About Healing and Creativity
Reprinted with permission from Catholic Rural Life, Spring 2000
by Sr. Joyce Rupp, OSM
A poem by David Whyte, titled “An Old Interior Angel,” speaks to me about rural America’s situation and the hope I hold for those struggling in farming. In this poem Whyte describes how he was hiking in Tibet and decided to separate from his party in order to hike for himself for a while. He planned to walk by himself for three days to a certain bridge where he would rejoin his group. In order to do this he would have to cross that bridge and meet them on the other side of it.
All went well until he got to the bridge which hung over a 400-foot chasm. It was then that he saw it’s condition: all of the top cables of the swingbridge were broken, as well as many of its wooden planks. As he sat down near it he felt discouraged and disheartened, deciding he would have to walk back to where he had started.
Just then an old Tibetan woman came shuffling along caring a basket, gathering dung for fuel. She walked right past him, her eyes on the ground, giving Whyte the “Namaste” Indian greeting as she passed by. (Meaning “I greet the God in You.”) The she walked straight ahead, onto and across the broken bridge without even taking a pause. At that moment something stirred in David Whyte. Seeing this old woman do the seemingly impossible helped him realize that he, too, could cross the bridge. He concludes his poem by calling this woman “an old interior angel,” someone who gives him the courage to take action and follow her across the dangerous bridge.
I see the broken bridge as a metaphor for the current barriers rural America faces right now. David Whyte, fearfully sitting at that rickety, scary bridge, is anyone who faces great difficulty and fear. When we get to that bridge we hesitate, doubt, question, – wondering if we can make it to the other side. We’ve never crossed a bridge so dilapidated before. It looks dangerous and risky to do so. Facing this bridge causes doubts and raises a lot of questions: “Why did I come this way? Why didn’t anyone fix that bridge? How am I supposed to get any further? Will I make it if I try to cross over? Do I have to go back instead of forward?”
These questions underlie rural America’s questions: “Did I make the wrong choice? Can I farm in the future? Will the family farm survive? Who will fix the farm bill? How can I get to the other side of this perilous time? What will I do with the plummeting prices and the problems associated with genetical engineering? Will consolidation destroy rural America’s land and way of life?
When we’re in a difficult place, we can get stuck, too paralyzed to move on due to concern for what might happen to us. We can lose hope, believing the only thing for us is to go back into what we know instead of moving creatively into the future. Whyte chose his journey but he did not choose the broken-down bridge, just as those who choose to work the land do not choose all the difficult things that happen in the process of farming.
When I look at the four seasons, I see our inner human experience as a parallel. In springtime there’s vibrancy, life and vitality. Then comes the productive and fruitful summer. Following this is autumn when that which has ripened is taken away and the land begins to shut down. (I’ve often wondered what it is like for the land when those big combines come through the fields to strip it of everything it has worked so hard to produce.) Finally, in this seasonal cycle there is winter, a time of seeming death in which the land lies fallow. This season is a non-productive, waiting time when the land is re-energizing and renewing itself. The winter land tells us that non-productivity and emptiness are an essential element before new growth and fruitfulness can happen. Yet it is this empty, dark season that most of us find difficult to accept as part of our own transformation cycle.
I believe that the spirit of rural America is in its winter season now. It is a time of dark loss, of empty promises, of barren financial gains, and fallow hope. At a farm rally in August of 1999, Senator Wellstone from Minnesota described rural America as:
“A lot of people near the edge that are ready to go under — broken dreams, broken lives, broken families.”
This is an apt description of winter at its harshest. No wonder this season is one that is fought and avoided even though it is vital for the transformation process.
What Can Rural America Do During This Tough Time?
Before turning toward hope and a new season of spring, its wintered spirit of discouragement and loss must be acknowledged. Many of those who work on the land and love it are now facing unwanted changes and these changes must be recognized for what they are: an experience of loss that has within it a kind of “dying” or diminishment. What makes this loss more intense is that most of America is either not aware of this situation or does not care. With rural America’s loss comes grief at what is being taken away without consent. (The word grief is taken from a Latin word gravare which means “to burden or press heavily upon”, while bereaved means “to be robbed.”
This loss has many layers to it –it’s not just loss of the land. There’s loss of an identity. Many people do not continue to farm, finding work in town or in the city. In no longer claiming identity as a farmer, there is then the question of “how do I name myself and describe myself?” This loss also involves letting go of a lifestyle and a heritage. There is no more direct contact through working with the land so there is a loss of satisfaction as well as the loss of a dream. (“I thought we’d always have this farm”). Sometimes there is also the loss of a relationship. Division and divorce are more likely when couples are going through a time of financial crisis.
Grief, with its bewildering and unwanted feelings, needs to be tended. Those who grieve cannot isolate themselves from others, although this is often the inclination of the independent farmer. There’s a need for support when on is grieving; it is not healthy to ‘go it alone’. In the last farm crisis I remember despairing farmers who took their lives and others who went into severe clinical depression. It was very difficult to get those who were hurting to talk about their inner experience. We need to assure those who are experiencing hurt that they have our support and care. Even though we may not live on a farm, we can be closely united with the farming community and grieve with them when we sense the great loss that is presently sweeping rural America.
