Amy Tuttle: Election Brave Space Series

The Common Good podcast is a conversation about the significance of place, eliminating economic isolation and structures of belonging.

This 8 weeks series consists of mini episodes which are being produced in partnership with The Hive, A Center for Contemplation, Art, and Action, as a part of an ongoing class they’re offering locally called Election Brave Space: Compassionate Resilience For Our Shared Future. The intention of these episode is to introduce a variety of simple tools and practices to help you navigate this politically tumultuous moment, leading to and through the election.

Amy Tuttle is an artist, guide, and community builder. She loves supporting individuals and communities with creative expression, story-based connection, and trauma-support. Amy believes the arts are a deep resource for personal growth, community-building, and cultural transformation.

She shares "An Introduction to Some Poetry" by William Stafford.

The Hive is a grassroots mindfulness community curating multi-week classes, workshops and a Membership community. It has been formed by facilitators asking the question, "What are the resources that lie within our vast lineages, traditions, and modalities of healing, and how can we place them in service of the common good?" In this series we’re hearing from The Hive’s 6 core faculty members.

This episode was produced by Joey Taylor and the music is from Jeff Gorman. You can find more information about the Common Good Collective here. Common Good Podcast is a production of Bespoken Live & Common Change - Eliminating Personal Economic Isolation.

Transcript

 Thank you so much for tuning into this series in which what we're trying to do is  get to the heart of the matter of supporting ourselves, each other, our community during such uncertain times. So you're feeling a wobble in your system that makes sense. If it is feeling difficult to stay grounded and connected. That makes sense too. as we try to navigate the spin and hum the buzz of the world, just know that you're in really good company as we're all listening deeply and looking for tools to support us in not only processing and digesting the world as it is. Right now, in this moment, but also lensing into a deeper internal sense of  care, and belongingness, knowing that what it is that is our birthright around humanity is the way of connection and the way of belonging and so just wanting to spend a little bit of time with you  to share a little practice that I think might be useful during these moments of heightened intensity,

one practice that's really supporting me right now that I'd love to recommend to everybody is the practice of embodying poetry  carrying poetry with us for the day. Sometimes there's a poem that's so compelling to us that we might even carry it with us for like a lifetime.  When we have beauty close at hand, when the inner world starts to get wobbly as a mirror of the wobbliness of the outer world, there's something to plug into that's inspiring, that's gorgeous. that we really love.  poems can be so instructional. Poems also are often derived from human archetypes. And so, really great poets understand fundamentally the map of the human psyche and are able to write in a way that somehow feels relevant to so many people. 

I'd love to share a poem that I'm working with. It's a William Stafford poem. William Stafford is a really incredible poet who was also prolific and wrote truly an immense and strange amount of poetry during his lifetime. And a lot of his poems deal with struggle and they deal with how it is that humans navigate the chaos of being alive um, soulfully and with meaning making and with beauty and authenticity. This poem is one of his poems to poetry, an ode to poetry.  Sometimes those are called Ars Poetica. I'll read the poem through and the invitation for you is maybe even close the eyes and let the words flow through you, evoking any sort of sensory experience that might come up. You know, It might be color, it might be texture. You might have a visual experience with words and phrases from the poem. It might bring emotion.  So read it through one time and just let yourself Drink it. And then I'll read it through a second time. In the second reading  listen for a word or phrase that you would like to take with you for a little while. Something that you'd like to carry. Maybe it's something that you take on a walk Maybe it's something you gently repeat before falling asleep. Maybe it's something you write to in the morning. Let it become a tether, a tool, a seed, inspiration to you. Here is an introduction to some poems. 

 Look,  look, no one ever promised for sure that we would sing.  We have decided to moan in a strange dance that we don't understand till we do it. We have to carry on. We have to carry it on. Just as in sleep,  you have to dream  the exact dream to round out your life. So we have to live that dream into stories.  And hold them close at you, close at the edge we share to be right.  We find it an awful thing to meet people, serious or not, who have turned into vacant, effective people so far lost that they won't believe their own feelings enough to follow them out.  The authentic,  the authentic, the authentic is a line from one thing along to the next.  It interests us.  Strangely, it relates to what works, but it's not quite the same.  It never, ever swerves for revenge or profit or fame.  It holds together something more than the world, this line.  And we,  we are your wavery efforts at following it.  Are you coming? Are you coming?  Good.  Now, it is time. 

So, catching a few nice, deep breaths. Breathing all the way into the belly and pelvis and letting those ribs take up space.  Exhaling anything that needs to be released.  This time, I'll read the poem again,  and Listen for a line. Might even just be a word One that stands out and connects to you with resonance and depth and that's a gift to take with you. So here is an introduction to some poems.  

Look, look, no one ever promised for sure that we would sing.  No one ever promised for sure that we would sing.  We have decided to moan.  In a strange dance that we don't understand till we do it, we have to carry on.  Just as in sleep you have to dream,  the exact dream, to round out your life, so we have to live that dream into stories and hold them close at you, close at the edge we share, to be right.  We find it an awful thing.  An awful thing to meet people, serious or not, who have turned into vacant effective.  So far lost that they won't believe their own feelings enough to follow them out.  The authentic,  the authentic is a line from one thing along to the next.  It interests us. Strangely,  strangely, it relates to what works, but it's not quite the same.  It never swerves for revenge,  or profit,  or fame.  It holds together something more than the world. This line.  And we, we are your wavery  efforts at following it.  Are you coming? Are you coming?  Are you coming?  Good.  Now it is time. 

 Poems are stories. are fingerprints or recordings of the human experience. Sometimes a historical poem is so relevant in a contemporary context because it is human. It's an imprint. Sometimes the heart of a poem wants to beat with our heart for a while, wants to accompany us and walk alongside us and bring us connection, wants to encapsulate and wrap itself around us.  In this poem, we hear about a thread of authenticity that is just a little bit deeper and a little bit bigger than all the things happening around us.  What is that for you?  So from my heart to yours, take really good care during these moments when we're right up against the edge of an intense election. Let yourself be nourished by beauty, be tethered in deeper truths,  navigate with love and stay connected,  stay connected.