I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core. (William Butler Yeats)
Dear Folks,
Summer is for cabin-building, either on stilts by a lake somewhere or constructed inside your heart: time and space apart from whatever feels lost or maddening. You don’t need an airplane or a train ticket or a friend in Maine to get away, just a quiet morning or evening now and then, a book or blank piece of paper, and a glass of iced tea. Breathe deeply, from your toes to your weary shoulders, and lean into the silence.
What will you take with you? And what will you return with? I’m taking these books along with me:
Poetry Unbound: 50 poems to open your world, collected by Padraig O’Tuama. The poems here invite you into a series of rooms, where the “walls have stories and the furniture can talk,” rooms that welcome your “person and your intelligence.” “The poems are not designed to make your life easier, even though many of them will; they are designed to notice and observe, to take stock, to reckon, to breathe, to rest, to stir and work.”
Rough Sleepers by Tracy Kidder. Pulitzer prize winner Kidder tells the story of Dr. Jim O’Connell and the individuals he knows and serves who live on the streets of Boston: rough sleepers. O’Connell is invited to defer a prestigious fellowship for a year to create a system of healthcare for people who are homeless, an offer he couldn’t refuse. The year and the relationships it engendered became his life’s work.
Living Between Worlds: Finding Personal Resilience in Changing Times, by James Hollis. Jungian analyst Hollis coaches the reader to “learn to invoke the tools of depth psychology, classical literature, philosophy, dream work, and myth to gain access to the resources that supported our ancestors through their darkest hours.”
Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness by Nan C. Merrill. Merrill, who has served urban parishes and been engaged with prison ministry for more than a quarter of a century, has translated the Psalms in a fresh and eloquent way.
The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson. The Odyssey is the first great adventure story in the Western canon, a tale of violence and war, marriage and family, wealth, poverty and power, travel, hospitality and the longing for home. And this translation is the first one written by a woman in English.
When my life was particularly chaotic, I learned to make space for myself: to be nourished by Spirit, to imagine a way through, to discover or re-discover who I am. My you find some peace there.
Love,
David