I don't see how anyone could get closer to sharing an unspeakable truth than this Latham. So much, so rightly and artfully unsaid here my friend. I am very glad you are continuing to write for us.
Latham, I kid you not, I spent my lunch break TODAY snooping on your profile to make sure you posted a Note recently to reassure myself that you were indeed still around this earth plane. I ALMOST DM'd you (since that's a thing now) but told myself, no no, don't be a weirdo, it's only been a month, he's undoubtedly just busy......... Then POOF, you are there in my inbox! I'm SO excited to hear more about your retreat and the worldview you can't exactly describe, but you should try. "Until tomorrow, when I forget anew what I am." Exactly. But take your time. Pop in when you can. Write beautiful things like this. And maybe I'll DM next time my soul starts to itch!
Katie, you can DM me any time you feel called (or even just text/WhatsApp me). I am indeed still on this earthly plane, but rarely online right now. I'm steeped in books, spiritual wonderings, and 3rd grade teaching, at least the version I'm instituting.
I hope to be able to share more soon. It was profound and hard and beautiful and painful all at once. And I'm trying to figure out what I feel I have to say while I'm in the middle of it, or maybe just what is worth saying period.
Aww! Thanks for the invitation! But yeah, you definitely sound buried! The time away will be a great chance to let the ideas pile up and perhaps even sort themselves. No pressure to write! And I’ll simply be patient 😂 Meanwhile I do hope you have fun teaching your son, as challenging as I’m sure it is! Just another pivotal chapter in the book of Latham!
I've yet to use it, but I also have been spending maybe 45 minutes a week online. If anyone wants to DM me, please go ahead, but don't be upset if it takes me a week to realize what happened and respond.
Latham - so wonderful to hear from you. First, let me say your son hit the lottery with you as a dad. I've missed you - and it's wonderful to hear your priorities are in the right place.
You asked: "What have you known but been unable to explain to anyone? And what are the examples that move your understanding of life?"
My answer - That God dwells in all of us, as us. And, in all things, like a rose, or a honey bee - uniquely as the rose, and the honey bee. And, since God dwells in everything, we are all connected. One. Contrary to what society tells us at every turn, there is no "them."
I don't expect others to understand. Thank you for asking.
Most importantly, thank you for writing such a beautiful poem.
Thank you James. I appreciate the sentiment; I don't know if C would agree. I have my horrible moments, when I see glaringly how much I still have to deal with so that he and his sister don't have to deal with it later. But I am trying, and homeschooling is just one part of that. That being said, I've missed you too, and it's good to be back.
Your answer is beautiful, and feels perfect. It's like a lost knowledge which I don't think most of us knew how to recognize was missing, but if you stop and look and think about it, you just know. We could never be separate, could never be "us" and "them." If only we could learn to look again, could realize we don't actually know more than our ancestors in the past who knew God and the Godhead and Brahma and the Tao was everything there was to existence.
Thank you for sharing that knowledge with us. It's a lesson I keep feeling intuitively, and trying to absorb as "mind" tries to argue.
Latham, the presence of being connected to our ancestors and to many dieties expanded my purview. 🙏
And the mind’s resistance, oh boy. Isn’t that the battle of our lives.
Last, my most recent piece on Forgiveness, if you haven’t read it speaks to the presence of the universal connection between us. This won’t make sense if you haven’t read it, but I was introduced to Linda after writing it (by a reader) and she described what you wrote about separateness - and that she and her husband Peter got “curious” about the human dignity and their connection to those that took the life of their daughter. It takes this conversation between us to a different level.
I appreciate the deeply thoughtful response.
PS: the humility and awareness in your comment about the father you are is exhibit A in why they hit the lottery. 😊
I hadn't read your piece, but I just did and I'm struck profoundly by the sense of humility. Even a week ago, I don't know that I could have fathomed that since of humility, that sense of presence, that sense of curiosity and connectedness and self-confidence and openness that Linda and Peter must have had. But something shifted in me profoundly last week, something divine and sacred which I had never had access to but suddenly just knew.
The irony of that knowing is that I feel like I have less to say, and more to simply be in awe of. But I also know I love writing and I will keep on doing it. It's my sacred art, and even though I had words for that before, I now have a scent of it that words can never illuminate.
