Dear Beloved,

I wanted to tell you about what I call my middle class mugs.

They sit on display in our kitchen, shimmering sexily. Most of them are made by hand. Some of them were very expensive. They are a festival of different shapes and sizes and colours - purple, sunshine yellow, royal blue, acquamarine, pink fading to the palest of blue.

I have collected them over the years, and I am beginning to notice two things about them:

1. I take an enormous amount of pleasure from them.

2. I am never satisfied.

I love choosing the exactly-right mug depending on what I’m drinking, how big a drink I want, and my general mood. I love appreciating the workmanship and imagining how they were made. I love resting my eyes on their astonishing, ordinary beauty.

Also. My favourite dark purple one was smashed last month. I need a fuchsia one to represent deep pinks. I have a few that were cheaper, obviously made in factories, and they jar.

Maybe I need just one more really big one for thirsty mornings? Maybe just one more like the sky-blue one with a small opening that curves into a generous belly and keeps my drink hot for ages?

This is what the Buddhists call samsara. Our ordinary, impermanent world, where we snag ourselves in tangles of greed, hate and delusion. Where - despite the extravagant bounty of our gorgeous middle-class mugs - we are not quite satisfied.

What can I do about this sorry state of affairs?

I can appreciate that my mugs are already broken.

The Buddhist teacher Ajahn Chah was asked how it was possible to be happy in a world of impermanence, a world where we are dogged by sorrow and loss. He smiled with a twinkle in his eye, held up the glass he had been drinking from, and said:

You see this goblet. To me, this glass is already broken. I enjoy it. I drink from it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes reflecting the sunlight in beautiful patterns. If I tap it, it gives off a lovely ring. But when I set it on a shelf and the wind knocks it over, or my elbow brushes it off the table and it shatters on the floor, I say, Of course. When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious. Every moment is just as it is, and nothing needs to be otherwise.

Sometimes I manage this, and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I fall into pushing things away (cleaning the kitchen floor) or craving (another order of expensive chocolates) or denial (not thinking about the climate crisis for weeks on end).

When this happens, I try to be kind to myself. I notice my fallible human nature with fondness. I understand why I do these things (life is sometimes scary and hard and it pokes at our vulnerability). I allow myself to relax a little into my greed, hate and delusion - doing whatever it is I need to do to stay steady. I buy one more middle class mug.

I also remember to keep enjoying them. Like Ajahn Chah’s appreciation of his glittering glass, there is something magical about seeing the beauty of the mugs bang-smack-up-against their transitoryness. How many more mugs of hot tea will this lovingly crafted vessel offer me before it returns to the earth?

Todays’ choice is my biggest - dipped in an aquamarine glaze and with slashes of marks that reveal the warm brick-red underneath. It sits empty on my desk, having done its job for today.

I appreciate it. I appreciate Ralph, snoring from his dog-bed at my feet. I appreciate my beloved, Kaspa, as faint murmurs of their voice float from their office next door. I appreciate the trees that line the hills I see when I flick my eyes up from these words.

They will all be gone, one day. Either before me, or after me.

I love them all so much.

Love, Satya <3

A question to carry: When you remember the impermanence of everything today, what happens?

‘Dear Beloved’ is a free newsletter that will nudge you towards love at the start of every week. It is written by Satya Robyn (she/her) - an IFS therapist and Buddhist minister who lives happily at the feet of the Malvern hills in the UK. She lives with her spouse Kaspa (they/them) and their two little dogs, Aiko and Ralph. Her main site is here.

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Last weekend we scattered my dad’s ashes into the North Norfolk sea.

Afterwards I dreamt that Kaspa tripped and plunged into a deep narrow hole filled with dark water. They disappeared from view and I braced myself as I waited for them to bob back up to the surface, ready to grab them and pull. The time stretched on. The surface of the water remained unbroken. I woke up.

I am sweating as I write as we have record-breaking heat in the UK (again). Eleven people, mostly teenagers, have died in the sea, rivers and lakes.

The first of the Three Marks of Existence:

All that is conditioned is subject to impermanence.

As I allow these facts, these events, to coalesce around me, what do I see?

I see that I am alive.

I see that it is my duty to take the day ahead of me and fashion it, like precious metal, into something as beautiful as possible.

