"Honeymoon with Big Joy" #14
Featuring Yehuda Amichai and Fabrizio Paterlini
Welcome to “Honeymoon with Big Joy”
Remember, you’re the co-creator of this dive. Do as much or as little as you’d like, when you’d like, how you’d like, with the materials I provide. Just keep gentle faith with yourself.
Set your intention
Take a moment to name the primary intention you have for this month-long deep dive and/or this particular session. Take a quiet moment to center yourself in that intention.
En-JOY the music
Read the poem
I invite you to read this poem twice—aloud, at least once. You may also listen to my reading, perhaps with your eyes closed.
16
From The Precision of Pain and the Blurriness of Joy: The Touch of Longing Is Everywhere
Yehuda Amichai
Translated from the Hebrew by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld
The precision of pain and the blurriness of joy. I’m thinking
how precise people are when they describe their pain in a doctor’s
office. Even those who haven’t learned to read and write are precise: This one’s a throbbing pain, and this one’s a wrenching pain, and this one gnaws, this one burns and this is a sharp pain and this is a dull one. Right here. Precisely here, yes, yes. Joy blurs everything. I’ve heard people say after nights of love and feasting, It was great, I was in seventh heaven. And even the space man who floated in outer space, tethered to a space ship, could only say, Great, wonderful, I have no words. The blurriness of joy and the precision of pain— I want to describe with a sharp pain’s precision happiness and blurry joy. I learned to speak among the pains. (from Open Closed Open: Poems)
Contemplate/Create
Use any of these questions however you wish—e.g., as openings for meditation or prayer, as prompts for journaling or poetry-writing, as sparks for drawing or painting, as catalysts for change-making . . . You may also ignore my questions altogether to go off in other directions!
Have you ever noticed, like Amichai, how often our language around joy is so less precise than our language around pain and suffering?
Think of a time when you felt the kind of joy for which you could find no words.
How do you feel at this moment? Describe how you feel with precision.
Want to visit with other Rafters in the Deep Dive?
Here are two options: either leave a comment on this post using the button, or join the chat thread dedicated to this Deep Dive. (Note: if you haven’t created a Substack profile yet, you’ll be asked to do so before you can comment or chat.)
These materials are for educational purposes only. Not for sale or reproduction.
Join us on October 31 for “Rafter Refuge”!
6:30-8:00PM Central (7:30 ET, 5:30 MT, 4:30 PT)
Let’s close this Deep Dive with a time of voluntary sharing. (It’s fine just to listen!) Come and reflect with other Rafters on “Honeymoon with Big Joy.” Registration is required for this celebration.
Questions? Never hesitate to contact me.
See you tomorrow.
I am so taken with Amachai’ s thoughts in his poem. It seems to me that the precise nature of pain and suffering take us inward, perhaps to tend to ourselves. Joy is expansive taking us outward toward our loved one, toward beauty, toward goodness. I will be thinking more deeply about why this expansive feeling is so difficult to describe...
Thank you for sharing this thoughtful poem.