Photo by Elizabeth Halt
Photo by Elizabeth Halt

fair-wounding

July 7, 2022

elizabethhalt.com | fair-wounding

One of my journal topics this morning was the idea of unfairness.

I am healing very old wounds and sometimes – usually in moments when I feel exhausted or helpless or hopeless – life seems so incredibly unfair.

Why am I responsible for healing wounds that were caused by others?!

Two thoughts made me feel lighter, and I thought I would share them.

First, it’s not just me.

We are all wounding and being wounded. Usually inadvertently – because a thing I do believe is that we are all doing the very best we can in every moment.

I believe that if we were able to, we would do better.

I believe this because I can follow the threads in my own life to see why I did not do better. There is always a reason. It appears to be the work of a lifetime to do better, and also to forgive myself for all the moments in which I didn’t do better.

Second, life isn’t fair.

Life isn’t fair, because fairness is a human concept.

People can be fair; life just is.

I am continually surprised by the opportunities life offers me for growth + change.

I may not be responsible for what happens to me along the way, but I am choosing to be responsible for how I receive it.

Even if I have (many) moments in which I forget this.

Filed under
musings

the smell of green

June 1, 2022

elizabethhalt.com | the smell of green

green smells like a bed of pine needles,
like a freshly mowed lawn,
like tiny birch leaves.

green smells like an unfurling fern –
stretching
reaching
opening to the light.

Filed under
word play

when the daisies laughed

April 21, 2022

elizabethhalt.com | when the daisies laughed

The back yard of my grandparents’ house was full of tiny flowers. I think they were a type of daisy.

I loved them.
I’ve always loved them.
(I remember being a child in their back yard; I loved them then too.)

When the grass hadn’t been mowed in a while, the daisies were everywhere.

elizabethhalt.com | when the daisies laughed

I took care of my grandparents’ yard toward the end.

This was somewhat problematic because I did not like to mow my beloved flowers!

(As an aside, I discovered that my desire to do a good job was at odds with my desire to keep flowers alive. Have you ever tried to rake around a crocus? Spoiler alert: It’s impossible.)

I spent a good chunk of my mowing time apologizing. “Sorry little flowers! Sorry! So sorry.”

One day, I paused & spoke to the daisies directly.

“I’m so sorry that I have to mow you down,” I told them.

In reply, the yard filled with tiny peals of laughter. I felt the daisies throw their flowery hands up in the air in the most insouciant way imaginable.

They said, “It’s all good.”
They said, “Mow.”
They said, “We are here now & someday we will go & someday we will return. For us, the moment is all that matters.

elizabethhalt.com | when the daisies laughed

snow sparkle

March 11, 2022

elizabethhalt.com | snow sparkle

The sun is shining.
Surrounded by snow sparkle,
I feel cold and warm.

Filed under
word play

when you are lonely or in darkness

November 19, 2019

elizabethhalt.com | when you are lonely or in darkness

There is a thing I have tried to write about for years. I’ve started & stopped more times than you can possibly imagine.

The very short version is this: There was a time in my life when I wasn’t going to be here anymore.

(By here, I mean in this body, in this world, in this life. The only reason I am still here is because of my Atlas pup. When I say that he saved me, I mean it almost literally.)

Yesterday, I realized that I couldn’t write about it because I was making it too complicated.

I didn’t want to make anyone sad or cause them to worry.

I didn’t think all pain needed to be shared & I wondered if this particular pain did.

I thought I had to share more than I wanted to or needed to or possibly even could.

I thought there was no point in writing about it without including how I got from there to here. (Even if I thought it would add value, I can’t, because I don’t know how I got from there to here at all.)

When we are in darkness, there are so many thoughts that feel true.

I am alone.
I’m a burden.
I’m not needed.
I’m weak.
I should be ashamed.
No one will care.
No one has been here.
No one will understand.

These thoughts feel true, and yet I suspect we’ve all been through darkness.

I suspect we’ve all been through darkness.
Or are in darkness.
Or will be in darkness.

Darkness comes in so many forms & fashions.

How can we feel so alone, when there are so many people there with us?

It turns out that what I wanted to do was so much simpler than I imagined.

I just wanted to share a tiny piece of my story as my way of saying that I am there too.

Because maybe, just maybe, sharing that we’ve walked through darkness, or are walking through darkness – however or whenever or to whomever we share it – can be a tiny pinprick of light in someone else’s darkness.

Postscript: If you ever need someone to talk to, I am here.

Your darkness doesn’t scare me.