It doesn’t have to be extraordinary. Our days contain rare moments brilliant enough to dazzle us, but mostly we drink our tea, attend to our emails, keep the dogs as cool as we can.

At any moment, my life as I know it could slip into a deep water-filled hole. It helps me to remember this. Remembering makes it easier for me to receive kindness, to offer kindness, to open myself up to jam-joy.

I took a handful of gritty ashes and sprinkled them into the sea. The beach was almost empty, the sky was blazing blue, the sea was cool and lovely. These remains of my dad’s body had sat for three years in a cupboard in my mum’s house, and now they were free to roam.

I’m thinking of him. I’m thinking of him exploring the oceans. I’m thinking of him being carried down to become a part of sea-creatures, being lifted up to become clouds.

I can’t be sure, but I have the sense that he’s happy.

Can we know the truth of impermanence and be happy too?

Love, Satya <3

A question to carry: How do you flinch away from impermanence and how might it instead become a gift that brings you closer to love?

‘Dear Beloved’ is a free newsletter that will nudge you towards love at the start of every week. It is written by Satya Robyn (she/her) - an IFS therapist and Buddhist minister who lives happily at the feet of the Malvern hills in the UK. She shares a house with her spouse Kaspa (they/them) and their two little dogs, Aiko and Ralph. Her site is here.

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Dear Beloved,

Our new garden has a decent greenhouse and plenty of space. I’ve grown vegetables off and on for the last twenty years. As we moved towards Spring, why was I feeling so painfully ambivalent?

The conversation churned inside me. Maybe I wouldn’t grow anything at all in our first year. Or maybe I’d just grow tomatoes in the green house. But how would it be to become tied to daily watering? But wouldn’t one courgette plant be nice?

Months into this dilemma, all at once, we ordered two raised beds and a massive bag of compost. Before we’d even finished assembling and filling them, we’d bought two more. And then four more. (Oops!) Our kitchen windowsill soon became crammed with chitting potatoes and seeds still hiding in the dark earth - courgettes, beetroots, turban’s squash, cherry, moneymaker and purple tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peas, chard.

It looks like I am growing vegetables this year.

Why has it been such a process?

The last time we grew vegetables was in the temple garden. It seems crazy to me now that we started it - cutting out the turf, wheelbarrowing compost up and down the garden stairs. We already had a huge garden to maintain, a new (sometimes complicated) resident community to manage, Buddhist practice to run four times a week, the accounts to get our heads round, marketing, hosting retreats for our parent group, norms to establish, the adjustment to living with others… Alongside our day jobs…

It was a lot. Growing vegetables didn’t feel like it had done in our last house, when I remembered long lazy Sundays by our woodburner and long lazy weekends tending to the flowerbeds. Lazy days were in rather short supply!

No wonder I felt ambivalent about the commitment of growing food. I was remembering the daily watering and the inevitable losses to pests and the weather within the context of a too-full life. And these parts of me did have a point - coming into relationship with living things does take ongoing effort, and sometimes we don’t want to make this effort and it transmutes into duty and resentment builds up. Yuk.

And. What do I enjoy most about this new place? The fish in the pond, with the pump that needs cleaning and the weed that needs treating and the sad loss of dark spot. The goldfinches and chaffinches that visit our bird feeders, which need cleaning and filling. My dogs, who need/demand a LOT of various kinds of attention. Kaspa, and all that making a good marriage entails.

There may well be a hot sticky evening in July when I’ve had a really long day and the vegetables are thirsty and I have to force myself to lug water to them. We may well have to deal with slugs, whitefly, disease, storms.

I am choosing these challenges, alongside the joy of a potato fresh from the soil, boiled and buttered. Alongside the daily encouragement to come away from my screens and get my news from the garden. Alongside the pleasure of giving away a glut of courgettes to the neighbours.

When we come into relationship with anything that is alive, at some point it will ask things of us that we would rather not give.

Sometimes, when we give these things, a layer of our self-protection shucks off. Our hearts become more open to receiving treasure.

When I see the waiting beds, my treasure is already here. Satisfaction. Excited anticipation. Sparks of happiness. Knowing that I am an alive thing, in relationship with alive things.

Love, Satya <3

A question to carry: What alive thing (person, group, project etc) are you feeling ambivalent about coming into relationship with and how might you open to the potential gifts?

