I’m pleased to welcome Heidi Barr to SunnyRoomStudio. Heidi published a new poetry collection just yesterday. Cold Spring Hallelujah explores the experience of being human in a world that often seems broken, and luckily, I had an early chance to read and enjoy this contemplative book.
“We all know that feeling of a cold spring; usually, we want it to be otherwise. But in these poems of triumph and authentic awareness, Heidi Barr gifts us with lines that sparkle, that remind us to stay open and welcoming when resistance and torment are uppermost in our thoughts. Be enamored with your existence, she writes. A powerful message that nourishes the soul, and just like the warmth of hot tea when chilled to the bone, Barr’s collection has a magnetic quality you’ll want to experience time and time again. A book for lingering.” –D.A. Hickman, author of A Happy Truth: Last Dogs Aren’t Always Last and Ancients of the Earth: Poems of Time
Here’s Heidi to tell you how and why her poetry came to life …
I stumbled into the practice of writing poems the year I emerged from a persistent illness. I was sick with a cold for about eight months; it developed into bronchitis and wouldn’t quit. Vaporizing eucalyptus, drinking gallons of tea, resting, and all the usual home “self-care” remedies simply failed me. Antibiotics, also ineffective. My family got tired of the incessant coughing; it’s hard to relax when your loved one is up half the night. I landed in the emergency room on Thanksgiving Day that year after waking up disoriented and with a solid case of vertigo and nausea. Turns out I was dehydrated, and after IV fluids, a clear chest X-ray and a negative strep test, they sent me on my way, feeling less dizzy, but still coughing.
Weeks after the Thanksgiving ER fiasco, I was still coughing, so I went back to the doctor–received a round of Prednisone and took home an emergency inhaler. Later, I saw a specialist, learning that I didn’t have asthma, but “looked really healthy” (what not to say to a sick person, especially if you’re a physician).
As spring arrived my lingering cough invited a bout with the flu and a double ear infection. In the midst of this, I was trying really hard to claim what was going on with me and figure out what I needed to do to own the illness and learn from it.
That April I started writing a poem a day. Nothing lengthy, just thoughts about what I was noticing outside in combination with my internal battle to heal. As an essayist, I didn’t have the energy to write at length, so poetry’s desired brevity seemed like something to try on.
Here’s one of the poems that came from my new-found practice:
Suffering
Maybe it’s futile
to look for meaning
when what I need
is strength instead.
After months of no answers from all the doctors I saw and beating myself up for failing to heal through positive thinking and “raising my personal vibration,” something shifted. I stopped trying to find deep meaning in the experience of being sick. I stopped putting so much pressure on myself to improve, and I started paying attention to what I needed in the moment—a walk outside, a cup of tea, a hard conversation, or letting someone else carry part of a burden.
I started to look at the concept of strength through a different lens. If I learned anything during that time, it was that we don’t actually learn from active suffering. As L.M. Browning notes in To Lose the Madness, “If human beings inherently learned through suffering, we would be a population of enlightened beings and we’re not. We learn from suffering if and only if we manage to transcend our suffering to find meaning in what is otherwise senseless. This process of transcendence is a profoundly human one that imparts the deepest—most lasting—sense of achievement.”
Years after the illness—mostly resolved now—I have no answers or solutions for others who are suffering (I’m definitely not an enlightened being), but I have somehow transcended the experience with enough time, self-compassion, and patience. That’s how things go, as much as we want it to be otherwise. We want a quick fix, the kind of ‘self-care’ that is Instagram worthy, a pill that will make things better. I wanted all of those things, and likely will again in the future. Now though, instead of trying to find deep meaning in the midst of challenge, I focus on doing one thing at a time. I try to offer myself grace.
When combined, the many little things, plus gentleness toward self, invite my body and mind to a place of wholeness, even if this doesn’t include full health or deep insight. I’ve continued to write poems, to notice the details, and to process how those details interact with my internal dialogue. This is, and always will be, a practice of patience. ~
Cold Spring Hallelujah, poetry that resulted from Barr’s new-found practice, is available anywhere books are sold or via Homebound Publications.
Co-founder of 12 Tiny Things, Heidi Barr is committed to cultivating ways of being that are life-giving and sustainable for people, communities and the planet. She works as a wellness coach, holds a Master’s degree in Faith and Health Ministries, and occasionally partners with organic farms and yoga teachers to offer retreat experiences. At home in Minnesota, she lives with her husband and daughter where they tend a sizable vegetable garden, explore nature, and do their best to live simply. Visit Barr at heidibarr.com.
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