"Waging Peace" #18

Featuring Philip Metres and Newang Kechog

Welcome to “Waging Peace”

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.

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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.

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Receive the music

Try to refrain from judging the music as “good” or “bad” or forming an “I like it” or “I don’t like it” opinion. For a few minutes, cultivate curiosity and openness. If resistance arises in you, be curious about that too.

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Read the poem

I invite you to read this poem twice—aloud, at least once. You may also listen to my reading of the poem, perhaps with your eyes closed.

FOR THE FIFTY (WHO FORMED PEACE WITH THEIR BODIES)
Philip Metres

In the green beginning,
     in the morning mist,
          they emerge from their chrysalis

of clothes: peel off purses & cells,
     slacks & Gap sweats, turtle-
          necks & tanks, Tommy’s & Salvation

Army, platforms & clogs,
     abandoning bras & lingerie, labels
         & names, courtesies & shames,

the emperor’s rhetoric of defense,
     laying it down, their child-
          stretched or still-taut flesh

giddy in sudden proximity,
     onto the cold earth: bodies fetal or supine,
          as if come-hithering

or dead, wriggle on the grass to form
     the shape of a word yet to come, almost
          embarrassing to name: a word

thicker, heavier than the rolled rags
     of their bodies seen from a cockpit:
          they touch to make

the word they want to become:
     it’s difficult to get the news
          from our bodies, yet people die each day

for lack of what is found there:
     here: the fifty hold, & still
          to become a testament, a will,

embody something outside
     themselves & themselves: the body,
          the dreaming disarmed body.


(from Split This Rock’s The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database)

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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!

• What “word do you want to become” as you wage peace?

• Imagine gathering with other people to form a living portrait or word that can best be appreciated from the sky. What would that living portrait or word be? How do you imagine the experience?

• Reflect/write/create in response to these words: “My dreaming disarmed body.”

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Want to visit with other Rafters in the Deep Dive?

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These materials are for educational purposes only. Not for sale or reproduction.

Join me and a SPECIAL MYSTERY GUEST
for a closing Zoom on February 1!

6:00-7:00PM Central (7:00 ET, 5:00 MT, 4:00 PT)

Let’s close “Waging Peace” with a time of voluntary sharing. (It’s fine just to listen!) Come and reflect with other Rafters on this Deep Dive.

Registration is required for this celebration.

(Note: Minimum of five people must have registered for the Refuge by midnight, January 31, in order for this Zoom to take place. Thanks!)

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Questions? Never hesitate to contact me.

See you tomorrow.