reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Category Archives: ks friday


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struggling. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

it’s light later now. that means we can go hike later in the day, after we’ve done all else that needs to be done. it means we can finish the day – whatever it’s been – with some time outside, some time on a trail, maybe some time watching the sun come down.

i feel worried these days. not just a little anxious. downright worried. every day something else in this country is blatantly being torn apart, shredded, trashed. the rule of law is disappearing. people are disappearing, democracy is disappearing.

but if you look at facebook, you will still see posts about dandelions and dogfood, early spring flowers and people on trips, concerts and recipes, memories and people eating. if you didn’t know, you wouldn’t know.

that is the part that gets me.

it’s not because i don’t like dandelions or food or flowers or concerts or travel, and it’s not because I don’t see the value in celebrating the simplest “normal” pieces of life. it’s because it feels like there are people who do not care about the horror of what the dismantling of this country is wreaking. it feels like there are people who are just pretending it is not happening. it feels like people are sloughing off the absolute danger, the loss, the devastation. and i look around and wonder why.

the most obvious answer to the question – why aren’t we talking about this – is that a person voted for it. they want this destruction – which will always make my head spin. they feel righteous and elitist and entitled – deserving of being held above “all those other people” – you know, the women, the black and brown people, the lgbtq people, the people who worship differently, the people who came from a different place, the people who have less. it literally makes me sick to my stomach thinking about how many people feel this way – particularly people i have loved or thought i knew really well. the we-don’t-talk-about-this crowd is somewhat close-in and i am growing weary of tolerating their cavalier silence.

there are people – out there – who subscribe to this administration’s cold-hearted, soulless agenda, who are are pretending that there are “just a few kinks” that need to be worked out, who think that “great” is coming, who believe the narcissistic evil promises made to them actually are “great” things. i am astonished at their acquiescence to the annihilation of the ideals of this country, to the bowing idolatry they express to these vile efforts.

i guess another answer to the question – why aren’t we talking about this – is that there are people who are not paying attention to factual news. they are listening to and watching what could be called “state tv” and they have no real idea what is happening to the country. they are shielded by the thick grimy viscose membrane of misinformation. this also makes me feel ill – that people are not bothering to glean what is really happening here, just tooling along scarfing up hateful lies.

any way i sort it, i am feeling incredibly disheartened by the lack of communication about the destruction of this country. having conversation with these people is to speak about the most superficial of things, the stuff of small talk, the things you would talk about with the clerk at the cash register. and so – these forms of surface-only communication fall under the if-you-didn’t-know-you-wouldn’t-know category. and it makes me want to just scream – are you going to talk about this takeover of our country or what?????!!!

i wonder how many people are struggling – like me – only four months after the election, merely two months after the inauguration – to try and navigate the divisiveness and shockingly-earned mistrust of people in our very own communities that have come with this new administration of “public servants” who have no public-servant-bones in their heartless bodies.

i really do need to be out on the trail – watching my feet move and the sun sink into the horizon. i need the quiet and truth of nature, a reminder of how i fit into the order of things. i need to be around natural goodness and not intentional complicity. it is restorative and feeds the place that needs peace and the feeling of being one with the universe.

*****

BRIDGE © 2004 kerri sherwood

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goldening steps. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

the tree lit up as the sun began to sink. oranges, reds, it was golden, the moon next to it, hanging out in the late just-sprang-forward afternoon sky.

we were sitting on the deck in our adirondack chairs – on an unexpected beautiful, warm day. it was the first time we sat outside in the sun since november.

on the same day, we took a hike in the woods, our spirits lifting with each step taken without cold wind in our faces. though we hike on very cold days with very cold winds, this was a glorious day. golden, for sure.

and nature is the only essence with which to credit this golden day. nothing else. no one else.

though the White House et al credit themselves with “the golden age of america [is here]” it is beyond delusional and a disgusting display of fealty from the capitulating folks this prez placed into powerful positions. stripping rights, freedoms, safety from the populace, putting the economy into chaos, hunting down immigrants to whisk away into oblivion, cutting helping programs that aid people so that 1% might get richer, turning our nation into a pariah no longer trusted by the world…newsflash…this is not the golden age.