‘Dear Beloved’ is a free newsletter that will nudge you towards love at the start of every week. It is written by Satya Robyn (she/her) - an IFS therapist and Buddhist minister who lives happily at the feet of the Malvern hills in the UK. She lives with her spouse Kaspa (they/them) and their two little dogs, Aiko and Ralph. Her main site is here.

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Today I have three simple bursts of beauty/joy for you. In the past, when others have share their own jewelled moments with me, I have found them infectious. May these be the same.

1. Kaspa and I visited a big private garden with its own lake. We wandered down and I casually looked into the water. I spotted a weird silvery thing shaped like a coin, floating up from the dark bottom. It was so beautiful. What kind of magical object was it? Maybe it was a coin, from buried treasure. Maybe it was a strange glittering pond creature, or a lost piece of expensive jewellery. It turned a few times, lazily moving with unseen currents. Eventually it broached the surface. It was air! Just plain, ordinary air. Air transformed into something remarkable.

2. When we moved into our new house I found a mildewed big flat plate in the garden. At the time, I was a little annoyed that the previous owners hadn’t taken it with them. A few days later a ridiculously scruffy bird (a dunnock with white markings around one eye) started visiting us. They were very tolerant of humans. One morning I wondered if they were thirsty and - lo - I realised that the pale green plate was actually a bird water bowl! I cleaned it out and filled it to the brim. The bird hopped straight in and didn’t just drink lustily but splashed around, its delight radiating off it like pop music from a radio. That bird loves that water bowl - it visits every day. It isn’t my bowl. It isn’t my water. It isn’t my bird. The happiness skips through me.

3. My Buddhist minister colleague Ravavani chose this poem to read during Buddhist practice. I love Ross Gay’s short prose pieces but I hadn’t encountered his poetry. ‘Yeah, yeah. But LOOK!’ It brings me a fresh burst of beauty/joy on each reading.

   ---

Sorrow Is Not My Name

—after Gwendolyn Brooks

No matter the pull toward brink. No
matter the florid, deep sleep awaits.
There is a time for everything. Look,
just this morning a vulture
nodded his red, grizzled head at me,
and I looked at him, admiring
the sickle of his beak.
Then the wind kicked up, and,
after arranging that good suit of feathers
he up and took off.
Just like that. And to boot,
there are, on this planet alone, something like two
million naturally occurring sweet things,
some with names so generous as to kick
the steel from my knees: agave, persimmon,
stick ball, the purple okra I bought for two bucks
at the market. Think of that. The long night,
the skeleton in the mirror, the man behind me
on the bus taking notes, yeah, yeah.
But look; my niece is running through a field
calling my name. My neighbor sings like an angel
and at the end of my block is a basketball court.
I remember. My color’s green. I’m spring

~ Ross Gay

What unites these three examples of beauty/joy?

They didn’t cost me anything.

They were very simple - a bird drinking, a poem, a bubble of air.

I didn’t organise them or plan them.

I can’t make them happen again (except maybe by reading the poem, although there’s nothing like that first hearing).

They were unearned, unasked for, unexpected.

Parts of me hate how out-of-control I am when it comes to arranging moments like this in my life.

Parts of me love it. All I have to do is relax and keep my senses alert. All I have to do is peel various veils from my eyes. All I have to do is trust the Universe to deliver, in its own time.

Leaning back. Relaxing. Expecting to be surprised. Maybe I will receive another burst of beauty/joy today!

Love, Satya <3

A question to carry with you: How might you open yourself to moments like this over the coming week?

‘Dear Beloved’ is a free newsletter that will nudge you towards love at the start of every week. It is written by Satya Robyn (she/her) - an IFS therapist and Buddhist minister who lives happily at the feet of the Malvern hills in the UK. She lives with her spouse Kaspa (they/them) and their two little dogs, Aiko and Ralph. Her main site is here.

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I sat in the darkness, shell-shocked, as the film credits rolled. The cinema was quiet and nobody moved for a long time.

We had just watched Raoul Peck’s documentary, Orwell: 2+2=5. In it we see Orwell’s own experiences of fascism, oppression and cruelty, and how he warns against these horrors through his novels, especially his last - Nineteen Eighty Four. The soft narration and images of Orwell’s life are interspersed by film and stills from more recent conflict and atrocities - burnt out cities, grieving families, modern day autocrats, a refugee child who died in the water.

