Ah Dear Poet. The thread. The connection. The confluence. Two rivers meeting. Will one pull the other or we both merge into one new river? The thread. It must be so difficult as a therapist to sit back and create the environment for a client who has to descend their own way. At their own speed. At their own motivation. To build that safety container of trust is definitely a process. I’m sure that weaving is really slow at times. Much quicker sometimes. Beautiful imagery with this one Deborah. A line between two people. Between two minds. Two hearts. One spirit. Love. Thank you so much for all that weaving you do to help people find that red line. Bless you. 🙏❤️💫
Dear Poet, I love how your beautiful words flow like those two rivers you describe ... meeting, touching, then finding their own way again. That’s so often how the work feels to me: a confluence, but not a merging. A shared current, but each of us still responsible for our own depth.
In the Orpheus myth, he carries only his song ... his consciousness, that small bag of light ... into the dark. In therapy, we carry the thread between us. The client descends in her own way, at her own pace and my task is to walk beside her without leading, to witness and steady without taking over the journey. It’s such an asymmetrical dance: her courage, my restraint; her descent, my orientation; one thread held between two hands.
And yes, the weaving can be incredibly slow at times, almost invisible, those Penelope moments ... and then suddenly everything turns bright and luminous. Sometimes I swear a client leaves the session with their child-self in their arms.
You’ll know that rhythm in your own work too ... how the body has its own underworld, its own shadows, its own returns to light. There's such music in drawing those mind-body-spirit threads together.
Thank you so much Jamie for seeing the line between two souls, two minds, two hearts. That’s the red thread for me ... not something I give, but something we hold. Bless you for naming it so beautifully. Love and gentle hope that our child-selves are found. 🙏❤️🧵
Yes, to the holding and to the myths that hold us too! And I’m delighted to share that another myth is already calling. I love how they tap us on the shoulder when we least expect it. Looks like June is going to become positively mythic! 🙏💖🫂
Wow, prayer shawls ... oh my goodness and Goddess, Muriel, that's utterly beautiful! What a beautiful, blessed image you've painted in words. Tears fall, let them. Thank you so much. 💖🙏🧵
When my older son became Bar Mitzvah, we commissioned the weaving of a prayer shawl (tallit) in honor of the occasion. At the studio of the weaver, as a family, we learned how to tie the fringes (tzit tzit) on each of the four corners--we all had a chance to tie one. The fringe is the last part to be added. In traditional Judaism, it is a reminder to follow all 613 of God's commandments.
I'm not sure how meaningful that was to my then-13-year-old and 613 is a pretty daunting number. But I certainly treasure the ceremony of that sacred weaving!
Oh wow, what a family weaving that must've been, Robin ... with four of you tying those fringes together, each knot a blessing in its own right. Even if your son didn’t fully grasp the occasion at thirteen, this sacred ritual itself sounds like something that'll keep rippling through him through the years. Thank you so much for sharing this luminous thread ... I can feel the holiness of that prayer shawl, I really do. 💖🧵🙏
Oh wow, I love that you’ve caught this thread, Robin. (Pun intended!) I’ve just reread both poems, verse and prose, and they’re so beautiful! You really do ‘get’ this thread symbolism and how ‘listening with hands’ runs through your ancestors. I’m already looking forward to reading more about your son’s prayer shawl ceremony when you feel called to poetry’s pen. 💖🙏🧵✨
You are accompanying your client, holding the thread steady, ensuring she doesn't stray from the path, leading her towards her inner child... and then
"She follows without disappearing,
weaving her mythline into the light."
You are a wonderful therapist and a great storyteller. Such great work can only be offered by someone who has descended into the shadows herself, woven her own mythline into the light.
Oh Veronika, thank you so much! "Myth-line" is this poet's newest made-up word, and I'm already rather fond of it. And yes, you've caught the heart of it. In therapy, the thread really is everything. Indeed, the therapist has to stay aware of her own shadow, her own child‑self, her own underworld ... but not descend into it. She has to keep just enough light around her to guide, without taking over the journey or dimming her client’s courage. It’s such delicate, sacred work at times.
It’s been my ab-soul-ute privilege and honour to walk this path for almost thirty years now. Trying to describe the role always feels a little impossible ... it lives somewhere between myth, soul, joy and sorrow and that quiet daily work of sitting with another soul, often a kindred one.
Thank you for seeing it so clearly and for meeting my little poem with such depth, kindness and compassion. A deep bow right back to you. ♥️🙏✨
I know, you mentioned mythline before, a beautiful word and very fitting. A great neologism too, since it is instantly clear where it belongs and how it wants to make its contribution to our vocabulary, which is precisely what any 'good' new word should do. (this is the linguist and neologist in me speaking)
I can also very much relate to the therapist's journey you are describing, since I have some experience in this field too, therefore I know how hard it is. Although I have done this work of accompanying clients into the underworld (or dark side of the inner world, as I call it) this is not my main mission in this life. I have great respect for anyone who does this work well ~ delicate, sacred work, as you say ~ difficult to grasp but so important to do!
