A Great Wild Goodness
A Great Wild Goodness, Annie Lighthart One morning I was looking out the window when a great wildness came over me: I wanted to be kind to everything. I promised not to kill the spider on the wall; in the cold I took the dog for the long walk she’d been wanting; I fetched a trashcan lid for another neighbor and did not, just then, add a single adjective to his name. I went back inside to the laundry and dishes with a clean heart such as I have never had. Before dinner the wild goodness bellowed Too tame! Too tame! so I went outside without my coat and shouted poems up the alleys until my children came home with their small warm hands. Then we ate bread in the kitchen, unafraid to be happy. The stars in wild darkness were right over our heads.
I’ve had a not-so-secret love affair with the pictures and vivid descriptions of gardens and brick farmhouse within writer Christie Purifoy’s books. Descriptions that brought to life the way that she and her family settled into a partnership with God to make a place. If you’ve read me at all over the past year or more, you’ve likely encountered some reference or another made to Placemaker, or Roots and Sky, or one of Christie’s gardening books, particularly her newest, Seedtime and Harvest. When I discovered that Summer Joy Gross was hosting her soul-care retreat on the Purifoy property, my heart did a joyful dance.
Yet, all the books could not prepare me for the sense of belonging, of wonder and joy, I experienced as I roamed through raised beds of dahlias and zinnias, over hills with roses and into alcoves of trees where park benches and tables with chairs were thoughtfully tucked, begging for weary souls to rest, to “consider the lilies,” and to come home to beauty.
I wrote last week of the way that our time making art brought me home to a spacious heart. Yet, there was so much more. On these grounds, sacred and abundant, there was space for community, connection, beauty of all sorts.
All of it was like water in a dry place, beauty that bubbled up and up like a fountain. A “great wild goodness.” Do you know it? When waves of connection, belonging, and a deep sense of love washes over me, that is how I’d define it. Then I find myself in a sense of at-homeness that makes me long to share my delight with all who might listen. And delight, as poet and writer Ross Gay reminds, multiplies incrementally when shared. It’s meant to be shared, much like art and good food and gardens.
So, this week, home again with the retreat tucked behind me and all of the needs of daily life stacked in baskets of laundry and overflowing from my desk, I reflected and observed—where is this great wild goodness in the everyday?
A dear friend and I walked the C&O canal path next to the Potomac river one night after many days of endless rain had finally stopped. The river was full and rushing. In the dim light of evening, I could hear its song and smell the richly wet earth on either side of the path. I sighed into belonging. Friendship and water do this to me.
As I told her of the time I spent in retreat with Summer, on the gorgeous land that is called Maplehurst, I spoke of how lovely it was to be in a space with women from so many different traditions, walks, and geographies, and to discover our hearts united by a beautiful, ever present thread of love. “Of course,” she said. “You were there for the heart of what is true. Everything else we hear is just noise.”
Just noise. Indeed so much can be. Quieter, without the waves of inconsistency and changing tides, however, is a great and wild goodness that makes me want to shout above all the noise, “Look, just look! So much goodness right before our eyes, stretched out over our heads.”
This week’s yoga practice addition for paid subscribers incorporates some fundamental movement with classic vinyasa style yoga, in which we move fluidly for a short time. I hope this practice finds you well. Please let me know how you feel and if you have questions. Click here to access: Fundamental Movement and Yoga