Five years ago, I decided to listen and respond to a longing that was stirring up within me to write and share my words (and others’) with the world. So, I started a blog and titled it “The Unspeaking Center” after a line from one of my favorite poems by Rainer Maria Rilke. I believe “the unspeaking center” signifies that treasure at the heart of each of us so true, beautiful, and present that it transcends words.
It seemed to me poignant given the life I’ve lived, one deeply interior, richly feeling, and often, exceedingly lonely. I didn’t know how to bridge the vast divide between the internal world of the heart and the external world we inhabit in all its unending beauty and shortcomings. This blog was my attempt at beginning to bridge that gap… only it was not yet time.
One of my dearest teachers, the esteemed poet Mary Oliver writes in her poem “Don’t Worry”:
Things take the time they take.
Don’t worry.
How many roads did St. Augustine follow before he became St. Augustine?
Don’t worry. How many times have I, how many times have you heard these words? In this season of life, as I seek to navigate change and consider the questions that have been brewing in my heart for years, these words take on new meaning. In the grand scheme of things, though life is but a breath, it is, I believe, meant to be a deeply rooted, freely flowing one that inhales life and exhales it back out into the world. Relax. “Things take the time they take.” Let life unfold (I encourage myself—and you) as though it were as natural as your breath or as if it were another being growing inside you, dependent upon time and nourishment, patience and peace.
I feel caught in the overwhelmingly freeing grip of these words, this invitation. In the midst of living in the intense and imminent tension of change, I—and we—are invited to live in the richness of anticipation and peace. There’s undoubtedly more to the story than meets the eye. Beneath the surface of things, the unspeaking center, is calling—it’s doing it’s good, quiet, and slow work to enliven this life and this world. And I, for one, am ready to listen.
So, five years later, it is time to begin again. This time, however, it is my hope, desire, and intention to do the work of writing and sharing, vulnerability and creativity, in community. I invite you to join me in what feels like the worthy pursuit of bold truth-telling, kindness, mercy, love and nourishment in this ever-changing and challenging world of ours.
Welcome.
The Unspeaking Center 