Happy Eid! Happy Taurus season! Happy new moon solar eclipse! Happy mercury retrograde! Happy Friday! Happy Earth Day! Have you been feeling the intensity of this week?!
I learned a new term this week that I can’t stop thinking about and that is very enchantable-related: glimmers.
Glimmers!
I learned about glimmers via this Instagram post, summarizing the work of Deb Dana in her book Anchored:
I haven’t read the book yet - it’s on my end-of-academic-year reading list, full report to follow - but I am wondering if glimmers actually are triggers, but instead of triggering pain and suffering, they trigger joy, awe, wonder, and ease. Moments of enchantment!
Moments like…
…a butterfly crossing my path.
…Daphne’s laugh.
…spending a few moments to watch the sky at sunset.
…the flowers that just started blooming in my neighbor’s yard.
Moments the earth is offering us all the time, that we just need to notice, pay attention, allows ourselves to be enchanted by.
Glimmers.
Of hope, awe, joy, peace, ease, interbeing.
We have had a very intense week over here - holding and witnessing intense beauty and intensely pain. Full of glimmers and triggers. It has definitely been the kind of week where we have been dwelling deeply in the interbeing of pain and joy.
We began our week with a visit from Dr. Kim Phuc and Nick Ut, who shared their life stories with us (I had the honor of providing the institutional welcome and opening remarks for the visit). Dr. Kim was made famous by Nick’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of her during the Vietnam war. I wonder if, in just me writing that sentence, the image comes to mind.
The image is of a young girl, naked, running down a dirt road, screaming, covered in Napalm burns. It is a horrific image, one that woke up the outside world to the suffering taking place in Vietnam during the war. Immediately after taking the photo, Nick put down his camera and rushed to Kim’s aid, and ultimately saved her life. It was a long road to healing and recovery, involving many years, 14 surgeries, and much rehabilitation. As she tells her story, it was also about healing the fear and hatred she felt in her heart after that day, and she attributes her faith in God for helping her find hope and reconciliation. Over and over again, she told us that if she can heal, and if she can become a peacemaker, anyone can. Everyone can.
I cannot do her story justice here - I highly recommend checking out her book (she is in Costa Rica for the publication of the Spanish translation) or watching videos of her speaking online. Her story is one of immense pain, suffering, healing, hope, and reconciliation. She wants to be remembered not as the girl in the photo, but for who she is today, the path she has taken to get here, her family who she is so proud of, and The Kim Foundation’s work to help children around the world. Her story will stay with me, is imprinted on my heart.
The rest of the week in our Education in Emergencies class we have been looking at education in the midst of intersecting crises: COVID-19 and other health crises, the climate crisis, war, violence, displacement. The magnitude of suffering in the world is hard to wrap your mind and heart around. And yet, that is what my mentors and teachers say we most need to do. As Joanna Macy says, we need to honor our pain for the world. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, what the earth needs is for us to hear the sound of her crying within us.
We are also approaching the class through the lens offered by another one of my teachers, Bayo Akomolafe, who asks, through his work as chief curator of the Emergence Network, “What if the way we respond to the crisis is part of the crisis?” He shares the Yoruba proverb, “The times are urgent, let us slow down,” and describes slowing down as “not reducing speed, it’s about meeting the others, the radical others without which we are not possible.” You can listen to Bayo talk about this on his recent episodes on the podcast For the Wild (another one of my favorites!):
Upon arriving to the office today, I received a big glimmer from my colleagues who decorated my office (early) for my birthday 🥰🥰🥰
It has me thinking of the importance of thresholds, and the beauty of this threshold as I cross from 43 to 44 (more on that later this week!). And now my office is one big glimmer 😄✨
I always like to close with an invitation to join me in reflection, and the energy of Mercury retrograde is very supportive of that! Tomorrow is Earth Day, and I offer the following as Earth Day glimmer-inspired reflections, in the spirit of honoring our joy and pain together:
Can you see the glimmers the Earth is offering you at every moment? What glimmers are you catching today? Offer gratitude to the Earth for any that you notice.
Listen to the cries of the Earth within you. What do you hear? How might you honor those cries?
Can you hold all of this at once? Can you honor and be motivated by it all?
Thank you, dear reader, for being here. Happy Earth Day! And happy glimmer seeking. Wishing you many, many glimmers along your path ☺️✨✨✨
So good to read these offerings, Stephanie. See you soon for your HDHS presentation!