the compassion anthology
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  • Archives
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    • Poetry, 2019 >
      • Robbie Gamble
      • Robert Okaji
      • Nicholas Samaras
      • Gabriella Brand
      • Sarah Wernsing
      • Jen Karetnick
      • Cindy Veach
      • Seres Jaime Magana
    • Fiction, 2019 >
      • Ruth Mukwana
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      • Olivia Kate Cerrone
      • Rebecca Keller
    • Essays, 2019 >
      • Review of the movie GIFT
      • Jalina Mhyana
      • Stephen Dau
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      • Olive Paige
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      • Krisztina Asztalos
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      • Laura Gurton
    • Winter 2018 Art >
      • Dawid Planeta
      • Liliana Washburn
      • Ellen Halloran
    • Winter 2018 Fiction >
      • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
      • Herman Melville
    • Winter 2018 Essays >
      • Nikki Hodgson
      • Ciara Hall
      • Sara Roizen
      • Review of Claudine Nash's The Wild Essential
    • Winter 2018 Poetry >
      • Parker Anthony
      • Crystal Condakes Karlberg
      • Julia Lisella
      • Cynthia Atkins
      • Claudine Nash
    • Essays Summer 2017 >
      • Interview with Gail Entrekin
      • Patricia Reis
      • John Nelson
      • Mary Baures
      • Monette Bebow-Reinhard
      • M.J. Iuppa
    • Fiction Summer 2017 >
      • Jean Ryan
      • Daniel Hudon
      • Ray Keifetz
      • Anne Elliott
      • C.S. Malerich
      • Sascha Morrell
    • Art Summer 2017 >
      • Sara Roizen
      • Jill Slaymaker
      • John Mark Jennings
      • Janel Houton
      • Brandon Gorski
      • Tara White
      • Nancy Dudley
      • Elisabetta Lucchi
    • Poetry Summer 2017 >
      • Megan Merchant
      • Joey Gould
      • Claudine Nash
      • M.R. Smith
      • Kim Aubrey
      • Vivian Wagner
    • Winter 2017 Poetry >
      • Dan King
      • Kathleen Byron
      • Sam Bresnahan
      • Olivia McCormack
      • Danny Romanovitz
      • Kyle Quinn
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      • Elliott Grinnell
      • Olivia McCormack
      • Brendan Brown
      • Lauren Waisnor
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      • Kathleen Byron
      • Eddie Marshall
      • Sofia Colvin
      • Ishita Pandey
      • Mohsin Tunio
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      • Jyotsna Sreenivasan
    • Summer 2016 Art The Women Artists and Writers Exhibit
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      • Jennifer Markell
      • Tara Masih
      • Holly Guran
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      • Amy Jo Trier-Walker
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      • Olivia Kate Cerrone
      • Katelyn Gilbert
      • Kim-Marie Walker
      • Bahareh Amidi
    • Winter 2016 Fiction >
      • Blue Vinyl, Green Vinyl
      • The Cresting Water
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      • San Giovanni D'Asso Landscape Paintings
      • It's All About the River
      • Jellyfish Sculptural Drawings
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      • Poems from Songs in the Storm
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      • The Gleaners
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      • Named
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      • The Cloak
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      • Burn Myself Completely for Him and Souls
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      • Stepping Forward
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      • Poem With a Question From Neruda and INDICTMENT
      • The Humans
      • Afghan Boy and other poems
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      • Transference and other poems
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      • The Ineffable Aspects of Forgiveness
      • He Was Better Than I’ll Ever Be
      • A Voice in the Desert
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      • White Heron
      • Freeing a Little of the Madness
    • Winter 2015 Art >
      • Cascade of Care and Life
      • Sentience
      • A Paternal Instant
      • Aurora, Paloma, and the Melangolo Tree
      • Seated Pose
      • Antigone's Map
      • Ladder
    • Winter 2015 Poetry >
      • Dissolution of the Soviet Union
      • Nicknames
      • Stopped at a Light,
      • Why mate for life? Red crown crane
      • The Prisoner
      • Stigmata
      • "Oh don't," she said. "It's cold."
      • Convene
    • Winter 2015 Essays >
      • The Forgiveness Project
      • A Stranger on a Subway
      • A Journey to Compassion
      • The Question of Compassion
      • Reflections on a Childhood Deforested
      • Click, Click, Click
 Simply Sacred 
by Serenity Schoonover
 
