The Gift of Forgetting, Episode 311
The possibility of taking up both remembering and forgetting as intentional practices.
So that we can remember, and not forget, one another’s gifts and goodness, sacredness and possibility, strength and tenderness. So we can forget all that we hold onto in one another that keeps us from who we could be, and meet one another afresh in each brink of time.
And so we can remember what needs fixing and healing - so that it can be fixed and healed - and forget the patterns in us that break and hurt, so that we don’t continue repeating them.
This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.
Here’s our source for this week:
The Gift of Forgetting
Forgetting has its uses. Were it not for our ability to forget, we would never be free from melancholy. No joyous occasion would dispel sadness. The events that could delight us would give us no pleasure, while we recalled every trouble of life. Even from the success of our hopes we could not expect to derive rest and peace of mind. We would never refrain from grieving. So both memory and forgetfulness, different and contrary as they are, are both gifts given to us, and each of them has its uses in our lives.
Bachya Ibn Pakuda, Duties of the Heart
Photo by Michael Jasmund on Unsplash