Spaces In Between

“Let yourself listen to the spaces in between.”
-Katheryn M. Trenshaw

Here we are. It is spring and a global pandemic is happening. There is a great deal of anxiety and uncertainty in our lives as well as in the collective unconscious. We are all connected. Interconnection has never in our lifetimes been more apparent. Here we are. Listen. Let yourself rest. Let yourself listen.

Our lives have been changed and we are all living in that liminal space where we are not where we were, nor where we are going. We are in the spaces in between. And here, when we notice what is happening, there IS space.

Joy

“Joy has everything to do with the fact that we’re all going to die.”
-Ross Gay

Our impermanence makes life more sweet. There is often more space to notice delight with this more front and center in our awareness. This can be a good time.

The songbirds are singing and can be heard more sweetly and so clearly with less traffic. It takes my breath away each morning. I can hear the woodpeckers for the first time early in the day from my kitchen, during my coffee making ritual. Maybe because there is less traffic to mask their sound? Maybe because they are coming in closer to towns with less noise and interference? And dolphins have moved into the canals of Venice, sheep into the villages of Wales and clean air into Mumbai where the air quality is extraordinarily high and normally polluted grey-green skies are blue and clear.

Many neighbours are meeting for perhaps the first time. I have met several newish families on my street and the smallest kindnesses and offerings and needs have made us all feel more whole. We are just that little bit more connected. Our simple neighbourhood WhatsApp group creates a safe way for tiny asks and offers. Extra broad beans to eat, spare pea seeds to plant, guidance on how to migrate a mobile phone and advice on pond creation, along with starter pond ingredients that’s started a ripple effect of pond passion. This tiny area will be watching for more frogs, newts and dragonflies. There is more interconnection here and less interference.

“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
-Rilke, from “Go To the Limits of Your Longing"

This pause is revealing a great deal. I invite you to join me in listening more and more to the spaces. And let’s be curious. What is essential? What’s happening now? All we know is we don’t know. But what IS happening now?

Spring Fertility and Rebirth

This can be a fertile time. My beloved son gifted me for UK Mother’s Day, in the midst of all this mayhem, madness and magic, with a new musical composition. It is based on “exploring the relationships between chords and intervals” and he then started to build paths between those chords which he eventually arranged into a piece of music…. And, he asserts, “of course the nicest sounds are often somewhere in between.”
I know I am biased, but the music is exquisite.

And breath.
What about breathing?
This simply
loving living act
we tend to
take so for granted.
Tend to your breath.
One breath.
Pause.
In breath.
Pause.
And out breath.
Pause.
This is being alive.
Simple.
Radiant.
Pulsing.
Pausing
Appreciating
the spaces in between.

• Katheryn M. Trenshaw

What small or large steps are you taking towards leaving a legacy of love? What is bursting forth at this fertile spring moment in time?  Let yourself listen to the spaces in between.