 
Sacred space typically refers to a religious location or monument, but I also like to think of it as rituals one turns to for mindfulness. For me, this is a loosely defined space, a jaunt between my journal and the outdoor world. Writing and physical movement outdoors help me preserve my wellbeing.
 
The rhythm of my pen scratches across a blank page. Footfalls imprint down a dirt two-track. I have found that I need a yin-yang approach to wellness, one seated and still, the other kinetic and mobile. My introspective side needs to have outlets for blind exertion. Something sifts up through the mental chaff. A turning point is recognized. A resistance is resolved. Sometimes, there is the simplicity of silence.
           
Denial is a useful tool in life; it is purposeful. Sometimes truth is too painful to consider. The poet Sarah Hall Maney writes, “We do not want to admit chaos and the terror of the unfamiliar.”[1]  Denial can provide stability, but it is only a temporary fix. If relied on too long, denial inhibits growth that otherwise may yield unimagined beauty. Stream of consciousness writing, combined with the rush of running through a hushed wood, helps me face the “unflinching mirror.” [2] I start to come to terms with reality. I consider a new perspective. It is a process of normalization, an empowering antidote against doubt and despair. I start to trust my own mind.  
           
It is essential that we each have a place where we can express ourselves, laugh, cry, breathe, grow. Some people have this kind of experience with friends or colleagues, in a church or bowling league.  I find it in the pages of my journal. Showing up in the writing is my ritual practice in slowing up. On the quiet of the page, I find the mindfulness to take note of what Francine Prose calls “our historical moment.”[3]
           
My historical moments are the sweet and soulful slices of life, like braiding the challah, or following my daughters beneath the canopied corridor of a nearby wood. Creating noodly crochet patterns like three generations before me have made. Stirring a batch of kombucha, the long metal spoon gently clanking against the sides of the glass jar. Simple and sacred.
           
The outdoor world provides needed reminders about simplistic beauty. I find it in the organic asymmetry of a cedar tree, and in the fierce dignity of a crumbling, abandoned homestead. I hear the wind off Lake Superior as it rushes through the treetops, the most soothing symphony ever heard. Barefoot along the shoreline, my husband and children methodically scour the beach for agates. Foraging for dandelion greens I relish the delightfully earthy smell coming from supposed undesirables. In these moments, I reconnect to the sacred. In these moments I am able to remember that there is enough oxygen for my lungs. Complexity melts away.
             
Wild spaces help my mind shift into a restful blankness, a time of respite and release, a reclamation. Writer Annie Dillard made this illuminating statement: “I come to Hollis Pond not so much to learn how to live as, frankly, to forget about it.”[4] I love that sentiment beyond words, carving out a few of my own after a trail run in the pouring rain.
 
Awake,
Alive,
Nothing to bring,
Except the breath from my lungs
… an offering.

 
 
[1] Kay Vander Vort, et. al., Walking in Two Worlds: Women's Spiritual Paths (St. Cloud, MN: North Star Press of St. Cloud, 1992), 96.

[2] John A. Murray, The Sierra Club Nature Writing Handbook: A Creative Guide (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1995), 3.

[3] Francine Prose, Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006), 207.

[4]Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), 15.



Serenity Schoonover lives in Duluth, MN and is a staff writer for Split Rock Review. She has an M.A. in History and has received fellowships with the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council and the National Writing Project. Her essays have aired on National Public Radio and appeared in numerous journals and magazines. “Simply Sacred” first appeared in Bella Grace Magazine.

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