How to Live with Desire
featuring Anna Valeska Pohl
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I woke up this morning to the sound of rain, and it felt like my desire.
I was equal parts happy and sad.
Sad at first–
Frustrated.
Am I not yet empty?
How do I still conjure so many feelings?
How can one body feel so much?
And then I woke from my half-sleep and remembered the drought.
I remembered the sad snow pack and the bare mountains–
And I gave gratitude for the rain.
I remembered that bodies are meant to feel.
That we are meant to yearn, and drip with desire.
That there is nothing sad about the wet, wet rain.
So I offered myself a re-frame: your tears, the water from your eyes,
They keep your body fertile.
Just like the water from the skies keeps the earth blossoming, growing anew.
But if our desire leads us to disappointment, what to we do?
We anger.
We shame.
We blame.
Ourselves most of all.
It's too hard.
I want to give up.
Why me?
Would you have the skies give up?
Dry up?
I am not here to encourage you to let your grief or anger overwhelm you.
Or to let your despair to take root.
I am here to remind you that desire is a path, and all paths lead to mirrors.
A friend asked me this morning, as I was lying in bed listening to the rain, Can we get all the love we need from ourselves and not rely on another person?
No, I responded.
We are communal creatures.
I am because you are.
But we can learn to live with less yearning.
We can let the rains pass through us to water new seeds–
And weeds.
To help them grow, and we decide which to keep and which to pull.
And we decide what serves and with whom we want to build.
And we trust.
We pray that the rain continues to come.
Not in torrents or floods.
Gently.
Softly.
Slowly.
So when the storms do come, we are no longer afraid of the rain.
Because we know that we are the climate.
We are the change.
The above is of the below–
And our only job is to learn to let life flow
Anna Valeska Pohl is a performance artist based in Berlin, Germany.
Listen to our conversation on spiritual practice, the gift of loneliness, and the process of creating intuitive and vulnerable artwork.
Dear readers, I’m available for hire as portrait photographer and photo essayist. Reach out ~ kellytatham [at] gmail [dot] com and view more of my media work on Instagram or my website.