Reading the Field and the End of the Light

A poem to return to when you need it + our final Zoom gathering of the year.

Me and my mom, Bonnie. (Photo by Tina Turnbow)

Friends,

Our newsletter is about to enter into its third year, and I can’t think of a better way to commemorate this community and occasion than to bring the insight and wisdom of my mom, Bonnie Tamblyn, to this year’s final installment of our monthly Zoom gathering, The Short and Sweet.

My mom is an expert in what she describes as “reading the field,” of being able to harness and intuit what others are feeling and needing and what the world might be trying to tell us. She wrote beautifully about reading the field in our anthology, Listening in the Dark: Women Reclaiming the Power of Intuition, and she’s used this skill in her life’s work as a conflict resolution facilitator for almost three decades.

Her work began through The Ojai Foundation in Ojai, California, working with everyone from young children, to incarcerated people, to big companies struggling to communicate better. My mom has worked with so many different kinds of people on the art of speaking from the heart, and most importantly, listening from the heart. (If you’ve ever wondered where I got my obsession with listening and tuning in…it’s from my mom.) She’s got a big, generous spirit and a wise perspective about this moment we’re living in, and I can’t wait to dive into it all with her—and you. I think we could all use some mama love and wisdom these days.

Please join us tomorrow, Saturday, Dec. 14 at 4pm ET live over Zoom. The Short and Sweet is a perk for our paid subscribers, so if you’d like to upgrade your subscription or know someone who would love a paid subscription to this newsletter for the holidays, you can find all that good info by clicking the button below. (Reminder that the Zoom link will be emailed to paid subscribers thirty minutes before the start of The Short and Sweet.)

One of the things I love most about my mom is the grounding effect she can have on those she’s worked with, and I’ve thought about how to turn what and who she is into a mantra we can carry through to next year—something we can return to over and over again whenever we need it. That’s when the poem below came to me.

It’s inspired by my mom and the earth and the need for grounding, connection, the reading of fields. It’s also about remembering that far down below us is the wild volatility of our earth, of its core, of all the explosive unpredictability that keeps this planet moving, and keeps us, somehow, existing, despite it all.

Wishing you all a revitalizing holiday season. Hope to see you this Saturday.

With love,
Amber

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Listen to the poem here:

THE CENTER OF YOU

In the very center, our every center,
a fire burns its molten-hearted oath.
Red glass surrounded by silver ash,
melted steel, alloy, earth’s dirty talk
calls out your name;
the nickel and sulfur whisper of iron,
shards of ancient shells, grains of bone.

Up, up through the soil, mingling worms
and unsown seeds
and tips of roots burrowed deep.

Up, up, farther up, where it all touches air,
where the dirt is lover to the grass,
and each blade of it
will soon meet a different blade
and be forced to say its goodbye.

And there on top of the center,
the fire, its burn,
On top of the steel and nickel,
the soil and oath,
the worms and seeds, the roots down deep,
there on top of the dirt are planted your feet,
your wheels, your walker, your cane;
Proof of the life in you,
the upright receipt of your living.

Up, up, today you are upright
on top of the earth, the wind sings
that is enough, that is enough.

Today you are enough.
You are going to make it
to tomorrow.

Today your body is a star in a galaxy
just discovered; Today you exist,
and because you exist,
someone will have been transformed.
Someone will have been loved.
Someone will have been saved.
Someone will have mattered.

Today, look at all that is below you,
beneath your feet,
and of you,
just waiting for you to be.