we are not the elite. we are those people who wish to collect social security, who wish to have healthcare through medicare or the affordable care act, who wish to afford groceries and housing, utilities and upkeep, who wish to have income-based repayment plans for the criminally predatory decades-long student loans that have been reigning our finances, who wish to have economic stability, who wish to travel without fear of stigma, who wish to live in a country with principles based on equality and compassion, who wish our gay adult son and our childbearingyears daughter to have rights and freedoms for their own decision-making about their relationships, their health, their bodies, any children they may or may not choose to have. i’ve said it before – we are the masses. we feel this.

but, just as the moment when an olympic athlete climbs atop a podium to collect a gold medal for this country and you can feel it down to your toes, we can also feel all the vile program cuts that hurt others, the deliberate and aggressive bigotry directed at others, the loss of trust, security, and safety, the absolute betrayal of members of the populace by this cruel administration. it is the darkest of times – for each of us, for this country. light is sinking lower, deep into the horizon. we are heading into the sunless rule of authoritarianism.

it is not just what affects us that affects us.

so how do we collectively influence the actual color of these days? how do we actually golden up these times – this “age” – for real? what magic wand do we wield as a people, together? what steps – pushing back – do we take – for those we love and – in the biggest and most inclusive picture of this nation and this world – for people who will never know who we are?

maybe our collective empathy and our raised voices will help. every step we take forward – speaking up, speaking out – even against the coldest of winds – is a step – a goldening step – taken for democracy.

*****

FIGHT FOR THE LIGHT FOR OTHERS – EVEN IF THEY DON’T KNOW WHO YOU ARE. (you make a difference © 2003 kerri sherwood)

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every little thing. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

“the sun is coming out,” i told him. “i can hear it on the siding.”

it will be the littlest things, i believe. the smallest details, the tiniest noticings that will help us personally get through this. much of what seems to be planned for the populace will affect us. according to project 2025 – aka this ugliest administration’s agenda – we are those people. we are the masses.

with no idea how low this will go – though we suspect “hellish” may not suffice as an adjective – we will need to zero in on that which might bring a moment of light, a bit of joy, a sliver of hope.

and it’s only been 43 days, 1 hour, 43 minutes and 23 seconds since the inauguration (as i write this.). by the time this publishes it will be 45 days, 18 hours.

if we can assume that there will be another inauguration – and that seems a large assumption considering how far down the authoritarian hellhole we are being flung – it will be in 1417 days, 22 hours, 14 minutes and 8 seconds (as i write this), 1415 days, 18 hours by the time this publishes.

that’s a very long time. and a lot of hell between here and there.

i am holding a lot of stress in my body right now. merely blowing my hair dry this morning yielded a strained back intercostal muscle, making it hard to breathe. each day there is something that makes it intensely clear that i am not relaxed, the least of which is waking up achy every morning – even after a full night’s sleep. i trust i am not alone in this. we are all enduring serious worry and anxiety, raging anger, intense grief, raw fear. there is no real way for our minds or hearts or bodies to escape it.

but we try.

and in looking for the most meditative time, in looking for joy, in holding onto laughter and playfulness best as we can, in paying attention to the beauty right around us, we will seek out anything and everything that might help, any sign of comfort, any inkling of something positive.

so when i could hear the siding creaking – a sure sign that the sun was coming out from behind the clouds, it seemed apt to mention it.

because every little thing counts right now.

*****

TAKING STOCK copyright 2010 kerri sherwood

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as clear as ice. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

merely glancing at this photo of ice-encased grasses makes it clear that it is cold out. very cold.

because some things are obvious. a no-brainer, as it’s said. you can see right through.

silence is like that.

remaining completely silent – not uttering a word of raging disdain or abject horror – in the middle of this country’s hellish descent in this time of destruction – makes your position – of complicity – obvious. a no-brainer.

this is a time demanding connection. this is a time when we need each other. we need to band together and buoy each other. we need mutual support in a liminal frozen space of atrocity as we all witness the stripping of our democracy. we need to talk. we need to ask questions. we need to sort. we need to speak up.

i haven’t been able to decide if i am more sickened by what’s happening in this country or by family, friends and acquaintances who – clear as ice – think it’s perfectly ok. like too many others, i wonder, “who the hell are you, anyway???”

you may think your stance is not transparently clear – while you publicly – and callously – try to give the impression of going about normal life normally – or while you pretend it isn’t happening – even privately – but your silence about these atrocities in very real life speaks volumes.

having been thrown under the bus before by people i have trusted – including perhaps you – i warily wonder how far you would go to support all this.

and so we reach to others, we connect, we stand with them, we protect each other as best we can.

because just as clear as ice your silent complicity are their good intentions. and the choice is obvious. a no-brainer, as it’s said.

