#251: On self-love, healing and soul-softening poetry

Oct 09, 2023

Hello!

Tomorrow’s Mental Health Day, and it’s your friendly newsletter-sender popping in to remind you to book yourself a therapy session. It’s okay to ask for help and not struggle with life as much as we do. You don’t have to ‘I got this’ all the time. You can be vulnerable and feel seen and heard, and get help in ways that your friends, family or other care givers in your life can’t help.

Be kind to yourself. Please.

A few lines on growing into oneself, and embracing the path of healing:

“You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”
-Lucille Ball
“In forty years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical “therapy” to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens.”
-Oliver Sacks
“Self-love extinguishes the flame of self-hate.”
-Ryan Nicodemus
“Give yourself what you need instead of what you crave.”
-Yung Pueblo

Poetry for the soul

I wanted to send you some poems that softened my heart:

Larch Sapling in a Forest Glade by Franz Marc, 1908

1. Wildflowers by Florence Grossman

I scour the side of the road
for wildflowers, what anyone

might call weeds, marsh rose,
primrose, quaker lady and those
not even the book has named.

I try to settle them
into a garden, false foxglove and pearly
everlasting, but they hang their heads.

Not the south side of the house,
not the stone wall,
it’s the road they want,

the rush of wind, the backlash
of winter sand and salt. They want
to be part of the scenery,

the surprise in the dust, what we take
for granted.

2. Morning Poem by Todd Davis

Blackberries hang in the darkest
creases of the trellis, each dimpled
to bursting. The black-eyed Susans
are mostly black, their yellow tresses
already rotted. Goldfinches wander
the air, meditate upon the cone flower’s
sharp seed, trying to discern if it’s time
to leave. This early, before anyone
has opened their doors, I watch chickadees
sidle up to sunflowers and cosmos
while cricket song sifts through the screens
like fog in the belly of this valley.
I’ve been making jam most of the month,
and the jars from last night’s batch
have been talking, lids sinking toward sweetness
with a satisfied metallic ping. The weatherman warns
of frost, so after the air warms this morning
I’ll scoop the last bits of black from the canes’
green strings, bottom press the potato-masher
to render the berry syrup into a bowl
the color of nightshade. Other birds will dawdle
through, but none will be dressed as brightly
as the finches who helped greet the dawn.
If there’s any consolation in the dying
we must do, then let it be stored on a shelf
in a raised glass jar, adorned with pictures
of strawberries and cherries, grapes and pears,
the pale seeds that fix in the cracks
of our teeth, floating in a sticky infusion
we lick from the ends of our breakfast spoons.

3. Things to Think by Robert Bly

Think in ways you’ve never thought before.
If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message
Larger than anything you’ve ever heard,
Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.

Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,
Maybe wounded and deranged; or think that a moose
Has risen out of the lake, and he’s carrying on his antlers
A child of your own whom you’ve never seen.

When someone knocks on the door, think that he’s about
To give you something large: tell you you’re forgiven,
Or that it’s not necessary to work all the time, or that it’s
Been decided that if you lie down no one will die.

4. On Leaving the Bachelorette Brunch by Rachel Wetzsteon

Because I gazed out the window at birds
doing backflips when the subject turned
to diamonds, because my eyes glazed over
with the slightly sleepy sheen your cake will wear,

never let it be said that I’d rather be
firing arrows at heart-shaped dartboards
or in a cave composing polyglot puns.
I crave, I long for transforming love

as surely as leaves need water and mouths seek bread.
But I also fear the colder changes
that lie in wait and threaten to turn
moons of honey to pools of molasses,

broad front porches to narrow back gardens,
and tight rings of friendship to flimsy things
that break when a gold band brightly implies
Leave early, go home, become one with the one

the world has told you to tend and treasure
above all others. You love, and that’s good;
you are loved, that’s superb; you will vanish
and reap some happy rewards. But look at the birds.

Mother Nature Burns: A Poetry Book on Climate Change

Two of my poems have been published in the pages of Mother Nature Burns, a chorus of voices from around the world that come together to weave a tapestry of raw emotions and stark realities. Proud to have my work in this poetic anthology that explores the relentless march of climate change and the profound impact it has on our lives and the planet we call home. Thank you, Rebecca Rijsdijk, for giving them a home. (12:56 in the video for my reading)

The Alipore Post x Internet Freedom Foundation x Frankly Wearing

Available in a bunch of colours and styles (hoodies/tees/sweatshirts) here

Internet Freedom Foundation is an Indian digital liberties organisation that seeks to ensure that technology respects fundamental rights. I’m proud to share two designs I made for Internet Freedom Foundation’s fundraiser with Frankly Wearing, to help them sustain the good work they do.

There’s some really cool designs by @smishdesigns @spacemanstripes, @meancurry and @journalxowl as well. Check out the merch here.

Show some love!