It was harrowing viewing. As we got ready to leave, I thought of you - dear reader. I thought of this project of mine - to start each of your weeks with a pointer towards good, towards love. How might I speak of this here? How could I find the good in it? Should such awfulness even be included in my ‘uplifting letters’ to you?

After a night of vivid dreams and days of processing, the answer I came to was: yes, it is my duty to include it.

It is important that I can speak to you about terrible harm - the harm others cause, and the harm we cause others and ourselves.

I think Orwell would agree that if we can see this harm clearly, if we can recognise it when it’s happening, then we are less likely to be silently complicit or to join in for our own self-protection.

If we see it, we can call it out.

If we see it, we can continue our work to understand where it comes from, and to hold onto our humanity (and the humanity of all) in the face of evil acts.

If we see it, we can better see the bitter conflicts playing out inside ourselves, and the ways in which we project out blame and shame in order to survive our own traumas.

If we see it, we can grow our compassion for those who are suffering because we get it - we really get it - and we can reach out to them and offer them support and consolation.

We need to see it clearly in ourselves and in others, in order to move towards love.

It is okay to disassociate from it for periods of time - as I felt myself do during the film. Disassociation is always keeping us safe and intact and sane, and we shouldn’t push against it. We need to stay intact, and healthy, in order to make the most of our extraordinary lives, and in order to offer good sustainable help to others.

Also, ignoring harsh truths for long periods of time is, I fear, no good for me or for anyone. The truth finds cracks and it infiltrates in its own way. We become discombobulated and brittle. We see only half the picture. We slide into collusion and a kind of deadening.

We need to approach difficult truths everso gently, and with as much support as we can garner. We need to be exquisitely kind to ourselves.

Where is the love in fascism? What am I pointing towards with these words?

At the end of the film, there were scenes of peaceful protest, collectivisation, revolution. I believe that the worst of what human beings can do seeds this goodness - this standing up for kindness and patience and fierce compassion.

If we truly see the hate, it points us towards love.

When the lights came up I spotted a couple of friends sitting at the back of the cinema - colleagues from a time I was involved in eco-activism. We went over and hugged them both - some human connection after all that suffering. It felt good.

We are here together. Let us help each other face the worst of us, in order to illuminate the best of us. In order to fire us up.

We need that more than ever.

Love, Satya <3

A question to carry: What support do you need to gently turn towards the truths you haven’t been seeing?

‘Dear Beloved’ is a free newsletter that will nudge you towards love at the start of every week. It is written by Satya Robyn (she/her) - an IFS therapist and Buddhist minister who lives happily at the feet of the Malvern hills in the UK. She lives with her spouse Kaspa (they/them) and their two little dogs, Aiko and Ralph. Her main site is here.

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I looked and looked and a word arose from nowhere, sparkling and twinkling as it breached the surface of my consciousness.

Paradise.

It is our first Spring in our new house. We have seen the huge tree in our neighbour cemetery clothed in white frothy blossom. We have marvelled at the creamy primroses scattered liberally amongst the graves like confetti. We have met our garden’s camellias, our wisteria, our perfect peonies.

Paradise.

Is it only here, only now?

The beauty of Spring cracked me open, and when I drive to town I see a pile of horse shit on the road, with its promise of nutrients and new life, and I imagine the horse with its shining pelt and soft nose. I see the road itself, with its layers and layers designed to hold our cars steady, to keep us safe. I glimpse the closed face of a neighbour and think of what he is carrying - the variety of love that is grief. I reach town and am crowded by noise and motion and mess and stink and all of it is beautiful.

Here is an unspeakable secret: Paradise is all around us and we do not understand.
~ Thomas Merton

Love, Satya <3

A question to carry: Can you see it, all around you?

‘Dear Beloved’ is a free newsletter that will nudge you towards love at the start of every week. It is written by Satya Robyn (she/her) - an IFS therapist and Buddhist minister who lives happily at the feet of the Malvern hills in the UK. She lives with her spouse Kaspa (they/them) and their two little dogs, Aiko and Ralph. Her main site is here.

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As I look at the camellia blossoms, strong aversion rises up in me.

We are in our new house for our first Spring. I am delighting in all the unexpected flowers appearing in our garden. The big dark green camellia bush is a backdrop to the pond, and the blossoms are pure white, frilly and extravagant. Why are they eliciting this negative response in me?

