From harrowing to spaciousness

I was reading again this morning about the spaciousness within and between our cells, and about how freeing it can be to allow ourselves to feel that.  "To experience your own spaciousness is to recognize the true nature of your soul, a felt sense that has nothing to do with personal history, ideas, behavior, or accomplishments...When you stop looking for something to fill the space, you can begin to see the space where you always are.  You can feel and embrace your own spacious nature." (from Byron Brown's Soul Without Shame)

It seemed to fit well with the sort of cellular look of this image I built yesterday -- the image had the feel of things opening up within, and of life flowing into and through the open spaces -- a bit like the crack from yesterday's post, the one that lets the light in.

But then I went back to Parker Palmer's Let Your Life Speak, and he shared this lovely poem he'd written as he was emerging from a deep depression.  And somehow, though it's a different image, it also seems to tie in:

Harrowing


The plow has savaged this sweet field
Misshapen clods of earth kicked up
Rocks and twisted roots exposed to view
Last year's growth demolished by the blade.
I have plowed my life this way
Turned over a whole history
Looking for the roots of what went wrong
Until my face is ravaged, furrowed, scarred.
Enough.  The job is done.
Whatever's been uprooted, let it be
Seedbed for the growing that's to come
I plowed to unearth last year's reasons --
The farmer plows to plant a greening season.

I think what lies at the root of my response to the poem, to the spaciousness, and to this image is a sense that spring, though winter hovers still, is finally on its way.  There was sun for a while this morning -- however briefly -- and the harrowing I've been doing internally seems to be settling down; I can begin to stand in my own internal field and feel the scent of the dogwoods and the cherry trees again.