“Time in the soul moves not in a line but ripples out from the center of now” — what a gorgeous phrase, Renee. Time stood still as I read this, the past present and the future unknowable. The kindness, compassion, and care is real. The trees are real. Thank you. 💚
Julie, first, it's so good to see you here. We've missed each other for the past handful of months. I admit that I have been reading very little on Substack. So, I've missed your work and hope to get back to reading you soon. Your reflections here move me: "Time stood still, the past present and the future unknowable." In your words, I see that Helene became for us a pandimensional spiritual teacher. You have shed light on this. Thank you.
"Unmetabolized sorrow is sorrow thrown into the dark corners of the unconscious, and it does not sit still, and it does not stay quiet."
This collection of your felt experiences across the span of time during which Helene was active in your immediate life and your world is nothing short of incredible, honoring all you witnessed, holding equally hopelessness and hope. Your writing opens the space for metabolizing sorrow.
A year doesn't seem nearly long enough to process the depth of such long-term and wide-spread destruction that follows an epochal event.
Such courage, such solidity as yours--these are rare and precious. Thank you, dear Renée.
Becky, thank you for this. Something in me reflexively began making notes: just make notes. I'm so glad I did. In the whirlwind of trauma, we forget. But grief does not forget until it is "really felt" and complete. I echo you that a year doesn't seem nearly long enough. It will take as long as it takes--for all of us. And we are not the only ones.
I'm so grateful for your ever-presence and heartful read. 🙏
Yes the notes are helpful because we do forget the small things and the sensations when we are in the midst of something like this. If for no other reason than the reminder that we can do hard things.
Yes, Renée, time also stood still for me as tears washed over my face passage after passage. Somehow I feel an even deeper kinship with the work we are doing in “Awakening of the Heart.” Your writing is a beautiful testimony to the necessity of ‘standing one’s ground’ in the face of great sorrow. This is also a testament to the resilience and courageousness of your own ‘broken open heart’.
Mark, thank you for reading this recollection through the heart. I appreciate that it moved you toward a deeper kinship with the work we are doing in "Awakening of the Heart." I had a similar experience in reading through those passages, naked and immediate, that this work we are doing is made all the more poignant. Surely, Helene is no small part of why we are doing this heart work––together.
I read this today, as evidently the timing wasn’t right for me to read it last Sunday. Through your words, my heart widened from persons (I love your use of this word) to the place that holds us. Your living through Helene—the way you stayed with devastation until it revealed its quiet radiance, the pulse of grief woven through—has become a possibility within me, too.
We’re gathering this afternoon to celebrate the life of our neighbor Oliver, and because of your writing I’m seeing the lawn as participant: the flower pots and newly planted mums, the tables set, the empty chairs already keeping vigil, the little hand-painted parking signs guiding what is to come. I can hear the laughter and the tears before they arrive. I feel the fullness and the emptiness—the smoke memory from the fire pit where Oliver told sailing stories, the trees he planted still humming with his care, even the quiet presence of his dogs resting beneath the grass. Time itself hovers over it all as a presence.
Your writing helps me let all of this be here—belonging to it, not outside of it. Thank you for opening me to the wholeness of the field, where I can mourn Oliver’s absence and still feel his presence participating with us.
Toni, timing rings through your reflections here. Time "itself hovers . . . as a presence," not only on Sunday when you enfolded into the "concretion of time"(Gebser) with Oliver, the participant lawn with flower pots and mums, tables set, empty and soon full chairs, then empty again; parking signs hand-painted in time hovering ever present; the laughter and tears and smoke memory (this took my breath), Oliver's stories that linger in Earth's air, in listeners' glistening cells. . . all of It – and you reading this about Helene when timing came toward you as "right." The two "events" come together as one seamless unfolding. And through your words--the scene seen, heartfelt, through you--you let us belong and mourn with you. I was holding you and Oliver and all there on the lawn in heartful presence on Sunday, and still am. With love, Renée
Dearest Renée, I found it heartbreaking to read these letters again and yet through them all there is a light shining with the courage and kindnesses offered and shared, the solidity of human connections even when being battered by the storm of a lifetime. Heart-work that becomes ever more important...
I pray the storm which was expected was a mere whisper by comparison. With love always xx
Dear Susie, thank you for giving your time and presence to these letters as a compilation, and thank you for your sharing your reflections on the "solidity of human connections even when being battered by the storm of a lifetime," that in the battering and in the dark, "heart-work becomes ever more important" and seems naturally to flow from and through us. We come together as one human species, undivided by ideology and fear, when all that matters is life and death and the physical tasks of getting through the day. Indeed, and gratefully, only a whisper of rain this last round. With love, always, Renée
So sad to hear there is another storm coming. I am sending prayers and feeling useless up here. This essay is, in parts, harrowing and uplifting. Just like our human journey it shows us all the things in one big event and at the core of it all is our love and human connection as we try to help each other get through.
Donna, thank you, as always, for your loving presence. So far, we are spared any storm wrath. Just rain for now. Imelda and Humberto are still brewing out at sea. . . .