Your comments here (and on your last piece) make me realize we likely have much more to talk about, when the time is right. And when it is, I look forward to that conversation.
Latham - I would love that and will reach out sometime through DM. That feeling you had, that connection to something divine and sacred - for me is indeed that feeling of awe that words somehow are too small for.
I’m a part of development community with a dozen others who have, for twenty years, gotten together for three - four days in retreat where we pick distinctions like compassion, patience, forgiveness, kindness, etc and spend a day plumbing the depths of each one through readings, teachings, discussion etc. The group, our discussions, meditations are perhaps the biggest contribution to living the other 362 days a year.
One of our participants, and a dear friend decided it was time to leave the community a few years ago. We honored his decision. It was right for him.
He told me on a run some months later that he discovered that he was living in a realm beyond what language could describe. And the words and our discussions felt too small for where he was dwelling and connecting with in the universe.
What you wrote reminded me of what he told me. I was following some of your posts and notes a while back about “niching”. I wondered at the time if someone like you would be served by narrowing. Your ethos seems very vast Latham. That’s how you land on me.
I have no idea if any of this resonates. It’s a bit of a long missive for the comment section. But I just sort of went with it. Thank you for reading this far. I look forward to connecting.
Your friend sounds like he has found something so deep and beautiful. I think I glimpsed what he is experiencing. I appreciate the reflection on ethos.
Enjoyed this Latham. It’s nice to see you back with a new post. Despite loving reading, I was never a big fan of poetry. Then, kind of out of nowhere, once I entered my thirties, I started seeking it out and very much enjoying what the form could do that non-fiction (my favorite) and literature could not. And, as you allude to here at the end, I think it very much has to do with being able to get at what we know, but often feel unable to explain. Thanks for sharing, and I look forward to more.
Thank you Jacob. I too never was a fan of poetry. It never felt like it explained enough. Actually, it was The Master and his Emissary that gave me the language to understand what poetry did that I was missing from my life. And then somehow I've ended up writing a few poems, even though I know nothing about how I "should" write poetry.
Thank you Zina. I truly appreciate that. I missed this space, missed publishing and writing. I'm still finding my groove with a new 4 hour/day commitment to teaching (plus the hours of planning and all the breaks in between). But I'm not giving up on this writing life.
Same here! I'm still in India. I'll DM you and we can set something up for when I get back in April. Meantime, you are exactly where you are supposed to be.
It’s a great poem and has real resonance after seeing the first spring sunrise for days from the New England coast. Your return to Substack is also inspiring. I guess that a broken chain can always be mended.
Thank you Drake. I can only imagine how beautiful that sunrise was. I love seeing it over the mountain here in MT. But I miss seeing it over the water, seeing the light spread over the sea and raise consciousness.
It's good to be back. I don't think there's ever a completely broken chain. Simply the decision, ever day, of where to invest my attention.
What have I known but been unable to explain? Firstly Latham thank you for asking this question. After reading it, my mind entered a kind of quiet and ready-to-realize state, as if I just read a koan. What if I tried saying it now, could I explain it? The invitation felt like a beautiful gift for the creative imagination.
Here’s my try — the world we see around us is not the whole picture. We do not die. Everything is alive. We, everything that changes, are all interconnected with a permanent fundamental unchanging oneness.
Jordan, I read what you've explained, and I suspect we may be on similar paths. I'm not sure the world around is us even the real picture. It's a thought and an experience, rather than a thing. And if that thought and experience simply rises and falls as all thoughts and experience seem to, how could the world be said to be permanent and we the ones who die?
Thank you for sharing. I am humbled to read what you wrote.
Yes also I think we are, Latham. It’s so encouraging to read from someone who sees and acknowledges this mystery. Thank you again. It feels so powerful to see this subtle truth expressed by another.
I don't see how anyone could get closer to sharing an unspeakable truth than this Latham. So much, so rightly and artfully unsaid here my friend. I am very glad you are continuing to write for us.
Thank you Rick. I suspect I'm going to keep trying for a long time to share that truth, or at least to point to it in the only way I know how.
Your children will absorb it and pass it on.
