I feel as if there might be an ongoing unspoken shared inquiry between me and Pip Campbell, and if I could put my language to it, I’d say the inquiry is “can we be each other’s safety? and P.S. can that also bring joy and delight?” speaking about other humans generally, not just between the two of us. But also that. She is the friend I asked to come to my first journalling for self-care workshops at the library specifically to give me feedback, because she’s hosted drop-in actual and virtual sketching sessions, and she’s a brilliant poet, and she’s an incredibly thoughtful human, and I knew I could trust her feedback to be kind and honest and true. And because she’s suffered trauma recently in losing her sister, and I wanted to know if there were prompts or ways in which I held space that might cause undue harm or trigger people or drop them into spaces that might be scary and overwhelming.
I’m a lot more comfortable over-sharing with the world when I’m sitting at my desk, behind a large screen. I wasn’t in my comfort zone standing in front of a group of people teaching/facilitating. In that stretchy space, I asked for help, and it wasn’t really that brave, because my ask was targeted to someone who I know to be eminently trustworthy.
Now she is stretching here, with an offering that we both hope will offer space, love, healing, and not scariness or overwhelm. If the topic of suicide is particularly charged for you, please check in with yourself to know if you’re in a good place to sit with it. Maybe enlist a comfort item, tree, animal or human. Or maybe circle back. A list of resources are shared at the bottom of the post.
The recording below is simply Phillipa reading the poem, so you can listen to that in isolation for the rest of the post, if that feels more supportive to you.
KEEPING QUIET
by Pablo Neruda
Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.
For once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
Fisherman in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.
via https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/05/28/keeping-quiet-sylvia-boorstein-reads-pablo-neruda/
An offering, from Phillipa Cambell, for Jess.
I lost my sister Jess to suicide in September 2022. I still struggle to speak about the loss. Partly because the topic of suicide is distressing and activating to many. Partly because grief is a biological force, something which punches you in the gut, and takes your breath away.
I’m grateful for poetry, art, music. They can give voice to things we don’t have the words or strength to articulate.
I have learned that suicide is a particular type of loss. When a person chooses to end their life, a hole is created in the pattern of their community. Those left behind – family, friends, workmates – are left holding severed threads. A burden is transferred to the shoulders of the living.
To those grieving a loss, I see your pain. And the courage it takes to keep moving.
The causes and consequences of losing a person to suicide vary from community to community. Suicide is a key issue for the Indigenous Peoples in Canada. The people running bereavement groups in the Lower Mainland say the number of people needing loss support services is rising. So many broken hearts. So many questions. If we follow the threads, if we step back and look at the whole fabric, what do we see?
I thank those who have walked with me, who have helped me sit with the pain and discomfort and keep my heart open. I am learning the value of collective healing spaces, of stepping back from being at war with myself.
I offer this poem as an invitation to pause. Can we stop rushing about and ask each other – what would a world look like where there were no suicide deaths to grieve? How can we support healing, and wellness, both in and between communities?
Resources
First Nations Health Authority Mental Health and Wellness Supports: https://www.fnha.ca/what-we-do/mental-wellness-and-substance-use/mental-health-and-wellness-supports
First Nations Health Authority -Talking about Suicide
Suicide and Self Harm supports: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/mental-health-support-in-bc/suicide-and-self-harm
British Columbia Bereavement Helpline: https://bcbh.ca/
Crisis Center of BC : https://crisiscentre.bc.ca
The Wellness Almanac 