Veronika, you know I'm pretty sure I made it up when replying to your first or second "Loveship" essay. It just spontaneously arrived on the page (so to speak) in that moment. I think the best words do. It's so lovely to know you enjoy it too.
Being a therapist has been the wildest, most beautiful ride, I've loved it with my whole heart and but I'm also sooo ready to retire this December and give myself to my first and deepest love, writing. A similar thread to yours, I intuit? 🙏💖🧵
yes, I can see that. We are spinning our parallel threads. How delightful. and I agree, the best words come to us spontaneously, indicating their readiness to be planted and nurtured in the Wild Word Woods
Aww, thanks so much, Paul. I’ve just read Stafford's "The Way It Is" ... such a gorgeous poem! For me, his thread is all about staying oriented in your own life, while mine is about a shared thread ... the therapist holding steady so the client can go safely into her underworld without pulling me into mine. I love, love, love the synchronicities though!
And I suppose that’s the shared thread we find on Substack too ... those small connections we follow between us, each of us holding a strand that helps the others find their way.
This one went right into the still and quiet places of me.
The way you hold the red thread -- not as metaphor, but as a living tether between worlds -- feels like watching someone descend with both courage and reverence. Your walk through the underworld, where you bring together the fabrics of hurt and of healing and they share a seam, mirrors so much of what we've both known: that the child-self waits in half-light, and that the work is not to drag her upward, but to meet her where she stands.
The steadiness in your voice -- the way you keep the thread taut without pulling -- is its own kind of devotion. It's the opposite of Orpheus' fear. It's trust. It's presence. It's the kind of myth-line only someone who has walked the dark faithfully can weave back into the light. I felt your tenderness in every line. I felt your descent. And your return.
Thank you for writing from the place where the veil thins and the real work begins. Sending love, XO Bright Eyes
I love what you've named here! How true healing asks us to meet the child-self where she stands ... which is so often "below", in that half-light. Indeed, she doesn't need to be pulled upwards before she's ready ... in other words yanked. No, she needs to be witnessed first, acknowledged and then slowly invited toward more light (consciousness).
The way you speak about this tells me what an incredible teacher you are and how fortunate so many child-selves are to spend time with you, walking, sitting, studying beside someone who understands the rhythms, cycles and seasons of the underworld ... moving through with such gentleness and clarity. Thank you so much for everything you do.
Yes, it's the opposite! It's trust. It's presence. It would be so easy for a therapist to get lost in the dim underworld (unconscious) where their own ghosts and child-selves call out but it not their journey. So I have to remind myself, again and again, don't turn back toward my own shadows. For if I turn, I would lose the thread, my client and myself.
These years have been the richest of my life. To walk the descent with others, to keep the thread taut without pulling, to trust the return ... is shaping me in ways I’m still discovering.
My work takes a compassionate, steady, patient heart and copious amounts of love to do my work. These are not skills that are lost on me in teaching children.
I am certain that these years have been treasure for you -- no doubt you have stored away much of it in your heart, to keep safe, for others who are not yet able to do that on their own. You are a blessing. I feel that deeply. Thank you for walking alongside so many someone elses, and for tethering yourself to each of them with a thin red thread -- the color of life -- while leading the way for them with your own lantern to guide the way back home, safely, for both of you.
You are Light! XO Love to you, Sister. Bright Eyes
Whatever light you see in me is the same light you carry so generously into the world and I’m so grateful our paths walk alongside each other in this work.
Sending much love, light and laughter ... always laughter ... across the oceans between us with a full and steady heart.
Greetings Lady Deborah, it’s past the midnight hour in my little cottage, The Thread Between Us, is a deep departure that is necessary for growth and grounding. I am reminded of an initiation, I faced many moons ago on my way to now. May you and yours be happy and healthy 💝Lady G
Greetings to you too, dear Lady Geraldine. In the blink of time your words have arrived here in the early morning light, and I thank you for them. It means so much to know that my little poem stirred an echo of an initiation you once walked through ... those thresholds shape us in ways we often only understand many, many years later.
I love how you name "the thread between us" as a necessary departure. Growth so often asks us to descend before we rise, doesn't it ... to ground before we move. The Old Stories know this well. May your path continue to unfold with steadiness and grace. And may you and yours be held in health and happiness too.
As I've mentioned before, you have a gift. Your ability to empathize is beautiful. Oh sure, most of us can empathize to one degree or another, but you take it to an entirely different level,. Your clients were/are truly blessed to have you as their therapist.
I love the imagery of a thread being held between you and your client. It makes me think about how we all have the ability to hold one too. To be that thread. A thread seems fragile, tiny, and easily broken, but it can also be strong and capable of building yet more strength. Unbreakable, even.
You needing to remind yourself to not look back gives even more meaning to your poem somehow. It exemplifies your care, compassion, and focus toward the person on the other end of the thread. Remarkable.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful poem and for being one who puts good out into the world. I loved hearing you read your poem, too. With love and appreciation, my poet friend.