I can be with you in your darkness, because I have learned to be with me in mine.

Filed under
musings

at the edge of light

May 28, 2019

elizabethhalt.com | at the edge of light

elizabethhalt.com | at the edge of light

elizabethhalt.com | at the edge of light

elizabethhalt.com | at the edge of light

elizabethhalt.com | at the edge of light

I’m doing a thing! (The thing being a spring nature walk in Calumet.)

Do come join me!

on shame

May 16, 2019

elizabethhalt.com | on shame

One of the stories in my head is this: If I tell you that I want to spend time with you, you won’t want to spend time with me, even if you actually wanted to up until that moment.

I say it anyway. Because it is honest + true + real and I strive to be all of those things. But what I don’t say is that it takes all of my courage to do so, and I feel both scared and sick as I say it.

Sometimes, the response I get validates (or seems to validate) my story. I know the other person doesn’t know my story. I know my story may or may not be true. And yet it is still so incredibly hard to stay open + curious + vulnerable, to not withdraw, to not react from a place of fear – fear that is solely based on a story.

I was processing one of my stories in my journal and I thought: I would be so embarrassed if anyone read this.

My next thought: But why? Why would I be embarrassed?

I think everyone must tell themselves stories like this.

I am just naming them.

I think about shame a lot.

I used to think that shame was the least useful of our emotions.

The only value I saw in shame was that sometimes it tells us when we have behaved in a way that does not align with our values.

But only sometimes!

Most often, it seems to me, we feel ashamed of ourselves for things that do not warrant it.

We keep these things to ourself, sure that people won’t like us or love us or hire us or be friends with us .. if we are ever foolish enough to reveal them.

I saw no value in that kind of shame.

But after a conversation with a friend yesterday, I have revised my opinion.

I think maybe that kind of shame has the potential to connect us to other people, to our compassion, to our humanness.

When I feel embarrassed or ashamed of myself for something, it feels important to share it. That doesn’t mean I can share it, or do share it, or even want to share it. But there is always a part of me that thinks I need to, that thinks I need to say the thing out loud to someone.

There is something about the shame that pushes me toward truth, toward connection.

Because what I often find to be true is this: We need to know we’re not alone, and we might never know we’re not alone, unless one of us has the courage to be vulnerable first.

Shame thrives in secrecy, in isolation, in darkness.

I don’t want to spend my life there.

I want to live in the light.

Filed under
musings

coming home to myself

May 13, 2019

elizabethhalt.com | coming home to myself

I have felt very out-of-sorts lately. The reasons are not important. Suffice it to say: Even when you can recognize that the thoughts in your head are stories you are telling yourself that may or may not be true, that recognition doesn’t always make the thoughts smaller or more manageable. They can still shake your confidence, your worth, your behavior, your openness.

But I caught a cold over the weekend and felt so miserable by Sunday night that I decided to jump in the lake. I thought the shock would jolt me back to health.

As I sank beneath the icy water, it felt like I was being baptized anew. And, as I sat on a piece of driftwood in the warm golden light, I realized that the broken records in my head had finally stopped.

I felt like me again.

Going to the lake always feels like coming home.

Going under always feels like a benediction.

Filed under
musings

five senses

December 10, 2018

elizabethhalt.com | five senses

i see tarnish & tarragon;
wolves & war;
distance & dissonance;
smoke & scorn.

i hear cradles & crescent moons;
ombre & ore;
sunlight & steamboats;
youth & yore.

i smell eggshells & evening;
lovers & lore;
wings & weather;
neither & nor.

i taste roses & rainbows;
worry & warm;
languid & licorice;
theory & thor.

i touch midnight & memory;
stardust & shore;
anise & anger;
forever & for.

Filed under
word play

the rest of the story

May 6, 2018

elizabethhalt.com | the rest of the story

years ago, on a favorite wet muddy spring hike in oregon, i looked into a puddle and saw a story.

right below us was an upside-down version of our world. a small boy was climbing a tree in that world – tree top to tree trunk. when i saw him, he was almost to the roots, at which point he would be able to peer into our world.

when i saw this scene, it made me wish i knew the rest of the story.

i probably never will.

like poems, my tiny stories arrive in the form of what feel like actual downloads into my brain; if i don’t write them down immediately, i lose them.

(i’ve tried to write them myself, but the difference in quality between what i’ve written and what i’ve been given is unmistakable.)

but maybe what i received that day was enough.

maybe the gift lies not in knowing how (or where) the story will go.

maybe the gift lies in a moment of possibility & of wonder.