It’s the rust.

In what seems like days, each of the white blooms become stained with an unpleasant wash of pale beige, like a tea stain on a white shirt. This darkens quickly to crisp, rusted brown. They seem to be decaying before my eyes.

As a Buddhist, of course I am familiar with the reality of impermanence. I’m happy to extoll the fleeting beauty of cherry blossoms along with the best of them. Why can’t I appreciate the camellia in the same way?

I go inside, ask myself this question, and wait.

What arises is a fluttering feeling of panic. ‘I’m going to miss it! I’m going to miss all the beauty. The camellia petals spoil too fast and then it will be winter and my body will keep on ageing and then...’

This makes sense. And what is underneath? I ask myself this question, and wait.

Tears spring to my eyes. Sadness, loss. Not just the camellia, but our old cat Roshi, who haunts the temple garden. The endless energy and ambition of my youth. Even this house - which we are over the moon to be stewarding - one day, one way or another, I’ll leave it.

The camellias prick at my grief. Of course I want to look away.

Now that I know more about this feeling, how is it to see them? I stand up from my desk so I can rest my eyes on them.

Well - maybe the rust colour isn’t as unpleasant as I’d thought. Maybe the darkest brown ones have a certain richness to them. It gives them character. I see how they show off the pure white of their fresher neighbours, as if pointing to them - ‘your turn now! shine, shine!’.

Maybe the camellia bush will point me towards the urgent voice I heard inside me - which doesn’t need to panic, but which does hold wisdom. Life does rush onwards. It is important that I pause and enjoy the camellias while they’re here. It is imperative that I notice the neat buds on the copper beech, the wild enthusiasm of the dog’s greetings, my spouse’s sleep-rumpled hair.

Maybe I’ll always have a complicated relationship with the camellia bush, and maybe that’s okay.

I bow to them. I watch them rusting and blooming.

Love, Satya <3

A question to carry: What points you towards the reality of impermanence and how might you embrace it?

‘Dear Beloved’ is a free newsletter that will nudge you towards love at the start of every week. It is written by Satya Robyn (she/her) - an IFS therapist and Buddhist minister who lives happily at the feet of the Malvern hills in the UK. She lives with her spouse Kaspa (they/them) and their two little dogs, Aiko and Ralph. Her main site is here.

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This morning, rather than rolling out of bed and falling headlong into my phone, I stood instead at the window of my home office.

Instead of scrolling on social media, I scrolled my eyes around the cemetery where daffodils are standing in crowds and shouting yellow. Instead of news of war, I looked for news of next door’s magnolia blossoms, whose scrumptious pink petals are all now open. Instead of seeking the affirmation of likes and responses, I let the steadiness of the hills fill me up.

By the time I picked up my phone, after breakfast, I was already thinking about writing this piece and the usual itchy urge to check-check-check was hardly there.

As I type, I feel cleaner, clearer, more connected to myself, less cluttered with the distress of strangers and almost-strangers.

I also feel a teensy bit smug.

I pause to examine this feeling. How many days has my new routine been in place for? For one quarter of one day. How long have I been lost on my phone? Months… On and off, for years. Decades!

I have been here before. I have phases of doing yoga first thing in the morning, and then I offer my body nothing but short dog walks for months on end. Sometimes I eat reasonably well, and sometimes I eat sugar like it’s going out of fashion. Sometimes I have a healthy relationship with my phone, and sometimes it’s glued to me and I fall into it whenever the adverts come on or after every few pages of the book I’m reading.

It is a sinewy, big-teethed lion. Sometimes I am in control of it, and sometimes it is in control of me.

I try not to fall into feeling smug these days, or expect that any new habit will be in place forever. Here’s something that works better for me when I am in these ‘healthier’ phases.

1. I appreciate them for being here, right now. I feel glad that I began my day by looking out of my window, and I am grateful for how that feels in my body and how it is still affecting me.

2. I remember that I am a fallible being. I may be able to keep this healthy phone use up for the next week, month, rest of my life, and I may not.

3. I ask for help. I ask the Buddha to guide me into more days of healthy phone use, and to show me what I need to do to make this possible - what practical systems might support me, what internal work I need to do, what else might help.