Latham, I kid you not, I spent my lunch break TODAY snooping on your profile to make sure you posted a Note recently to reassure myself that you were indeed still around this earth plane. I ALMOST DM'd you (since that's a thing now) but told myself, no no, don't be a weirdo, it's only been a month, he's undoubtedly just busy......... Then POOF, you are there in my inbox! I'm SO excited to hear more about your retreat and the worldview you can't exactly describe, but you should try. "Until tomorrow, when I forget anew what I am." Exactly. But take your time. Pop in when you can. Write beautiful things like this. And maybe I'll DM next time my soul starts to itch!
Katie, you can DM me any time you feel called (or even just text/WhatsApp me). I am indeed still on this earthly plane, but rarely online right now. I'm steeped in books, spiritual wonderings, and 3rd grade teaching, at least the version I'm instituting.
I hope to be able to share more soon. It was profound and hard and beautiful and painful all at once. And I'm trying to figure out what I feel I have to say while I'm in the middle of it, or maybe just what is worth saying period.
Aww! Thanks for the invitation! But yeah, you definitely sound buried! The time away will be a great chance to let the ideas pile up and perhaps even sort themselves. No pressure to write! And I’ll simply be patient 😂 Meanwhile I do hope you have fun teaching your son, as challenging as I’m sure it is! Just another pivotal chapter in the book of Latham!
There are no coincidences!
I too have used the DM option. I don’t want to be the first, in case it turns out to be uncool. Great comment.
I've yet to use it, but I also have been spending maybe 45 minutes a week online. If anyone wants to DM me, please go ahead, but don't be upset if it takes me a week to realize what happened and respond.
Ditto!
I used it once so far… very handy for an “off-board” chat!
Latham - so wonderful to hear from you. First, let me say your son hit the lottery with you as a dad. I've missed you - and it's wonderful to hear your priorities are in the right place.
You asked: "What have you known but been unable to explain to anyone? And what are the examples that move your understanding of life?"
My answer - That God dwells in all of us, as us. And, in all things, like a rose, or a honey bee - uniquely as the rose, and the honey bee. And, since God dwells in everything, we are all connected. One. Contrary to what society tells us at every turn, there is no "them."
I don't expect others to understand. Thank you for asking.
Most importantly, thank you for writing such a beautiful poem.
Thank you James. I appreciate the sentiment; I don't know if C would agree. I have my horrible moments, when I see glaringly how much I still have to deal with so that he and his sister don't have to deal with it later. But I am trying, and homeschooling is just one part of that. That being said, I've missed you too, and it's good to be back.
Your answer is beautiful, and feels perfect. It's like a lost knowledge which I don't think most of us knew how to recognize was missing, but if you stop and look and think about it, you just know. We could never be separate, could never be "us" and "them." If only we could learn to look again, could realize we don't actually know more than our ancestors in the past who knew God and the Godhead and Brahma and the Tao was everything there was to existence.
Thank you for sharing that knowledge with us. It's a lesson I keep feeling intuitively, and trying to absorb as "mind" tries to argue.
Latham, the presence of being connected to our ancestors and to many dieties expanded my purview. 🙏
And the mind’s resistance, oh boy. Isn’t that the battle of our lives.
Last, my most recent piece on Forgiveness, if you haven’t read it speaks to the presence of the universal connection between us. This won’t make sense if you haven’t read it, but I was introduced to Linda after writing it (by a reader) and she described what you wrote about separateness - and that she and her husband Peter got “curious” about the human dignity and their connection to those that took the life of their daughter. It takes this conversation between us to a different level.
I appreciate the deeply thoughtful response.
PS: the humility and awareness in your comment about the father you are is exhibit A in why they hit the lottery. 😊
I hadn't read your piece, but I just did and I'm struck profoundly by the sense of humility. Even a week ago, I don't know that I could have fathomed that since of humility, that sense of presence, that sense of curiosity and connectedness and self-confidence and openness that Linda and Peter must have had. But something shifted in me profoundly last week, something divine and sacred which I had never had access to but suddenly just knew.
The irony of that knowing is that I feel like I have less to say, and more to simply be in awe of. But I also know I love writing and I will keep on doing it. It's my sacred art, and even though I had words for that before, I now have a scent of it that words can never illuminate.
Your comments here (and on your last piece) make me realize we likely have much more to talk about, when the time is right. And when it is, I look forward to that conversation.
Latham - I would love that and will reach out sometime through DM. That feeling you had, that connection to something divine and sacred - for me is indeed that feeling of awe that words somehow are too small for.
