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Tuesday
People who live under authoritarian regimes risk becoming exhausted and dispirited, which is in fact what authoritarian leaders want. In response to Donald Trump’s assaults on American democracy, various political commentators have been counseling their audiences to pay attention to their emotional well-being. I’ve heard MSNBC’s Ali Velshi advise us to step away from television news from time to time, including his own show, and the spirited blogger Jeff Tiedrich does the same. At the end of his daily off-color rants about rightwing extremists and those who enable them, Tiedrich always adds the following caution:
this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future: practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.
If you do step away, here’s some poetic advice about what to do next. Irish poet and Catholic priest John O’Donohue first describes the exhaustion and then the process of entering what he calls “empty time” or “slow time.” “You have traveled too fast over false ground;” he tells us. “Now your soul has come to take you back.”
Reconnecting includes being “excessively gentle with yourself” and staying clear “of those vexed in spirit.” In the end, he assures us, “you will return to yourself,/ Having learned a new respect for your heart.”
In the dark days of the American Revolution, Thomas Payne famously wrote, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” One must care for this soul, however, if one wants to draw upon its power. O’Donohue tells us how to do so in the form of a poem that is also a blessing.
For One Who Is Exhausted, a Blessing
By John O’Donohue
When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.
The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.
Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.
The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.
You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.
At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.
You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.
Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.
Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.
Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.
Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time
Don’t let Trumpism rob you of joy. Of course, it’s proper to be vigilant, but we can stay centered as we step up to the challenges.