*****

CONNECTED © 1995 kerri sherwood

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the imperative of peace. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

dreamy.

many other adjectives came to mind to eloquently describe lake tahoe, but dreamy seems to fit the best right now.

in the way that sometimes happens with monumental beauty, i instantly felt a sense of peace descend over me…exactly what i needed.

for this has been a time. and i – like you – am filled to the brim, yearning for something different, something that builds up and does not tear down, something that is positive, filled with grace and not negative and filled with hatred. already, this is all exhausting. already, i am exhausted. we – all of us – have lost so much. and, though hopefully this will change – something will stop this destruction of our sea to shining sea – things will never be the same. betrayal has left its mark on us.

and so, the sight of this lake in the distance, as we approached, up close and personal, was balm for my spirit and i felt it wash over me.

some places are like that. you instantly feel a kinship with the vista, grounded by its simple, natural beauty. after all, this is merely mountains, forest and lake. nothing manufactured, nothing contrived, quietude with the potential for a tranquility that is so very powerful.

we do not live near this stunning landscape, but we do live in a landscape of our own. and i know that we must look to it for salve, for soothing us, for a balance of goodness against all the evil being perpetrated upon our country. clearly, we need to deal with the reality of what is happening here. clearly, we need to rejuvenate from the reality of what is happening here.

i think we need do that any which way we can.

there is a lot ahead of us. everything we have known is grotesquely distorted and people we have known have actively participated in that. it is the stuff of bad dreams. and we each are waking up to the horror of it all. as we brush the real-life nightmare from our eyes and wake to another day of fighting to keep our democracy, it is incumbent upon us to bring strength and resolve and a bit of peace from which we might draw these.

we will be looking everywhere we can for that peace, to join with it. it is an imperative.

“now he walks in quiet solitude the forests and the streams / seeking grace in every step he takes / his sight has turned inside himself to try and understand / the serenity of a clear blue mountain lake…” (john denver – rocky mountain high)

*****

PEACE © 2004 kerri sherwood

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rusted. but still. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

the galvanized metal coneflower tucked into the little garden with the ornamental grasses has rusted. we brought it home in july when it was silver and shiny. but the elements of weather have already gotten to it and have erased the shiny and smooth, turning it to a rougher texture, a warm brown color, like the center of a sunflower or the color of freshly ground coffee.

i still love it though, this coneflower.

its shape has been inspiring out back there in its little garden – the same garden that protects baby bunnies and tucks in our aspen tree. in the snow it has collected flakes until barely any of the metal is visible – like a tall snow-mushroom umbrella-ing anything below.

i stop in front of the mirror before i facetime or zoom. i wonder how i am seen from the other side of the camera. i am no longer shiny or silver. the elements have taken their toll and age has begun to catch up.

but as i gaze at other beloved faces across the technology of a phone or computer, across a table or on a trail, next to me on the pillow – i know that nothing – no amount of rust or erasure of smooth – can change the fact that they are still coneflowers, nonetheless. still beautiful. still loved.

*****

happy birthday, my love. ❤️

read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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where holy is. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

i’m not sure that i can point to the moment when i realized – with every fibre – that the truly holiest moments were not the ones in buildings called churches.

it is a moment for which i am grateful, perspective-arranging and a welcome addition to my secular vocabulary – the word “holy”.

i spent many decades creating the atmosphere in churches where people might tune in to the emotional of faith – that which they could not palpably touch but which they could feel, they could intuit, they could impart to others. through music that i specifically chose – after research, after studying the narrative to be used, and after much listening and evaluating if a piece might touch hearts – open or closed – i shaped the music of services – the everyday and the special holidays, the celebrations of joining together and the inevitable release of people to the next dimension – to freely acknowledge spirit as it flowed and to try to gently grace others with it through music. to try and encourage an openness to the spirit that breathed into the place and maybe into them, into a place inside them where they needed the sweet assurance. whether i was aware if it did or not was not my only measure of success. providing the tenor of possibility and holding space for holy and their experience of holy was my job. there were moments when the last strains of a song or piece of music lingered in the air over the congregation, moments when a choir of singers, paused in a rest between notes sung with dedication and commitment to each other that you could almost see holy in the hush – the sun shining through, its rays touching each person. but over the course of these decades of time spent in these buildings, i was inordinately disappointed – even stunningly – time and again – by the hypocrisy to which i was privy. true faith is as true faith does, holy is as holy does, i was reminded, over and over. disillusionment was – and still is – a repeating theme.

