Take the Backwards Step

Setting Down Unnecessary Burdens and Coming Alive to Your Purpose

I’ve been reflecting on a Zen aphorism in recent days: Take the backwards step. As I understand it, the phrase suggests we pull back

• from doing to being

• from producing to observing

• from reacting to reflecting

• from a stance of surging forward to one of receptivity.

I suppose this piece of advice could serve as a kind of Get Out of Jail for Free card for those who are reluctant to engage on one level or another. But to me, the aphorism has come to mean: make the unexpected move.

Last year, I decided to take a step backward from public arts workshops at my brick and mortar expressive arts studio The Meadow. In the two years since I opened the space, I had fallen into a groove of production that began to feel automated and drained of life force. The pacing and framing of my offerings fell out of synch with my own rhythms and energies. Caught up in constant promotion and production mode, I lost track of myself and the healing intent behind the work. In short, I exhausted myself trying to create a healing space using toxic models of production.

I realize I’m extremely lucky and privileged to even be able to step back and take the time to recognize where I abandoned my mission and myself. This invaluable time has afforded me the opportunity to focus on my own creative process, develop as an artist in my own right, and reflect on my purpose and intentions of my work in the world. I now realize that I was moving too fast and taking too much onto my own shoulders in the development phase of the space. The backwards step has been a gift, a kind of self-reclamation that’s allowed me to connect with myself and others in a deeper and more authentic way.

What are some ways you can make good use of the backwards step in your own life? I say this not to encourage disengagement, but to encourage greater awareness and connection to what’s actually essential.

Since my step backwards, The Meadow has continued to be a sanctuary of sorts, but at a pace and shape that feels sustainable and organic. In recent months, I’ve hosted a few casual poetry and collage salons, open studios, and seasonal circles where people can share and listen from the heart. All of these events, were low-key in terms of promotion, planning and cost.

Most recently, The Meadow hosted an Earth Day of Concern that held space for folks to both lay down unnecessary or outsized burdens and redefine their intentions and purpose when it came to the state of poly-crisis and collapse we are collectively experiencing. In our highly individualized culture, the burdens have become too heavy for any one person to carry. Yet, we all have some version of main character syndrome. In the back of your mind, you might recognize this weird pressure to either escape or singlehandedly Save the World.

Images from Earth Day at the Meadow which involved a sharing circle and group expressive arts activity.

Without a true sense of beloved community, it often feels as if it’s all on us -that somehow we, ourselves alone, must figure out how to resolve these big, BIG, systemic problems. To relieve this unfair sense of pressure, it can be helpful to look at how ancient cultures used ritual practice, mutual aid, and collective tending to help distribute and carry the weight of distress over a broader network of care. Ancient and Indigenous cultures remind us that it has never been and never can be all on us. We are part of a living, breathing collective and not the main character in a movie. We can claim nothing for ourselves, alone. Not even our burdens. No barbed wire, or border wall, or bulldozer will overcome this timeless truth.

The Meadow’s Earth Day gathering was modeled after a Lakota ritual technology that distributes individual burdens collectively through a supportive circle— the shape itself is a weight-bearing and power-sharing geometry. The circle allows everyone an opportunity to be seen and heard and have their strengths and potential mirrored back through the collective. It was such a sweet and meaningful evening. I’m so grateful for the lovely people who attended and continue to shape the sanctuary of The Meadow through their presence and engagement.

The notion of sanctuary can be seen through the metaphor of the backwards step, the unexpected move. We have entered a time where more sanctuaries are desperately needed in our communities. What shape will they take? Who will they serve? What burdens will they help carry? What fruits and gifts will they bear?

I invite you to ponder these questions with me.

In kinship,

Julie