Oh Nancy, my dear friend ... thank you so much! I’m deeply humbled that my little poem and the symbolism of "the thread between us" speaks to you in all these beautiful ways. For me that connection between two (or more) souls helps me stay steady, present and do my best to meet another with loving devotion ... so hearing that my words resonate means so much.
I love what you wrote about the thread, too. You’re right ... it may appear fragile, but it holds great strength, doesn't it ... especially when its held with intention. That you felt all this in my poem is such a gift to me. Thank you again for reading, listening and offering your kindness and compassion. It’s very much appreciated. I'm deeply humbled. Love and hope. 🙏💖🧵
Aww, thank you so much, Sarah. I feel so lucky to have crossed paths with so many inspiring teachers … and to have been met, again and again, by those sacred encounters with soul. 🙏💖🧵✨
Thank you so much, Robin, for your beautiful reply. Being a therapist has been the wildest and most extraordinary thirty years of my life, and I wouldn’t trade those years for anything ... but I’m also deeply looking forward to shifting from "role to soul" and from what I call the "spoken word" to the "written word" later this year. 🙏💖🧵
Hi Deborah, l love how the thread is a gentle offering, a collaboration, a reciprocity about it that perhaps may not always be apparent to the ‘client’ … “Don’t look back”, l whisper to myself, this journey belongs to her alone”. With both.
Thank you for taking us on your journey, “where hurt and healing share a seam.” Another timely poem, having been with my sister yesterday, and this morning sharing a Celtic cross tarot reading with her about her ‘mother’ childhood wound and the healing being undertaken. Thank you. Much love, have a great day 🙏💖😊
Sometimes the most beautiful moments I've ever shared with another soul are the ones where hardly any words are spoken ... when we simply pause beside a (symbolic) gravestone, book, photograph, river, mother ... and beneath the surface I can feel a quiet collaboration already beginning, even if the person beside me can’t sense it yet. In those moments, my whispered "don’t look back, this journey belongs to her alone" becomes the sacred discipline of being a guide: walking with someone without ever taking the path from them.
I’m really touched that my poem meets you at such a meaningful moment, especially after being with your sister and moving through those tender mother‑wound layers together. Those are delicate places, and it sounds like you held them with such presence and care for her. Yes, indeed, this kind of soul-work can happen between lovers, sisters, friends ... any two (or more!) hearts willing to sit in truth together. Much love to you, Simone. May your evening unfold gently, with a little starlight at every turn. 🙏💖🧵✨
Deborah, what a gift your guidance would be, your writing and presence here, your grace and acceptance is healing, and l am sure that your legacy will live on in the hearts of those you have served. I will remain forever grateful for what working with refugee students taught me about humanity, and having worked so closely in those communities truly taught me in ways of being. I imagine that has also been a gift for you, guiding others can teach us so much about ourselves … different roles obviously, but l trust you get my thread. You have such a generous and gracious heart, seat of our soul 🙏😊🌀💖.
Dear Simone, thank you so much for such generous and grace‑filled words! I’m deeply, deeply touched. I truly believe that walking beside other souls shapes us, softens us, teaches us how to be more human. Oh yes, I feel that thread you’re naming and I honour it. Your own work with refugee students carries a depth and courage that leaves its sacred mark on the soul. I can hear how it's shaped you in the most beautiful of ways. With love and gratitude from my heart to yours. 💖🌀💖🧵
Yes, what you mentioned about sitting in the silences with people, being able to hold that space is crucial … that is deep listening. Those exchanges shape the spoken words, when they come. Can’t say what l offered was always healing, though l always gave the best of whatever stage-version of myself was present, in and outside the classroom. And we worked closely with psychologists and other therapists from a wonderful organisation servicing refugee survivors of trauma and torture. They ran programs for us working closely with adolescents in schools, it was a collaboration and fuelled my research interests. So, as you no doubt know, your legacy will spread to those other professionals you have helped along the way. 😊🙏💖
This is such a rich conversation for me, Simone, because it takes me right back to my training days, when I'd finish a session and say, "I'm not sure anything I said helped at all." My very first client was a young mum in a women's refuge with her week old baby who cried all the way through our session. I remember feeling completely out of my depth. After that session my supervisor took me to one side and for the next twenty minutes gently taught me for the art of presence and how just sitting with someone, without fixing or rescuing, makes all the difference. I've never forgotten that wisdom, or the lived experience of Caroline, my first therapist when I was around thirty.
Your work in the refugee field carries that same depth. It touches lives and lineages in ways you may never fully see ... and as we both know, the work continues long after we physically leave. We rarely know how or whether we’ve helped, but I’ve come to trust this: love is stronger than death ... and that’s what we offer, because we can. Because there’s no other work we could imagine doing. Even after retirement loving words be still be front and centre stage, as I shift from the "spoken" to the "written" ones. Like Veronika, I sense we're on parallel "loving word" paths. Love and light. 🙏💖🧵✨
Well, thank you for having it Deborah 🙏💖. My work with refugees was central to my purpose for the majority of my career, your poem took me to that legacy, is in their hearts for their legacy is in mine. I don’t often visit those memories these days, it has been a decade since l was ensconced in the specialised area of that work (for nearly 3 decades), and leaving Melbourne was the beginning of this chapter, the rest you know. I understand now that move was part of our souls readying our human selves for it.
