If We Were No Longer Pushing, Episode 137
How about we find a way to live without permanently being annoyed that things aren't just as we'd like them? Might that not be a path to some joy? Could we give up the way we exhaust ourselves (and often others!) by our attempts to push life around, to control it, to have things just our way?
A conversation about creativity, relationship, what happens when we let ourselves fall into life, and giving up trying to herd cats, with Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.
This is Turning Towards Life, a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living. Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. We’re also on YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google and Spotify. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website.
Our source for this week is written by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, from her book 'Naked for Tea', and brought to us by Justin.
If We Were No Longer Pushing
Perhaps it would eventually erode, but...
That rock that we
have been pushing up
the hill—that one
that keeps rolling back down
and we keep pushing
back up—what if
we stopped? We are not
Sisyphus. This rock
is not a punishment.
It’s something we’ve chosen
to push. Who knows why.
I look at all the names
we once carved into
its sedimentary sides.
How important
I thought they were,
those names. How
I’ve clung to labels,
who’s right, who’s wrong,
how I’ve cared about
who’s pushed harder
and who’s been slack.
Now all I want
is to let the rock
roll back to where it belongs,
which is wherever it lands,
and you and I could,
imagine!, walk unencumbered,
all the way to the top and
walk and walk and never stop
except to discover what
our hands might do
if for once they were no longer
pushing.
– Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, www.wordwoman.com
Photo by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash