This is the third of a four-part series that explores overtly what trust tending means. The first and second can be found here and here.
As many of you know already, my family moved in early June to a rental home that came with five chickens. My husband had chickens as a child, so he immediately picked these ones up and held them with ease. The kids and I…well, it took us more time.
Chickens don’t stand still when you move toward them, so there’s an art to getting near enough to catch them. Eli (our 6-year-old) learned this art quickly, but when it came to the decisive SWOOP necessary to actually hold them in his arms, he’d balk. He’d get the chicken right at his feet and then freeze.
Charlotte (age 3) spent the first couple of weeks watching the rest of us play with the birds, petting them when they were in some else’s arms. But once her courage grew big enough, she took off. She was less about the art of anything and more about persistence combined with reaching, mid-sprint, for good, firm fist-holds of tail feathers.
The magic of it all has been ALL of us have learned to hold chickens. These birds are BIG, and their beaks and talons long. Honesty they STILL intimidate me. But by spending enough time in their presence…or watching other people doing so…and testing out our own methods of getting near and making contact, all of us can hold them in our arms.
I think fears are a lot like chickens. They’re often big – or appear to be with all those feathers – and their beaks and talons long. We know they’re in our yard (our bodies, hearts, minds…cities, nations, world) – we hear their sounds and scratchings and step often in their poo – but we haven’t learned to be with them comfortably. So we do our best to ignore them, or turn the volume up on everything else to drown them out: we drink wine and eat chocolate and schedule and surf ourselves silly. We stare at our smart phones and plan for trips and weekends and pour self help and creativity and positive thinking and entertainment and drugs en masse down our throats.
Because fear scares us. We want to keep it at bay.
My sense is that (unlike chickens) fear is the heart of every problem on our globe. And since big problems are echos of little problems and individual problems the pebbles whose ripples roll out into national and international and even galactic affairs, the ability to get comfortable enough with our own fear to look at it squarely and develop the art or persistence necessary to hold it in our arms until it’s size and beaks and talons terrify us no longer: this is the hope of our future. This is the skill that can take us to new and wonderful places – as a species, and, if that feels too grandiose a view, then as partners and co-workers and families and friends.
And absolutely not least, as individual people.
Tending trust is, in part, the practice of getting comfortable with fear. It’s the practice of looking at fear so intently that you learn to see beyond it, past its jagged teeth to a landscape of hope and possibility. Not a landscape painted over top of all our yuck, but a landscape that exists in all dimensions, right in the midst of that yuck. An environment within ourselves and in the world we inhabit that supports the changes we want and need to make, that offers the wisdom we need when we need it, that tends to our wounds and catches us when we’re in free fall.
Looking at fear, rather than running from it, is the doorway to this world. It’s the powerful threshold where hope and despair meet. It’s the possibility of living more and more of our lives in the Light.
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If you’d like to read more about this angle of tending trust, here are some related posts:
- One collective thing
- Ready in the wings
- Finding trust at earth’s bedside
- An interview with Christine Valters Paintner
And if you’re new here, my warmest love and welcome to you! If you haven’t noticed the free sketches in the side bar, they’re a wonderful introduction to what trust means here. I’ll be taking them down in September and folding them into another project, so if you’re interested in receiving them this way (30 days, by email), sign up by the end of this month.
Everything Belongs
Seasons are universal. Treat yours uniquely.
Kristin, this is SO beautiful!! And so accurate. You have captured fear exactly. And of course, I am also afraid of chickens so this is perfect. THANK YOU!!!!!!
Comment by Pamela — August 17, 2011 @ 7:19 pmLove this post and the photos of your children. The analogy between fear and chickens is a very good one. I will ponder that for a good long while. Not only do I need to deal with the list of the fears I need to dare to get closer to, pick up and discard more efficiently, but I must also face the fears I need to stop carting around with me every place I go and lay down once and for all.
And for anyone thinking of doing the 30 days of sketches, I will testify that they are GREAT!!! They are thought-provoking, hope-building, and smile-producing. Go for it! You will be glad you did.
Comment by GailNHB — August 17, 2011 @ 7:31 pmPamela, your fear of chickens makes me smile so big…and remember your post about raccoons. So glad the chicken analogy works for you so well!! :)
Gail, I love the pivot you make here – of coming to a point sometimes when we need to set DOWN the fears we’re carrying. In my own history I came to identify so closely with a particular set of fears that even when I knew they were all spent up, the thought of releasing them felt like releasing some huge part of my identity. Like I would be a blank slate, or somehow naked, without them. I remember realizing one day, though, that if those fears = my identity, that wasn’t a life I wanted to live. I started my first blog, in part, as a practice of putting words to what I *didn’t* fear and what I wanted to reach *toward*, since my muscles for talking about what I didn’t like and wanted to avoid were so strikingly huge.
Anyway, thanks for adding this piece to the conversation!
Comment by Kristin — August 17, 2011 @ 8:26 pmthank you for this…i needed it …right now.
Comment by stefanie renee — August 17, 2011 @ 9:08 pmx
So glad it resonated, Stefanie!
Comment by Kristin — August 17, 2011 @ 9:27 pmSuch a beautiful metaphor, and it totally makes sense to me. My chickens are still running away, and flapping their wings in my face as they go, scaring me. I’ll remember these beautiful photographs next time I feel their dust flying in my eyes, and try to reach forward rather than to shirk away. xo
Comment by Lindsey — August 18, 2011 @ 4:51 amAh, Lindsey. The image you describe here has me chuckling. Reaching into the dust just sounds so hard! Maybe before attempting holding them you could give them treats until they’re running up to you when you greet them…? Trying to imagine what the corolation would be between that and our dealings with fear… :)
Comment by Kristin — August 18, 2011 @ 6:32 amLoL. I remember when I was a kid and my grandma had chickens. They are really scary up close until you get to know them. That said, I still feel a little intimidated by them and each set is so unique. beautiful metaphor!
Comment by keishua — August 18, 2011 @ 8:17 amYes, I’m with you Keishua. Watching the rest of my family catch and hold them has made a huge difference for me, though. Feels less mysterious and un-doable. Big connections here for me with fear in general, too. The more any of us learns to get comfortable with fear, the more the rest of us get comfortable. It’s almost contagious that way, I think.
Comment by Kristin — August 18, 2011 @ 10:34 amThank you so much for keeping everything so real here. I love this site and am so glad you created it.
:)
Comment by McCaffery — August 19, 2011 @ 5:16 amAs I study the Psalms of the Hebrew Bible, I am in the midst of Psalm 40. The word for Fear is just two letters off of the word for Trust, and 40 offers wordplay around the curious relationship between the two. Fear can open trust. Disturbed trust can bring fear.
Chickens can flutter but can sometimes be calmed and even tamed.
I continue to appreciate your ideas loose in the world. Thanks, Kristin.
Comment by richard — August 19, 2011 @ 7:49 amThis makes me think of a quote I often recite to myself when I am feeling ungrounded . . .”Nothing in this life is to be feared, it is only to be understood,” (Marie Curie). The theory is beautiful, but it is challenging to put into practice. I will keep trying!
ox, K
Comment by KathyB — August 23, 2011 @ 1:20 pmMcCaffery, my deep pleasure!
Richard, I love that! – the close relationship between fear and trust. They really do feel part of the same spectrum to me and it’s neat to see that echoed elsewhere.
Kathy – oh, you’re so right. But believing that quote feels like a first step in the direction of trust. And I suppose the hardest thing of all is to believe that there’s nothing to fear, no matter whether we understand the “fearsome” thing or not. :)
Comment by Kristin — August 24, 2011 @ 10:30 am