---
path: "/posts/snow-on-the-lake"
date: "2021-12-21T23:19:51.246Z"
title: "Solstice 2021"
author: "661 words"
type: "blog"
image: ""
description: "chain email on compassion"
note: "Max Fowler"
---

Sitting in vermont, friend just left, with sun shining on my face, <br/>
wanting to share a video that moved me, because I felt that it might also move someone else.<br/>

Identified a feeling of responsibility,<br/>
that in the sharing, I should try to do in such a way,<br/>
that I wouldn’t let the sand fall through my fingers.<br/>

I’m reminded of a performance by my friend Franz, that involved a ritual, where a handful of sand was passed around between many people. While the sand was passing around, he said something like try not to drop the sand, but some will fall, it can’t be helped.<br/>

I remember the feeling of receiving the sand and passing it to the next person,<br/>
trying to be mindful, and some sand fell, but some sand made it.<br/>

A series of different actions, at different timescales, has left me feeling at the moment,<br/>
like sometimes things do the opposite of what they intend.<br/>

Imagined a state of the union in my internal council declaring an extra Yom Kippur effective immediately due to recent events.<br/>

Laughed, imagining if this email was written on a holiday card,<br/>
with a picture of reindeer on the front.<br/>

I realized that the feeling I have about sharing the video is actually a pretty common feeling I experience when trying to talk about the divine, or express something intimate.<br/>

A concern that by trying to say anything about that which cannot be named, it will muck it up.<br/>
My most intimate moments sometimes look like sentences trailing off half-way as hearing the words come out they seem only partial.<br/>

I think of the introduction that [Xavier Dagba](https://www.instagram.com/xavier.dagba/), gave for their podcast, which seems like a helpful introduction for many things,<br/>

“Your truth versus my truth. Who has the ultimate truth. Here is what my experience has been: there are perspective that serve me so well at a certain point in time in my journey. They help me navigate a dark night of the soul. They help me drag myself out of a dark place. They help me cope as much as I needed to cope. And when I was ready to dive in deeper, that perspective needed to shift. And I needed to embody a different perspective. And in my experience, the transformation-journey, is really about in a given now-moment, embracing the perspective that resonates the most with you, and really working through that new paradigm, really working through that new perspective. Using that perspective to evolve as much as you can with that, and then when it stops serving you, embodying or embracing a new perspective that resonates better with you. So what we're going to be sharing here is only perspectives. So the invitation I have for you is, "embrace it if it works for you". Embrace it if you feel like there is resonance with your own soul when you ponder that perspective. Embrace it if this is something that allows you to feel inner peace. If it allows you to feel even more compassion for yourself, and maybe even more compassion for others around you. Embrace it if it works. And if doesn't resonate with you, then dismiss it. You're going to hear me share perspectives that worked for me at some point in time, and perspectives that I had to let go of. The invitation I have for you is: listen to your own resonance.... because I deeply believe that truth has billions of lenses, and every time a human being shares their perspective, they are offering a lense of the bigger truth.”<br/>

I imagined this email as somewhere in between a poem, a sermon, a chain email, and a stream of conscious, which seems appropriate to how I feel today.<br/>

Here is [the video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XinVOpdcbVc) I originally wanted to share, and here is [the podcast](https://pca.st/mnf3ag59) from Xavier, about compassion and embracing new beginnings. Maybe someone else will find them helpful too.<br/>

Happy solstice,<br/>
with love,<br/>
M<br/>