"Just like our human journey . . . and at the core of it all is our love and human connection as we try to help each other get through." This is what I hope this recollection reveals, Donna, the goodness in our humanity when we are present to what really matters. You have named it. 🙏
“Time in the soul moves not in a line but ripples out from the center of now” — what a gorgeous phrase, Renee. Time stood still as I read this, the past present and the future unknowable. The kindness, compassion, and care is real. The trees are real. Thank you. 💚
Julie, first, it's so good to see you here. We've missed each other for the past handful of months. I admit that I have been reading very little on Substack. So, I've missed your work and hope to get back to reading you soon. Your reflections here move me: "Time stood still, the past present and the future unknowable." In your words, I see that Helene became for us a pandimensional spiritual teacher. You have shed light on this. Thank you.
"Unmetabolized sorrow is sorrow thrown into the dark corners of the unconscious, and it does not sit still, and it does not stay quiet."
This collection of your felt experiences across the span of time during which Helene was active in your immediate life and your world is nothing short of incredible, honoring all you witnessed, holding equally hopelessness and hope. Your writing opens the space for metabolizing sorrow.
A year doesn't seem nearly long enough to process the depth of such long-term and wide-spread destruction that follows an epochal event.
Such courage, such solidity as yours--these are rare and precious. Thank you, dear Renée.
Becky, thank you for this. Something in me reflexively began making notes: just make notes. I'm so glad I did. In the whirlwind of trauma, we forget. But grief does not forget until it is "really felt" and complete. I echo you that a year doesn't seem nearly long enough. It will take as long as it takes--for all of us. And we are not the only ones.
I'm so grateful for your ever-presence and heartful read. 🙏
Yes the notes are helpful because we do forget the small things and the sensations when we are in the midst of something like this. If for no other reason than the reminder that we can do hard things.
Indeed, Donna. We can and we do. And we can be ok in that which is hard.
Yes, Renée, time also stood still for me as tears washed over my face passage after passage. Somehow I feel an even deeper kinship with the work we are doing in “Awakening of the Heart.” Your writing is a beautiful testimony to the necessity of ‘standing one’s ground’ in the face of great sorrow. This is also a testament to the resilience and courageousness of your own ‘broken open heart’.
Mark, thank you for reading this recollection through the heart. I appreciate that it moved you toward a deeper kinship with the work we are doing in "Awakening of the Heart." I had a similar experience in reading through those passages, naked and immediate, that this work we are doing is made all the more poignant. Surely, Helene is no small part of why we are doing this heart work––together.
Wonderful writing, Renee. And caring. I’m so moved. Thank you.
Michael, thank you, dear Friend. Your presence to these letters is so generous, and I am grateful. 🙏
I read this today, as evidently the timing wasn’t right for me to read it last Sunday. Through your words, my heart widened from persons (I love your use of this word) to the place that holds us. Your living through Helene—the way you stayed with devastation until it revealed its quiet radiance, the pulse of grief woven through—has become a possibility within me, too.
We’re gathering this afternoon to celebrate the life of our neighbor Oliver, and because of your writing I’m seeing the lawn as participant: the flower pots and newly planted mums, the tables set, the empty chairs already keeping vigil, the little hand-painted parking signs guiding what is to come. I can hear the laughter and the tears before they arrive. I feel the fullness and the emptiness—the smoke memory from the fire pit where Oliver told sailing stories, the trees he planted still humming with his care, even the quiet presence of his dogs resting beneath the grass. Time itself hovers over it all as a presence.
Your writing helps me let all of this be here—belonging to it, not outside of it. Thank you for opening me to the wholeness of the field, where I can mourn Oliver’s absence and still feel his presence participating with us.
Toni, timing rings through your reflections here. Time "itself hovers . . . as a presence," not only on Sunday when you enfolded into the "concretion of time"(Gebser) with Oliver, the participant lawn with flower pots and mums, tables set, empty and soon full chairs, then empty again; parking signs hand-painted in time hovering ever present; the laughter and tears and smoke memory (this took my breath), Oliver's stories that linger in Earth's air, in listeners' glistening cells. . . all of It – and you reading this about Helene when timing came toward you as "right." The two "events" come together as one seamless unfolding. And through your words--the scene seen, heartfelt, through you--you let us belong and mourn with you. I was holding you and Oliver and all there on the lawn in heartful presence on Sunday, and still am. With love, Renée
Dearest Renée, I found it heartbreaking to read these letters again and yet through them all there is a light shining with the courage and kindnesses offered and shared, the solidity of human connections even when being battered by the storm of a lifetime. Heart-work that becomes ever more important...
I pray the storm which was expected was a mere whisper by comparison. With love always xx
Dear Susie, thank you for giving your time and presence to these letters as a compilation, and thank you for your sharing your reflections on the "solidity of human connections even when being battered by the storm of a lifetime," that in the battering and in the dark, "heart-work becomes ever more important" and seems naturally to flow from and through us. We come together as one human species, undivided by ideology and fear, when all that matters is life and death and the physical tasks of getting through the day. Indeed, and gratefully, only a whisper of rain this last round. With love, always, Renée
So sad to hear there is another storm coming. I am sending prayers and feeling useless up here. This essay is, in parts, harrowing and uplifting. Just like our human journey it shows us all the things in one big event and at the core of it all is our love and human connection as we try to help each other get through.
Donna, thank you, as always, for your loving presence. So far, we are spared any storm wrath. Just rain for now. Imelda and Humberto are still brewing out at sea. . . .
"Just like our human journey . . . and at the core of it all is our love and human connection as we try to help each other get through." This is what I hope this recollection reveals, Donna, the goodness in our humanity when we are present to what really matters. You have named it. 🙏