Now is time for me to see what shape l can make of the last 2 years of posts, to write this post death memoir/love story that will be the legacy of John and l, to offer hope to others that the communication of love can survive death, so as you say, love shifts … and to find the words, in and around the silences.
Yes, the parallel paths are for purposes that will keep unfolding. So very grateful for this community and connections.
So, thank you Deborah for every soul that has found some healing and peace through the love that you have offered them, professionally and personally, including me. Have a magic day. Love and light, always. 🙏💖
So beautiful Deborah. What a gift you offer others in their times of need.
"she follows without disappearing,
weaving her myth-line into the light."
That balance of telling our stories without "disappearing", of being held in a safe container, bringing it all to the light. And remembering our own light through that process.
A good therapist, like yourself, is a life saviour. Thank you for all you do. 🙏❤️💫
What a beautiful reply, thanks so much, Jo. That weaving of story into light without losing ourselves is the heart of the work and it’s always a shared creation. I’m deeply honoured to hold space while another soul remembers their own strength, their own myth-line, their own light.
And if anything in what I do feels life‑saving, it’s only because that kindred spirit sitting with me is already choosing life, truth and courage. I simply walk alongside them for a while.
Deborah, I too have been working with the red thread, as I try to weave my ancestor memoir out of darkness and into the light. Such a beautiful description of your work and the tension between you and your clients:
"Don’t look back,' I whisper to myself,
this journey belongs to her alone"
And that image which frames it all, Weaving the mystery...isn't it always so?
Oh Robin, yes ... ab-soul-utely always so! Thank you so much for your kind and generous words. Yes, those words you quoted were like the moment the myth started to retell itself as I walked beside my client so that we could rise together. Earlier, when I asked my muse what the thread between us might be called, he whispered one simple word: Home. 🙏💖🧵✨
Yes, the magic thread. It's a powerful image for deep-diving therapy. Thank you, Deborah. After working with my powerful Jungian therapist for 20 years, it was time for a break. We did lots of deep diving and I needed to learn to go on my own. She made the child in me safe, but now I can do that for myself (although I sometimes have to circle back). Thank you for all the ways you've helped others and helped me--and how I do love this myth and your poetry! They hold so much meaning for me. With love from across the turbulent sea.
Dear Elaine, thank you so much for your beautiful reflections. Yes, the magic thread (I love that word!) is such a powerful image for some deep‑diving therapy, and it sounds as though you and your beloved Jungian therapist wove something extraordinary together over those twenty years. How moving to hear that the child in you feels safe now ... that you can hold her yourself, even if you sometimes circle back. That’s the real work, the quiet miracle.
And there's stirring here too. I've so enjoyed writing these last two poems that this afternoon I decided I'm going to retell another yet myth and this time it'll be "Psyche and Eros". I'm not entirely sure why its calling me but something in the story has always tugged at me. Hmm, I'll sit with it later and journal and see what threads appear. I may even wander over to your website and take a little look to see if you've written about them as well. I bet you have!
Sending much love and light across the oceans and oak tops between us. 🙏💖🧵
Ah Dear Poet. The thread. The connection. The confluence. Two rivers meeting. Will one pull the other or we both merge into one new river? The thread. It must be so difficult as a therapist to sit back and create the environment for a client who has to descend their own way. At their own speed. At their own motivation. To build that safety container of trust is definitely a process. I’m sure that weaving is really slow at times. Much quicker sometimes. Beautiful imagery with this one Deborah. A line between two people. Between two minds. Two hearts. One spirit. Love. Thank you so much for all that weaving you do to help people find that red line. Bless you. 🙏❤️💫
Dear Poet, I love how your beautiful words flow like those two rivers you describe ... meeting, touching, then finding their own way again. That’s so often how the work feels to me: a confluence, but not a merging. A shared current, but each of us still responsible for our own depth.
In the Orpheus myth, he carries only his song ... his consciousness, that small bag of light ... into the dark. In therapy, we carry the thread between us. The client descends in her own way, at her own pace and my task is to walk beside her without leading, to witness and steady without taking over the journey. It’s such an asymmetrical dance: her courage, my restraint; her descent, my orientation; one thread held between two hands.
And yes, the weaving can be incredibly slow at times, almost invisible, those Penelope moments ... and then suddenly everything turns bright and luminous. Sometimes I swear a client leaves the session with their child-self in their arms.
You’ll know that rhythm in your own work too ... how the body has its own underworld, its own shadows, its own returns to light. There's such music in drawing those mind-body-spirit threads together.
