Soul Care Rhythms: Winter
by Laura E. Peluso and Judy Ko
Editor’s Note: In earlier issues, Contemplative Practices Editor Judy Ko, along with her friend Laura Peluso, have been sharing their creative contemplative project with Vita Poetica readers. In a year-long exploration, they take on new practices as a way of discovering what their souls need to thrive at this moment in their lives. They embark on this individually, checking in with each other along the way, and also share pieces of their journey with us in the journal, in hopes that something here might inspire others. You can read their reflections from previous seasons here: A Year of Exploration and Fall.
Laura
Taking time to reflect is an important aspect of self care.
After a tumultuous season of caring for my mom before she died, I have allowed myself to observe the world in a new way. The home and daily rituals we shared for over a year feel incomplete, and I am struggling to define and understand new emotional challenges.
I feel the loss of her daily, hourly, and sometimes by the minute.
As I grieve, I remain thankful for beautiful sunsets and blooming orchids – just two of the small blessings that are plentiful in Florida and now feel bittersweet. The person I would run and tell is no longer there to enjoy them with me. I cannot send her a photo or a description, and she cannot provide her unique and often insightful perspective. I feel the loss of her daily, hourly, and sometimes by the minute.
As I sort through her belongings, I am contemplating my mom’s role in my life and my new role in a life without her. In my grief, my understanding of soul care has begun to shift. Over the next few months, as I continue conversations with Judy, I am eager to become more fully aware of my evolving priorities that frame my goals and dreams, and to share these changes in hopes that others may find them helpful.
Judy
Listen. This word is charged with complexity. 聽話 is literally translated as “listen talk” in Mandarin, a phrase mainly used with children to mean “be obedient.” I received a lot of listen-talking to while growing up, which is a whole other topic, and this likely resulted in a dreadful inability to use my voice and speak for myself. As I grew older, I garnered the reputation of being quiet and was occasionally labeled a “good listener.” Before building stronger boundaries and, really, a stronger sense of self, I often found myself becoming the involuntary recipient of someone else’s trauma dump. I likely vomited up my own trauma onto others as well. I cringe, but try to view myself with compassion.
Not what should I do? But what do I desire to do? What am I called to do? Am I listening to that call?
I want to cultivate a different relationship with listening. As I continue to examine what a contemplative practice might look like for me, it’s involved wrestling with “shoulds.” This season, with age and some measure of learned wisdom, I have softened into a rhythm that’s less ambitious and perfectionistic, and instead am finding a slower cadence, or perhaps something more congruent with my inner being.
Being. Instead of Doing. Which is where my thinking started when Laura and I first talked about self-care and this year-long reflection. I was concerned with the practices I might try stepping into. And these practices and rituals are good things! They can be helpful infrastructures upon which to hang our best contemplative intentions. Being, however, is a state that I’m starting to discover and to process as a way of holding myself in a contemplative posture. A process of soul caring, of tending to the soul. Not what should I do? But what do I desire to do? What am I called to do? Am I listening to that call? Is the thing I am doing and, more importantly, the way I am being, congruent with my faith and values, the needs of my body, mind, soul, and the call I am responding to?
Instead of listening to everyone else, I am getting more comfortable with drawing inward and listening to the quiet places inside myself. I am also holding my ear close to the ground to listen to the rumblings of the earth. Is this one way of listening to God?
This winter, I have listened to my inner bear and embraced wintering, pulling away from social media even more, swaddling myself in warm layers, and resting in postures of repose whenever I can. I am trying to listen to my body, which is refusing to look at my to-do lists; to listen to my mind, which is following curiosities down surprising rabbit holes; and listening to my heart that beckons me to daydream. Somehow, the things that need doing are eventually getting done.
Somehow, the things that need doing are eventually getting done.
My husband has been telling me multiple times now that I’m not always the best listener to him. I don’t know how many tries it’s taken him, but my ears finally perked up, and I am hearing the gentle and loving way he is bringing this matter up to me. I continue to be humbled by my attention and awareness—fickle things.
Contemplating the various meanings of listening is allowing me to receive a particular kind of beauty in this particular kind of season. I wonder where your path of listening may take you.
Laura E. Peluso, a New England native and former New York City resident, pursues peace and comfort in mountains and oceans as enthusiastically as she searches for inspiration in the vitality of urban places. As she navigates each year’s unexpected challenges, she continues to seek – with great imperfection – a life filled with purpose and joy.
Contemplative Practices Editor Judy Ko is interested in the intersections of faith, creativity, beauty, truth, trauma, and soul care. She received a design education from Carnegie Mellon and worked as a visual designer in Manhattan before deciding to pursue the field of therapy. She moved to the Pacific Northwest to earn a counseling psychology degree at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology. Judy is currently a Licensed Mental Health Associate working as a play therapist in the Seattle area.
