News & Blog
FLOWER EXPLOSION! Dear Ones — Last week, I got to speak at the New York Botani…
FLOWER EXPLOSION!
Dear Ones —
Last week, I got to speak at the New York Botanical Garden, which was such a lovely event. Before I went on stage, they gave me a tour of the grounds — including a visit to this special exhibition they've got going on right now called "Groundbreakers", about early women landscapers and garden photographers.
They've recreated the Rockefeller summer garden estate, and if you have a chance, go see it! This is the cottage garden of my dreams. You all know I love ridiculous, indefensible amounts of beauty, and these foxgloves alone made me temporarily lose my mind…
Here's a link, if you want to check it out:
Onward,
LG
HOW TO BE ALONE… A friend of this page reminded me today of this video/poem,…
HOW TO BE ALONE…
A friend of this page reminded me today of this video/poem, which is so beautiful, so touching, so wise, and related to our discussion on this page yesterday. I love every single moment of this little film, and I hope you will, too.
And thank you everyone for your kindness and openness yesterday, sharing your thoughts and feelings about loneliness with each other.
I love you guys.
LG
A video by fiilmaker, Andrea Dorfman, and poet/singer/songwriter, Tanya Davis. Davis wrote the beautiful poem and performed in the video which Dorfman direct…
LONELINESS Dear Ones – A friend of this page asked me the other day how I have…
LONELINESS
Dear Ones –
A friend of this page asked me the other day how I have coped with extreme loneliness in my life.
I wonder if I might open up this question to the rest of you — to perhaps help others who are struggling with this great sorrow?
In my worst and loneliest times (post-divorce, mid-depression) the only thing I ever found that helped was magical thinking.
It might have been completely delusional, but there were times in my depths of loneliness when I was able to summon up the sense of an interior companion — a friend, a guide, a teacher — someone whom I could believe was with always with me, always inside me.
I used to write letters to myself from that invisible interior friend. I carried those letters, and that friend, with me everywhere. Every day, I wrote to myself from my friend. I wrote in the most loving, compassionate voice I could summon. I leaned into this idea until I came to deeply believe in it. The Sufi poets always wrote their poems to the figure they called "THE FRIEND" — something like God, something like the soul, something like the self, something like the ideal mother, like the partner you have always dreamed of meeting.
Children know the importance of this, which is why they invent imaginary friends. I've read that people on abandoned on lifeboats often report that, weeks into their lonely journey, they felt they were joined by another person. Polar explorers report this, too — a presence, a companion.
Maybe it's delusion, but maybe it isn't. Maybe there is a presence with you…
I'm not talking about madness, or the hearing of dangerous psychotic voices. I'm talking about cultivating a sense of love and tenderness toward the self, when nobody else is there to offer it.
I've attached here an excerpt from Eat, Pray, Love — from one of the letters I wrote to myself in my loneliest moments.
It helped. It always helped.
I hope this helps you…
And if anyone else has thoughts or strategies or kindness to offer here, please do!
All love,
LG
JUST TWO MORE WEEKS!!! The lovely paperback of SOAT is coming in only 14 days,…
JUST TWO MORE WEEKS!!!
The lovely paperback of SOAT is coming in only 14 days, dear ones!
And I'll be heading off on book tour!
Click here to see my travel schedule, and come see me!
LOVE LOVE LOVE
LG