Thank you so much Jamie for seeing the line between two souls, two minds, two hearts. That’s the red thread for me ... not something I give, but something we hold. Bless you for naming it so beautifully. Love and gentle hope that our child-selves are found. 🙏❤️🧵
Beautiful response. It reads like a poem. Here’s to holding. 🙏❤️💫
Yes, to the holding and to the myths that hold us too! And I’m delighted to share that another myth is already calling. I love how they tap us on the shoulder when we least expect it. Looks like June is going to become positively mythic! 🙏💖🫂
So beautiful, so true. And we who hold the other end of the thread, weave prayer shawls.
Wow, prayer shawls ... oh my goodness and Goddess, Muriel, that's utterly beautiful! What a beautiful, blessed image you've painted in words. Tears fall, let them. Thank you so much. 💖🙏🧵
When my older son became Bar Mitzvah, we commissioned the weaving of a prayer shawl (tallit) in honor of the occasion. At the studio of the weaver, as a family, we learned how to tie the fringes (tzit tzit) on each of the four corners--we all had a chance to tie one. The fringe is the last part to be added. In traditional Judaism, it is a reminder to follow all 613 of God's commandments.
I'm not sure how meaningful that was to my then-13-year-old and 613 is a pretty daunting number. But I certainly treasure the ceremony of that sacred weaving!
Oh wow, what a family weaving that must've been, Robin ... with four of you tying those fringes together, each knot a blessing in its own right. Even if your son didn’t fully grasp the occasion at thirteen, this sacred ritual itself sounds like something that'll keep rippling through him through the years. Thank you so much for sharing this luminous thread ... I can feel the holiness of that prayer shawl, I really do. 💖🧵🙏
Luminous, indeed. At least to my husband and I, at the time.
Thank you for sparking this memory--perhaps it is time to attempt a poem about that ritual--to tie in to my poem about my great-grandmother's weaving of my grandfather's tallit bag https://remembertheworld.substack.com/p/hand-me-down-the-tree-of-life-or
Oh wow, I love that you’ve caught this thread, Robin. (Pun intended!) I’ve just reread both poems, verse and prose, and they’re so beautiful! You really do ‘get’ this thread symbolism and how ‘listening with hands’ runs through your ancestors. I’m already looking forward to reading more about your son’s prayer shawl ceremony when you feel called to poetry’s pen. 💖🙏🧵✨
🧣💖🙏🧵
This is absolutely stunning, Deborah!
"How far must we descend this hour?"
You are accompanying your client, holding the thread steady, ensuring she doesn't stray from the path, leading her towards her inner child... and then
"She follows without disappearing,
weaving her mythline into the light."
You are a wonderful therapist and a great storyteller. Such great work can only be offered by someone who has descended into the shadows herself, woven her own mythline into the light.
Deep bow to you ♥️ 🙏 🪱 ✨
Oh Veronika, thank you so much! "Myth-line" is this poet's newest made-up word, and I'm already rather fond of it. And yes, you've caught the heart of it. In therapy, the thread really is everything. Indeed, the therapist has to stay aware of her own shadow, her own child‑self, her own underworld ... but not descend into it. She has to keep just enough light around her to guide, without taking over the journey or dimming her client’s courage. It’s such delicate, sacred work at times.
It’s been my ab-soul-ute privilege and honour to walk this path for almost thirty years now. Trying to describe the role always feels a little impossible ... it lives somewhere between myth, soul, joy and sorrow and that quiet daily work of sitting with another soul, often a kindred one.
Thank you for seeing it so clearly and for meeting my little poem with such depth, kindness and compassion. A deep bow right back to you. ♥️🙏✨
I know, you mentioned mythline before, a beautiful word and very fitting. A great neologism too, since it is instantly clear where it belongs and how it wants to make its contribution to our vocabulary, which is precisely what any 'good' new word should do. (this is the linguist and neologist in me speaking)
I can also very much relate to the therapist's journey you are describing, since I have some experience in this field too, therefore I know how hard it is. Although I have done this work of accompanying clients into the underworld (or dark side of the inner world, as I call it) this is not my main mission in this life. I have great respect for anyone who does this work well ~ delicate, sacred work, as you say ~ difficult to grasp but so important to do!
Veronika, you know I'm pretty sure I made it up when replying to your first or second "Loveship" essay. It just spontaneously arrived on the page (so to speak) in that moment. I think the best words do. It's so lovely to know you enjoy it too.
Being a therapist has been the wildest, most beautiful ride, I've loved it with my whole heart and but I'm also sooo ready to retire this December and give myself to my first and deepest love, writing. A similar thread to yours, I intuit? 🙏💖🧵
I'm going to borrow your "mythline", Deborah. It's perfect!
