Does Joy Find You--An Open Spirit Reflection

In the sixth and final session of the “Writing from the Heart:  Sharing Our Stories in Community,” series I facilitated from February until the first week of April at Open Spirit, I chose the theme, “What Brings You Joy?”  In each themed class, participants were led into writing through a sharing of sections of spiritual texts, meditations, music, and some movement that prepared us to write from our hearts.  Parts of this last class included a sharing of some highlights from Danna Faulds’ latest book, Breath of Joy: Poems, Prayers, and Prose  (Morris Publishing, 2013).  As in every session, my outline included possible ideas that might act as energy to prepare one’s heart for writing.  One prompt was from Faulds (p. 12), “What connects you to joy?  What are the particular practices and pursuits that light your inner spark and allow you to feel the ecstasy of existence?”  As class participants shared their writings, Ellie Kell shared, “I feel that joy actually finds ME.”  Her writing included many beautiful images, the most memorable for me, how sharing smiles with others, especially children, are gifts of joy that find her and elevate her spirits.

I am writing this reflection here in the Public Garden, sitting on a bench overlooking the pond where the Swan Boats will soon be back in “service” to the community.  It is a beautiful spring afternoon today, April 11th.   I spent the first three hours of today with eye specialists at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, working with me with all of the skills they have, to alleviate some recurrent eye pain that surfaces from time to time due to a most complicated eye condition.  The doctors work with a perfect combination of mind and heart, as my eye fights to keep the small amount of light it still bears.  I navigate the world with so much gratitude, which includes gratitude for my eye team.  When I awake each morning, open my eyes and see, I thank God for this gift, sight, which accompanies me in this new day, breaking before me.  I often swell up with tears, my heart aglow with the bright light that my eye is not able to emanate.

Here I sit on this bench, after a lovely walk down Charles Street, with my writer’s notebook and pencil in hand. . . tools I take with me to capture messages from my heart when they surface as they are right now.  Memories, lots of memories, reside here in the Public Garden.  . .

Saturdays as a child, living in Boston, my mother and I would take the subway, shop in downtown Boston, and meet my Dad at his office.  The three of us would go to Gamsun’s for a Chinese food lunch and then, stale bead in hand, come here to the Public Garden to ride on the Swan Boats and feed the ducks.  I knew every duck by name, of course, having been read McCloskey’s, Make Way for Ducklings, at least once a week by my Dad.  I close my eyes and picture us, in one of the happiest family scenes recorded in my heart.

Joy has found me, Ellie, right here in the Public Garden! Yes, when we are open, as you wrote, joy, indeed does find us!

As I sit here and reflect, right here in this present moment, upon these simple family times of my youth, the three previous hours of prodding, probing, and questioning at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary fade into the background.  Losing my Dad nine months ago, I feel him in the depths of my heart with joy, a joy which makes me feel so warm, so loved, so grateful, and so lov-ing.

Though the formal sessions of “Writing from the Heart” have ended for now, as I encouraged my class participants, I encourage my readers here to take those twenty minutes or so a day, sit with your writer’s notebook (electronic on paper and pen), just as I am doing now . . . breathe, relax, notice, and just write.

Danna Faulds shared that in May 1990 she took part in a daylong retreat for staff at the Kripalu Center.  One part of the retreat involved her in an automatic writing exercise, which followed meditation experiences.  The group was instructed to write the words, “This is what I have to say to you,” at the top of a sheet of blank paper, and then just write whatever came – no editing, no worrying about word choice, not stopping to think what came next.  Just write. “  (Faulds, Go In and In: Poems from the Heart of Yoga, p. v).  This was the beginning of many years of responding to that one prompt, which has been life changing for Danna.  Try responding to this prompt.  This may be a way of beginning the next chapter of your writing journey.

Joy will find you!

With love and gratitude,

Rosanne