We must become intimate with anger to clear the way to our connectiveness, to our vulnerability and an aliveness to everything. In the end, our anger is transmuted to wisdom, which in turn gives rise to compassion.
from Holding Anger, by Jules Shuzen Harris, Sensei in Tricycle Magazine
Last night I spoke on the phone for hours with my oldest friend, Audrey, who lost her husband on New Year's Day of a terrible neuro-degenerative disease, supra-nuclear palsy. We laughed together -- a lot -- even as we talked about overwhelmingly sad things, and I was struck by our long connection to one another, how comfortable it was to lie on my bed and listen to her familiar voice tell me stories, the story of her husband, his illness, his final days, her children's remarkable compassion, her own strength and ability to recognize her failings, the extraordinary love she carries and projects. It's these things that tie me to the world.
I read Timothy Kudo's beautiful Op-Ed piece How We Learned to Kill and felt the sour taste of anger rise like bile in my throat, the absurdity of all of it.
I read the above quoted article about anger this morning and wondered where I was on the journey referenced -- intimacy -- connectiveness -- vulnerability -- aliveness -- wisdom -- compassion. Perhaps, like grief, these things come and they go, get mixed up with laughter, a sense of absurdity, even desperation, and then grounding.
