Writer, Anne Lamott, rejoins Raghu with her unparalleled honesty and humor, to shine twilight’s mystical light through the dark of night, exploring the illuminating dawn of hope, faith, forgiveness, repentance, revival, and courage.
Dusk Night Dawn
Prompted by Raghu’s reflection on it’s mood-enhancing, laughter-inducing, day-changing properties, Anne speaks to the themes encased within her new book, Dusk Night Dawn: On Revival and Courage. Exploring the strange bardo of the past four years through the lens of the tricky mystical light of twilight—dusk and dawn’s meshing fusion of light and darkness—Anne expresses how we can courageously open to difficult transitions as catalysts of revival.
“Twilight refers to both dusk—before the light disappears in the the night—and dawn—when the light returns. That trippy mystical light, whether it’s evening or dawn, is twilight. It felt like these last four years were the nighttime of the soul. Now, the dawn has broken again. The dawn always breaks, the sun always comes up again.” – Anne Lamott
For more Anne Lamott sharing rawly on prayer, love, grief, spirituality, and self-improvement, tune into Ep. 02 of Healing at the Edge
Cultivating Dopey Hope (5:11)
Playing off of Roshi Joan Halifax‘s idea of wise hope—which sparked last summer’s Cultivating Wise Hope Digital Retreat, which Anne and Raghu were integral parts of—Raghu invites Anne to share the brilliant honesty and endearing vulnerability encased within her concept of dopey hope. Anne explains the realness of dopey hope might outwardly look like sitting on the couch with the kitty, but internally is steeped in trust; in the goodness of our own heart; that the night turns to day; and in connection and service.
“Look how many times before it’s been nighttime for both the planet and at the dinner table. What worked then was kindness and taking it one day at a time. Ram Dass was saying, you get out of yourself and you become a person for others. Usually, if I don’t have a clue of what to do, I take care of the poor.” – Anne Lamott
Cultivate wise hope amidst pandemic and protest, with Anne, Raghu, & friends, in our Cultivating Wise Hope Digital Retreat, from our Digital Library
Revival & Courage (24:04)
Pulling excerpts from Anne’s new book which explore our relationship with revival and courage, Raghu asks her to dive a little deeper on subjects, like; mindfully dealing with the neurotic nuances of newlywed life; cleaning the yucky varnish off of our souls by using ‘soul-windex’; cultivating trust; opening to mercy; and recovering our faith.
“The soul is eternal and within, and can’t in anyway be damaged or destroyed; but it does seem like a windshield. It gets smudged by the constant data stream and our crazy thoughts. How do we clean them? We clean them with truth, humor, stories, poetry, getting back outside into nature, and letting ourselves be available to be cleaned.” – Anne Lamott
Join Anne, Raghu, Ram Dass, and friends, in our Wisdom of Emptiness Retreat, one of Ram Dass’ final in-person retreats, from our Digital Library
Repentability: A New Pair of Glasses (51:01)
To close, Raghu asks Anne to share on the topic of repenting, the notion that we can always start afresh. Anne takes the opportunity to elucidate how we can actually excel through tragedies, harkening the wisdom that heaven is actually a new pair of glasses.
“We are as vulnerable as kittens, but we have each other, and that’s usually enough for me most days.” – Anne Lamott