Oh yes, do Robin! Honestly, it just popped into my head when responding to Veronika. I always knew she was a (good) witch! 🙏💖🧵
yes, I can see that. We are spinning our parallel threads. How delightful. and I agree, the best words come to us spontaneously, indicating their readiness to be planted and nurtured in the Wild Word Woods
♥️ 🙏✨ 🧵
"Wild Word Woods" oh wow, that's gorgeous, Veronika! Lots of poetic swooning going on over here! 🙏🌳🔤💖
Yes, Wild Word Woods ~ or wildwordwoods for the Symbiocene, my special substack channel for wordcasts... https://veronikabondsymbiopaedia.substack.com/about
Lovely metaphor and delightfully navigated here Deborah. It immediately brings to my mind the amazing poem by William Stafford called the way It Is. Linking in case you are not familiar with it. https://wordsfortheyear.com/2017/10/19/the-way-it-is-by-william-stafford/
Aww, thanks so much, Paul. I’ve just read Stafford's "The Way It Is" ... such a gorgeous poem! For me, his thread is all about staying oriented in your own life, while mine is about a shared thread ... the therapist holding steady so the client can go safely into her underworld without pulling me into mine. I love, love, love the synchronicities though!
And I suppose that’s the shared thread we find on Substack too ... those small connections we follow between us, each of us holding a strand that helps the others find their way.
May it be so. 🙏💖🧵
Thanks Deborah. I now have an image forming in my mind of a thread-tree. I will sit with that. 🙏
And in my mind pops up a tree covered in "clouties"! Enjoy your musing, dear poet! 💖🙏🎀
Dear Soul Sister Bun-Bun,
This one went right into the still and quiet places of me.
The way you hold the red thread -- not as metaphor, but as a living tether between worlds -- feels like watching someone descend with both courage and reverence. Your walk through the underworld, where you bring together the fabrics of hurt and of healing and they share a seam, mirrors so much of what we've both known: that the child-self waits in half-light, and that the work is not to drag her upward, but to meet her where she stands.
The steadiness in your voice -- the way you keep the thread taut without pulling -- is its own kind of devotion. It's the opposite of Orpheus' fear. It's trust. It's presence. It's the kind of myth-line only someone who has walked the dark faithfully can weave back into the light. I felt your tenderness in every line. I felt your descent. And your return.
Thank you for writing from the place where the veil thins and the real work begins. Sending love, XO Bright Eyes
Dear Bright Eyes, Soul Sister, Wise Woman,
I love what you've named here! How true healing asks us to meet the child-self where she stands ... which is so often "below", in that half-light. Indeed, she doesn't need to be pulled upwards before she's ready ... in other words yanked. No, she needs to be witnessed first, acknowledged and then slowly invited toward more light (consciousness).
The way you speak about this tells me what an incredible teacher you are and how fortunate so many child-selves are to spend time with you, walking, sitting, studying beside someone who understands the rhythms, cycles and seasons of the underworld ... moving through with such gentleness and clarity. Thank you so much for everything you do.
Yes, it's the opposite! It's trust. It's presence. It would be so easy for a therapist to get lost in the dim underworld (unconscious) where their own ghosts and child-selves call out but it not their journey. So I have to remind myself, again and again, don't turn back toward my own shadows. For if I turn, I would lose the thread, my client and myself.
These years have been the richest of my life. To walk the descent with others, to keep the thread taut without pulling, to trust the return ... is shaping me in ways I’m still discovering.
With love and light always, Bun Bun XO 🙏💖🧵✨
My work takes a compassionate, steady, patient heart and copious amounts of love to do my work. These are not skills that are lost on me in teaching children.
I am certain that these years have been treasure for you -- no doubt you have stored away much of it in your heart, to keep safe, for others who are not yet able to do that on their own. You are a blessing. I feel that deeply. Thank you for walking alongside so many someone elses, and for tethering yourself to each of them with a thin red thread -- the color of life -- while leading the way for them with your own lantern to guide the way back home, safely, for both of you.
You are Light! XO Love to you, Sister. Bright Eyes
Dear Sister Bright Eyes,
Whatever light you see in me is the same light you carry so generously into the world and I’m so grateful our paths walk alongside each other in this work.
Sending much love, light and laughter ... always laughter ... across the oceans between us with a full and steady heart.
As Jamie would say: have the best of days!
Love to you, Sister Bun-Bun XO 🙏💖✨🧵
Greetings Lady Deborah, it’s past the midnight hour in my little cottage, The Thread Between Us, is a deep departure that is necessary for growth and grounding. I am reminded of an initiation, I faced many moons ago on my way to now. May you and yours be happy and healthy 💝Lady G
Greetings to you too, dear Lady Geraldine. In the blink of time your words have arrived here in the early morning light, and I thank you for them. It means so much to know that my little poem stirred an echo of an initiation you once walked through ... those thresholds shape us in ways we often only understand many, many years later.
I love how you name "the thread between us" as a necessary departure. Growth so often asks us to descend before we rise, doesn't it ... to ground before we move. The Old Stories know this well. May your path continue to unfold with steadiness and grace. And may you and yours be held in health and happiness too.
Sweet dreams, dear Lady. 🙏💖🧵✨
Dear sister Deborah, I feel the much needed energy of steadiness and grace you are surrounding me with, your intuitiveness is on point, bless you ✨🌀✨
Wrapped in love and gratitude, dear sister Geraldine. Your light is felt ✨🧵’✨
Hi Deborah,
As I've mentioned before, you have a gift. Your ability to empathize is beautiful. Oh sure, most of us can empathize to one degree or another, but you take it to an entirely different level,. Your clients were/are truly blessed to have you as their therapist.