out on the trail, as the clouded sun shined through the winter landscape and reflected onto the river, i could see – once again – how holy turns up in the purest of moments, the simplest, the least contrived. we have been gifted by the universe – and whatever deity we each individually feel or – perhaps – in which we might believe – with the extraordinary: a world full of beautiful.

beautiful is a descriptive word – easily understood as describing something of beauty. and that is all around us. the reaching of people to people in times of abundance and in times of need, kindness to and embracing of our neighbors despite differences, the love between any and all, regardless of anything, nature and its astonishments. our holy is all around us.

for those of you who are invoking your – supposed – religiosity to validate your vote – and your support – for the cruelest chaos that is this new administration, those of you who are spouting righteous religious drivel to prop up your bigotry, i would venture to say you may have missed the point. sheer hypocrisy has taken over your holy.

holy has not only left the building, but it has clearly left your soul.

*****

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in the same palm. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

“our forever work is to learn to hold the brutal and beautiful in the same palm.” (suleika jaouad)

i am trying to learn to list to the beautiful. lean into it. curve that way. take that path. abruptly turn, if need be.

in these fraught times, these times of brutal, we are finding how we wake – how we start our day – is crucial. we are fragile, maybe just like you.

and so we watch through the mini blinds, through the screen and storm window, as – out across the deck, reflecting on the sunroom windows, just past the awning over the back door – the sun – rising over the lake – climbs to a place where its rays sneak around houses and gardens and reach out and out, brushing our windows.

and we can see it.

we watch as it intensifies and moves up, up. a tiny gift for us to hold.

and then – as we sip coffee – one of us quietly comments on how truly beautiful it is. and our day is officially started.

*****

taking stock © 2010 kerri sherwood

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still. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

it is the last.

the last piece of white key.

barney – through wind and rain and snow and ice and blistering sun – has shed all the clothing of its keys – both black and white. this is the very last of it.

and, even stripped of so much, of the things that make barney look like a piano, barney is still a piano…barney’s soul is tenacious – still a smith-barnes upright – and we can feel evidence of scales and arpeggios and glissandos, of etudes and ballads, of pieces ethereal and bombastic. barney is changed and yet unchanged.

we will each face the storms of the future. we will surf waves and, sometimes, despite heroic tenacity, succumb to the inability to surf. but we will endure and persevere. we will look different and we will feel the same: changed-unchanged.

and, in the center of all of it, while we are on the way to later, stripped and naked of all that is superficial, smack in the middle of our souls, we will still be able to touch the black and white of our lives. just like barney.

“meaning is what’s left when everything else is stripped away.” (suleika jaouad)

*****

TRANSIENCE © 2010 kerri sherwood

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the grace dance. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

even laden with new snow, the grasses spring up, ever resilient. they show fortitude in predicament and circumstance – a teachable moment for those of us humans who are not impervious to such things.

maybe it’s their golden glow in sun low on the horizon. maybe it’s that there are small critters taking refuge under the umbrella of stalky stems. maybe it’s the reverent bow of the fronds, the balance in the arch of growth and weight, a toppling over. maybe it is simply grace.

“i do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” (anne lamott)

in moments of this past year i have found myself in the presence of grace. i have watched grace heal physical injuries. i have watched grace blanket people, restoring relationship. i have experienced grace reaching out its arms to envelop. i have received grace – the support of others. i have been surprised – even shocked – by grace and i have been surprised – even shocked – by a lack of grace.

for if the presence of grace – such an intangible mystery – does not leave us unchanged, then so does the absence of grace.

were the grasses to succumb, to be lying down, flat upon the earth, their glow of beauty and their cozy shelter wouldn’t be. their place in the world and its workings would be different, perhaps. their resilience seems to be the key.

“I know nothing, except what everyone knows – if there when grace dances, i should dance.” (anne lamott)

in the mystery that is beauty, that is grace, that is the intertwining of both – for surely they are hand in hand – there is an invitation for us to dance, upright upon a floor of dirt on earth under the sun, able to both receive and extend grace – like feathery fronds on an ornamental grass, ever resilient though the elements are threatening.

we carry that dance – tucked in – with us as we make our way. it is present, beckoning us. we can see it in the falling snow and the driving rain, thick fog and dark nights. it is there, ready to leave us different.

*****

GRACE © 2010 kerri sherwood

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