile unknowable spring
into hiding; delays or diminishes it.
Another painful lesson in selfishness and humility.


Was it your impatience and fear of the familiar aloneness,
or was it truly the uncanny fates indirectly prompting you to act just now?
Living courageously vulnerable, is not guaranteed to save your float from a deep dive.  


Kismet? Perhaps. No matter, the dynamic affects at least two souls.
True friendship isn’t the fruit of a one-sided push, or some assertive fixing,
rather, it thrives on attentive deep listening, allowing space, and affording time.


Discerning the whispers of the heart, soul, and genuine spirit, from 
the fears and desires of the selfish mind
Is no easy thing.


Friendships require acceptance, sincerity, honesty, 
open hearts, and tenderness, always,
in all ways.


The depths our soul knows this. Yet,
the impatient insecurity of a headstrong, not fully-healed heart
will find ways to logically justify its willful actions. 


It’s understandable really, being hungry, wanting
to recall even a hint of the unique magic
so intrinsic to the sharing of our one brief life with another.


Looking to another however, to ease one’s own discomfort
inevitably mires both, plunges the floats
below the surface, into those shadowy waters


To emerge and grow, two challenges:
Embrace one’s own foibles and endless imperfections; 
Smile lovingly and find beauty within the painful lessons. 


Even within these dark depths 
there are glimmers of Light, and joy
Shimmering from both spirit above and soul below.


If one can be still, long enough, let go fully enough, 
float fearlessly and really trust the wisdom of the ancient river,
in its own fateful time, the warm embrace of friendship will glow anew.
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An Awakening

8/14/2019

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I thought years of walking its banks, riding the adjacent Greenway, and enjoying some kayaking on it had given me a pretty solid sense of one of my muses, our Roanoke River. But lately I gained some new perspectives on her ever flowing beauty, by tubing along a stretch near my home the last three days in a row. Hard to convey with words, but the sensory experience is very different when slowly drifting at water level within a flowing river, especially when one relinquishes control and lets the current choose your course. 


With nary a paddle or splash, the birds pretty much are willing to hold their place, so I was allowed to befriend kingfishers, great blue herons (young and old), black crowned night herons, a green heron, and an unknown raptor. I smiled at a muskrat, and gave a nod to many river perch underfoot. Depending on who was in session, the raucous crows cawed or Cicadas happily chirped a chorus that echoed of the water and around the bends. On my back on the water, cloud-watching steals the mind’s tension and let’s me feel my breath. Floating slowly beneath trees allows time for them to gently unfold their previously unnoticed structural majesty. Laying backward spread-eagle and dipping one’s head in the water upside down not only cools one’s brain, it offers a wonderful kaleidoscopic rolling vision of reflections, water ripples, and passage through a grand gauntlet of arching limbs along the banks. The skies shine with a new clarity, the sunsets glow, and the deep shadowy trees along the banks at dusk evoke wonderful mysteries. 


After a day working in the hellish heat, dipping my hot butt in the refreshing river water has been heavenly. A million thanks to Dustin Eshelman and Anna Robertson for the prompts that have now gifted me with a new outdoor delight and passion. A simple float is beyond restorative, and the solace, peace, and renewal gained in my being are immeasurable.

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    ​John's Blog

    Writing offers an opportunity to clarify my thoughts and feelings. Often these relate to my art and may offer insights about my work. I learn from engaging with others and welcome comments. 

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