I’m a part of development community with a dozen others who have, for twenty years, gotten together for three - four days in retreat where we pick distinctions like compassion, patience, forgiveness, kindness, etc and spend a day plumbing the depths of each one through readings, teachings, discussion etc. The group, our discussions, meditations are perhaps the biggest contribution to living the other 362 days a year.
One of our participants, and a dear friend decided it was time to leave the community a few years ago. We honored his decision. It was right for him.
He told me on a run some months later that he discovered that he was living in a realm beyond what language could describe. And the words and our discussions felt too small for where he was dwelling and connecting with in the universe.
What you wrote reminded me of what he told me. I was following some of your posts and notes a while back about “niching”. I wondered at the time if someone like you would be served by narrowing. Your ethos seems very vast Latham. That’s how you land on me.
I have no idea if any of this resonates. It’s a bit of a long missive for the comment section. But I just sort of went with it. Thank you for reading this far. I look forward to connecting.
James - all of this resonates: so much.
Your friend sounds like he has found something so deep and beautiful. I think I glimpsed what he is experiencing. I appreciate the reflection on ethos.
I look forward to connecting when we do.
Enjoyed this Latham. It’s nice to see you back with a new post. Despite loving reading, I was never a big fan of poetry. Then, kind of out of nowhere, once I entered my thirties, I started seeking it out and very much enjoying what the form could do that non-fiction (my favorite) and literature could not. And, as you allude to here at the end, I think it very much has to do with being able to get at what we know, but often feel unable to explain. Thanks for sharing, and I look forward to more.
Thank you Jacob. I too never was a fan of poetry. It never felt like it explained enough. Actually, it was The Master and his Emissary that gave me the language to understand what poetry did that I was missing from my life. And then somehow I've ended up writing a few poems, even though I know nothing about how I "should" write poetry.
I'm grateful you enjoyed it.
Extremely well put. You described my being unable to explain, about unable to explain, perfectly !! ;)
Hey, for what it’s worth, I noticed you were gone. Glad to read your post.
Thank you Zina. I truly appreciate that. I missed this space, missed publishing and writing. I'm still finding my groove with a new 4 hour/day commitment to teaching (plus the hours of planning and all the breaks in between). But I'm not giving up on this writing life.
There are no coincidences, especially in the spiritual realm. ;)
Wonderful work, Latham, and by the sounds of it, you’re only getting warmed up. Thanks for sharing.👏✍️
Thanks Kevin. I'm grateful you enjoyed it.
Was missing you. Glad to see "you are exactly where you are meant to be". And also doing "something for you".
Karena! So good to see you back here. Where are you in the world right now? I miss our conversations.
Same here! I'm still in India. I'll DM you and we can set something up for when I get back in April. Meantime, you are exactly where you are supposed to be.
I look forward to it.
It’s a great poem and has real resonance after seeing the first spring sunrise for days from the New England coast. Your return to Substack is also inspiring. I guess that a broken chain can always be mended.
Thank you Drake. I can only imagine how beautiful that sunrise was. I love seeing it over the mountain here in MT. But I miss seeing it over the water, seeing the light spread over the sea and raise consciousness.
It's good to be back. I don't think there's ever a completely broken chain. Simply the decision, ever day, of where to invest my attention.
What have I known but been unable to explain? Firstly Latham thank you for asking this question. After reading it, my mind entered a kind of quiet and ready-to-realize state, as if I just read a koan. What if I tried saying it now, could I explain it? The invitation felt like a beautiful gift for the creative imagination.
Here’s my try — the world we see around us is not the whole picture. We do not die. Everything is alive. We, everything that changes, are all interconnected with a permanent fundamental unchanging oneness.
Jordan, I read what you've explained, and I suspect we may be on similar paths. I'm not sure the world around is us even the real picture. It's a thought and an experience, rather than a thing. And if that thought and experience simply rises and falls as all thoughts and experience seem to, how could the world be said to be permanent and we the ones who die?
Thank you for sharing. I am humbled to read what you wrote.
Yes also I think we are, Latham. It’s so encouraging to read from someone who sees and acknowledges this mystery. Thank you again. It feels so powerful to see this subtle truth expressed by another.
Beautiful reflection. Great to see you back, my friend.
Thank you Alex. It's good to be back.