eyewitness
on the web of mutual regard
Welcome to your weekly Portal. I hope it finds you in the quiet.
THE THRESHOLD
Most of us move through the world without truly being seen and without truly seeing. We pass each other at speed, carrying our private weights, rarely pausing long enough to let the world witness us or to witness it in return.
But there are moments in the midst of it all when something shifts. When the boundary between self and world softens and we find ourselves held in a web of mutual regard.
The river sees us. The stranger is seen. We are all, briefly, known.
We are approaching the winter solstice here in the southern hemisphere. The longest night and the centre most point of stillness. the turning toward. It is a season for witnessing. For sitting beside the river of our own lives and asking, honestly:
What do I see? What am I being called to speak before it’s too late?
THE POEM
EYEWITNESS from Reunion Songs I see you sit down, run your hand over your head, sigh and look up. Another man walks by, the river runs in front, all of us wed now, as she is our witness. I wonder if you know she knows you too, to speak your heart before it's too late. For certain one day you and I will be dead, but she will run and run. I imagine what it's like at the heart of your world, the luck, hurts and joys delivering you here, now, with those eyes. You, a man by a river with his head in his hands.
THE PRACTICE
The poem is an act of radical witness, of seeing a stranger by a river and imagining the whole weight of their life.
This week’s practice is to extend that same quality of regard to yourself.
Find a place near water if you can, or imagine a place in your minds eye - a river, the sea, a lake, even a fountain. Sit for ten minutes. Let the water be your witness. Let it run past you as it has run past countless others, carrying everything, judging nothing.
Then ask yourself honestly, as the poem asks: what do I need to speak before it’s too late? Not to anyone else necessarily, just to yourself.
You might also like to find the prompt that feels most true and write from it for five minutes without stopping:
“What I need to speak before it’s too late is …”
“What the river would say if she could speak to me is …”
“The luck, hurts and joys that have delivered me here are …”
THE THREAD
This week, let yourself be witnessed by the natural world or the quiet of the night and witness in return. Look at the people around you and imagine the whole weight of their lives delivering them here, now.
That imagining is not small. It is the beginning of everything.
Yours in radical hope … Amanda
P.S. If this week’s poem stirred something in you and you’d like to go deeper, my courses offer a more sustained practice of exactly this kind of attention. Poetry as Portal, Poetry as Sacred Activism, and Meeting and Mapping Your Creative Project are all available on demand, whenever the season feels right. You can find everything here:
You are receiving this because you chose to. Thank you. If this moved something in you, would you be willing to share it? Together we can create a more just and loving world.
Love this Amanda!