I love the imagery of a thread being held between you and your client. It makes me think about how we all have the ability to hold one too. To be that thread. A thread seems fragile, tiny, and easily broken, but it can also be strong and capable of building yet more strength. Unbreakable, even.
You needing to remind yourself to not look back gives even more meaning to your poem somehow. It exemplifies your care, compassion, and focus toward the person on the other end of the thread. Remarkable.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful poem and for being one who puts good out into the world. I loved hearing you read your poem, too. With love and appreciation, my poet friend.
Oh Nancy, my dear friend ... thank you so much! I’m deeply humbled that my little poem and the symbolism of "the thread between us" speaks to you in all these beautiful ways. For me that connection between two (or more) souls helps me stay steady, present and do my best to meet another with loving devotion ... so hearing that my words resonate means so much.
I love what you wrote about the thread, too. You’re right ... it may appear fragile, but it holds great strength, doesn't it ... especially when its held with intention. That you felt all this in my poem is such a gift to me. Thank you again for reading, listening and offering your kindness and compassion. It’s very much appreciated. I'm deeply humbled. Love and hope. 🙏💖🧵
Beautiful and heartfelt words, my friend. How lucky are those who have been able to have you as their guide through the underworld.
Aww, thank you so much, Sarah. I feel so lucky to have crossed paths with so many inspiring teachers … and to have been met, again and again, by those sacred encounters with soul. 🙏💖🧵✨
So atmospheric, and a beautiful reading. No looking back. I feel your reverence for the journey.
Thank you so much, Robin, for your beautiful reply. Being a therapist has been the wildest and most extraordinary thirty years of my life, and I wouldn’t trade those years for anything ... but I’m also deeply looking forward to shifting from "role to soul" and from what I call the "spoken word" to the "written word" later this year. 🙏💖🧵
Hi Deborah, l love how the thread is a gentle offering, a collaboration, a reciprocity about it that perhaps may not always be apparent to the ‘client’ … “Don’t look back”, l whisper to myself, this journey belongs to her alone”. With both.
Thank you for taking us on your journey, “where hurt and healing share a seam.” Another timely poem, having been with my sister yesterday, and this morning sharing a Celtic cross tarot reading with her about her ‘mother’ childhood wound and the healing being undertaken. Thank you. Much love, have a great day 🙏💖😊
Sometimes the most beautiful moments I've ever shared with another soul are the ones where hardly any words are spoken ... when we simply pause beside a (symbolic) gravestone, book, photograph, river, mother ... and beneath the surface I can feel a quiet collaboration already beginning, even if the person beside me can’t sense it yet. In those moments, my whispered "don’t look back, this journey belongs to her alone" becomes the sacred discipline of being a guide: walking with someone without ever taking the path from them.
I’m really touched that my poem meets you at such a meaningful moment, especially after being with your sister and moving through those tender mother‑wound layers together. Those are delicate places, and it sounds like you held them with such presence and care for her. Yes, indeed, this kind of soul-work can happen between lovers, sisters, friends ... any two (or more!) hearts willing to sit in truth together. Much love to you, Simone. May your evening unfold gently, with a little starlight at every turn. 🙏💖🧵✨
Deborah, what a gift your guidance would be, your writing and presence here, your grace and acceptance is healing, and l am sure that your legacy will live on in the hearts of those you have served. I will remain forever grateful for what working with refugee students taught me about humanity, and having worked so closely in those communities truly taught me in ways of being. I imagine that has also been a gift for you, guiding others can teach us so much about ourselves … different roles obviously, but l trust you get my thread. You have such a generous and gracious heart, seat of our soul 🙏😊🌀💖.
Dear Simone, thank you so much for such generous and grace‑filled words! I’m deeply, deeply touched. I truly believe that walking beside other souls shapes us, softens us, teaches us how to be more human. Oh yes, I feel that thread you’re naming and I honour it. Your own work with refugee students carries a depth and courage that leaves its sacred mark on the soul. I can hear how it's shaped you in the most beautiful of ways. With love and gratitude from my heart to yours. 💖🌀💖🧵
Yes, what you mentioned about sitting in the silences with people, being able to hold that space is crucial … that is deep listening. Those exchanges shape the spoken words, when they come. Can’t say what l offered was always healing, though l always gave the best of whatever stage-version of myself was present, in and outside the classroom. And we worked closely with psychologists and other therapists from a wonderful organisation servicing refugee survivors of trauma and torture. They ran programs for us working closely with adolescents in schools, it was a collaboration and fuelled my research interests. So, as you no doubt know, your legacy will spread to those other professionals you have helped along the way. 😊🙏💖
This is such a rich conversation for me, Simone, because it takes me right back to my training days, when I'd finish a session and say, "I'm not sure anything I said helped at all." My very first client was a young mum in a women's refuge with her week old baby who cried all the way through our session. I remember feeling completely out of my depth. After that session my supervisor took me to one side and for the next twenty minutes gently taught me for the art of presence and how just sitting with someone, without fixing or rescuing, makes all the difference. I've never forgotten that wisdom, or the lived experience of Caroline, my first therapist when I was around thirty.