Grieving farmers need the strength of community. Again, we can learn from the land. How is the land community-oriented? Think of a crop in the field. If you have just one stalk of corn or one sheaf of wheat when a windstorm comes along or long days of hot sun beat down, it is not going to stand up straight for very long or find much moisture, but if you have a whole lot of cornstalks or sheaves of wheat around it, that lone stalk or sheaf is much stronger, more protected, and will contain moisture longer.
How do we find meaning in the midst of this crisis? I think it is very difficult but not impossible. One thing is certain — we need to keep hope alive. Author Anne Lamott describes hope in this way: “Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and do what is right, the dawn will come. You wait, you watch, and you work, and you don’t give up.”
I recently read about a farmer who couldn’t make any money raising his regular crop so he decided to raise turtles instead. He took action. He took a great risk. It was the right one for him. Now he is financially successful and cannot raise turtles fast enough for the great demand there is for them. I doubt that he ever would have envisioned himself raising turtles ten years ago and yet, this is what awaited him after his wintertime.
Lamott says that hope also means “waiting.” This means being patient with the gestation time of the seed as it waits in the dark soil to germinate. One of the difficult things in waiting is that we just don’t know the exact time when the new life will show itself. In our spiritual germination time we learn how to lean on God and on others. This is a time to trust, to learn from the land that a seed has its own time of greening and growing, just as we do. We cannot dig up a seed to see if it has begun to grow. If we do, it dies. We have to trust that there’s a greening ahead for rural America, as well.
Mythologist Joseph Campbell (The Hero with a Thousand Faces) describes this transformation cycle as the inner journey that each person must take if they are to grow. What I like about Campbell’s cycle is that it includes a gift when one eventually moves into spring. Every time we come through a winter of our spirit, there’s a gift for us. Campbell calls this “an elixir” [sic] and emphasizes that this gift is not just for us but also for the transformation of our world.
We must wait patiently and hopefully. We do not know what that gift will be for rural Americans who are currently struggling with their wintertime anymore than we can see green leaves on a frozen, wintered branch. But we can see the terminal buds with the promise of spring on that branch and we can have hope in the seasonal cycle, which assures us that new life will follow the difficult times. We must believe and hope that rural America’s elixir will be something that gives life and vitality to the land and its people. We must watch and work for ways and means for this to happen.
Every Time We Come Through a
Winter of Our Spirit, There’s a
Gift for Us.
Sometimes we have to wait for a very long time before we know what the gift is that follows our wintertime. Life coming after death may not be readily perceived. When Roger Williams and his wife were buried side by side in Rhode Island, their graves were near an apple tree. Many years later some local citizens wanted to honor them by having their bodies re-buried in another location. When they went to exhume the corpses, they discovered that the bodies were wholly decayed; there was nothing left, not even the bones. The nearby apple tree had wound its roots around the physical remains of the dead man and his wife, absorbing the phosphorus of the bones into its living system. (cf. Dirt: the Ecstatic Skin of the Earth, William Bryant Logan, p. 37)
This is truly an example of complete transformation, of bringing new life out of death. The land consistently provides examples of this process for us. A kernel of oats does not look anything like a green stem pushing from the soil. An oak tree bears no similarity to an acorn. Each one gives its life so a new form of life can arise. Surely there is a message of hope in this for rural America today.
The land promises that spring will follow the dying. There are new and creative ways that can come forth in order to keep rural America alive. There are fresh shapes and forms for producing and protecting marketable farm products although it is not yet clear what those might be. There are other ways of developing a vibrant, healthy farm policy. There are different methods for exporting products. There are laws that can protect our land and water that have not yet been written or legislated. There are visions longing to be explored. There is action still to be taken for organizing and speaking loudly for agricultural justice. The potential is there just as truly as there is potential for life in a seed or in the dormant branches on a wintered tree. We have to discover what these ways are and do all we can to protect the life of rural America.
Along with staying open to how the future might unfold, rural Americans need to constantly remind themselves and one another of their inner strength. In The Art of Resiliency, Carol Osborn encourages her readers to never doubt their inner ability to overcome great obstacles. In a 1999 interview she described resilience as “the ability to get through, get over, and thrive after trauma, traits and tribulations… Resilience means that we can be challenged and not break down.”
Cross
“May these illustrations … serve to nourish hope and courage in difficult times.” –Darrel Nelson, artist
Rural America needs resilience now more than ever. Those who are struggling cannot give up even though the situation may look bleak. Again we can learn from the land’s resiliency. I remember being at Mt. St. Helen the first year after that volcano blew, destroying everything alive in its path of hot ash. I was astounded to see beautiful red fireweed already growing among the ashes. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was amazed that something so alive had come out of something so dead.
As Rural America looks to its enduring people and the beauty of the land let us all heed these words in Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard deChardin:
“God is at work within life; God helps it, raises it up, gives it the impulse that drives it along, gives it the appetite that attracts it, the growth that transforms it. I can feel God, touch God, live God, in a deep, biological current that runs through my soul and carries it with it. The deeper I descend into myself, the more I find God at the heart of my being.”
God is with us and is guiding us. God has given us the land, not only for producing abundant food but also as a source of hope. The land is our teacher. Let us be attentive to what is happening within us and around us. Let us be aware of the land’s teachings about transformation. There is an elixir, a gift, for rural America beyond the current struggle and pain. We will discover what this is if we let the land teach us.