Your work in the refugee field carries that same depth. It touches lives and lineages in ways you may never fully see ... and as we both know, the work continues long after we physically leave. We rarely know how or whether we’ve helped, but I’ve come to trust this: love is stronger than death ... and that’s what we offer, because we can. Because there’s no other work we could imagine doing. Even after retirement loving words be still be front and centre stage, as I shift from the "spoken" to the "written" ones. Like Veronika, I sense we're on parallel "loving word" paths. Love and light. 🙏💖🧵✨
Well, thank you for having it Deborah 🙏💖. My work with refugees was central to my purpose for the majority of my career, your poem took me to that legacy, is in their hearts for their legacy is in mine. I don’t often visit those memories these days, it has been a decade since l was ensconced in the specialised area of that work (for nearly 3 decades), and leaving Melbourne was the beginning of this chapter, the rest you know. I understand now that move was part of our souls readying our human selves for it.
Now is time for me to see what shape l can make of the last 2 years of posts, to write this post death memoir/love story that will be the legacy of John and l, to offer hope to others that the communication of love can survive death, so as you say, love shifts … and to find the words, in and around the silences.
Yes, the parallel paths are for purposes that will keep unfolding. So very grateful for this community and connections.
So, thank you Deborah for every soul that has found some healing and peace through the love that you have offered them, professionally and personally, including me. Have a magic day. Love and light, always. 🙏💖
Wow! Tremendous!
Thanks so much, Bob. I'm so pleased you've caught the thread of my little poem. 🙏💖🧵
So beautiful Deborah. What a gift you offer others in their times of need.
"she follows without disappearing,
weaving her myth-line into the light."
That balance of telling our stories without "disappearing", of being held in a safe container, bringing it all to the light. And remembering our own light through that process.
A good therapist, like yourself, is a life saviour. Thank you for all you do. 🙏❤️💫
What a beautiful reply, thanks so much, Jo. That weaving of story into light without losing ourselves is the heart of the work and it’s always a shared creation. I’m deeply honoured to hold space while another soul remembers their own strength, their own myth-line, their own light.
And if anything in what I do feels life‑saving, it’s only because that kindred spirit sitting with me is already choosing life, truth and courage. I simply walk alongside them for a while.
Namaste, my dear friend, namaste 🙏💖🧵
Thank you for this short and richly meaningful dispatch, Deborah ❤️
Aww, that's so lovely! Thank you so much, Caroline. 🙏💖🧵
Your words are so healing:
"Through the underworld I walk daily,
where hurt and healing share a seam,
she follows without disappearing,
weaving her myth-line into the light."
Thank you so much Stephanie, for letting me know that my little poem resonates. It’s more than any poet could ever hope for. 💖🧵🐇
"Myth-line"!!!!! 💖🧵🐇
I know, I love it too! I made the word up, as poets do, a couple of weeks ago. 🙏💖😁
Deborah, I too have been working with the red thread, as I try to weave my ancestor memoir out of darkness and into the light. Such a beautiful description of your work and the tension between you and your clients:
"Don’t look back,' I whisper to myself,
this journey belongs to her alone"
And that image which frames it all, Weaving the mystery...isn't it always so?
Oh Robin, yes ... ab-soul-utely always so! Thank you so much for your kind and generous words. Yes, those words you quoted were like the moment the myth started to retell itself as I walked beside my client so that we could rise together. Earlier, when I asked my muse what the thread between us might be called, he whispered one simple word: Home. 🙏💖🧵✨
Home. Simple—and yet intimating complexity. Wonderful
🙏💖🧵✨
Yes, the magic thread. It's a powerful image for deep-diving therapy. Thank you, Deborah. After working with my powerful Jungian therapist for 20 years, it was time for a break. We did lots of deep diving and I needed to learn to go on my own. She made the child in me safe, but now I can do that for myself (although I sometimes have to circle back). Thank you for all the ways you've helped others and helped me--and how I do love this myth and your poetry! They hold so much meaning for me. With love from across the turbulent sea.
Dear Elaine, thank you so much for your beautiful reflections. Yes, the magic thread (I love that word!) is such a powerful image for some deep‑diving therapy, and it sounds as though you and your beloved Jungian therapist wove something extraordinary together over those twenty years. How moving to hear that the child in you feels safe now ... that you can hold her yourself, even if you sometimes circle back. That’s the real work, the quiet miracle.
And there's stirring here too. I've so enjoyed writing these last two poems that this afternoon I decided I'm going to retell another yet myth and this time it'll be "Psyche and Eros". I'm not entirely sure why its calling me but something in the story has always tugged at me. Hmm, I'll sit with it later and journal and see what threads appear. I may even wander over to your website and take a little look to see if you've written about them as well. I bet you have!
Sending much love and light across the oceans and oak tops between us. 🙏💖🧵