4. I hand the rest over. I will keep making good choices when I can, and I am also limited for many understandable reasons. Will I keep my good habit up? I hope so - but I also have limited control over it. That’s okay. I can take refuge in the reality of impermanence - both when things are going well (appreciating every last drop) and when they’re not (things will undoubtedly change again at some point).

I look out of my window again. The sun is drenching the trees in light. Soon their buds will open into fresh leaves. It’s easy for me to enjoy the green of Spring. I also need to find ways of appreciating the parched Summer, the decay of Autumn, the bare bones of Winter.

There are seasons cycling through us constantly. Sometimes we enjoy being without our phone. Sometimes we disappear into our phones so often that we get thoroughly sick of it. Being sick of it might be enough to quiet the lion for a while. Or it may be that the lion is extra-ferocious because it is hurting, and because something needs healing.

What is this season asking of me?

Later, I will listen inside and see if anything needs my tender attention.

For now, I will enjoy the quiet music of the clouds.

Love, Satya <3

A question to carry: What is cycling through you at the moment and what would it appreciate?

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‘Dear beloved’ is a free newsletter that will nudge you towards love at the start of every week. It is written by Satya Robyn (she/her) - an IFS therapist and Buddhist minister who lives happily at the feet of the Malvern hills in the UK. She lives with her spouse Kaspa (they/them) and their two little dogs, Aiko and Ralph. Her main site is here.

What do I want?

This seems an outrageous place to start. I am beginning a shiny new series of writing for you. I should be guessing at your needs, and then placing them above mine. How else will I receive anything? (Likes. Praise. Paid subscriptions. Adoration.)

Also. I am writing about love. How can I love well if I leave myself out? How can I point you towards loving yourself if I put your needs above mine?

What do I want?

I want to stand at the edges of what I know, and write from there.

I want my words to stitch me more closely to the world - the blotchy grey cloud-blanket sweeping the sky, the curled dogs flanking my desk, the glittering Buddha smiling down at me from the windowsill.

I want my sentences to be hands that turn me gently - ever so gently - into full light - so I can feel the warmth on my cheek. So I can remember that this terrible, frightening world is also shot through with goodness.

There - that is what I want. Now I can think about you.

I want you to read my words every Monday and feel a small space open up - a space where fresh breeze kisses you. I want you to put down your burdens for a minute. I want you to feel less alone, and more beloved. I want you to feel the warmth of sunshine on your face.

I want to share the good stuff I have here, piled up in my hands like dried corn. Given to me over the years by so many wise people, alive and dead.

Do you need sustenance? Insight? Encouragement? Consolation?

Here. Take some.

Pass some on.

Love, Satya <3

A question to carry: How might you make space for your own needs and preferences this week?

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This is the first of a new free newsletter, ‘Dear Beloved’ which will nudge you towards love every Monday. It is written by Satya Robyn (she/her) - an IFS therapist and Buddhist minister who lives happily at the feet of the Malvern hills in the UK. She lives with her spouse Kaspa (they/them) and their two little dogs, Aiko and Ralph. Her main site is here.

I am at my writing desk, waiting for the right words to appear.

I am trying to be patient. I don’t want to frighten them off. I am listening to the chattering of birds, glancing up at the open blue of the sun-kissed sky. I wait.

I touch my hand to my heart. Rub a little. Breathe.

Okay - this is how I will introduce you to my new series. My hand knew to make this gesture, even though I didn’t know it was coming. My fingertips knew what words wanted to flow through them, like water bubbling through stones in a brook. I was guided by love.

This unknowable/knowable force will animate my new weekly letters - reminding you (and me) about the good in a tortured world. The tiny sparks of good. The warming embers of good. The bones, the lodestone, the foundations of good.

I write as a fallible being. My faith sometimes wavers. I mess up, I cause harm to myself and others, I make the same predictable unskilful choices over and over. All that will be woven into my words - the meeting place between little-human-me and Something Bigger - how much I still have to learn, how often I am humbled, how well I am learning to love myself.

But really these Monday letters are a joint project. The words come through me, but from somewhere else. You (if you choose, if they are right for you) will offer them some time, and allow them to cast a golden shadow over your weeks. Love loves to be shared.

And we need it more than ever.

Love, Satya <3

PS Why ‘Dear Beloved’? Because you ARE beloved (just like all of us) and I would like you to be reminded of this.

Late Fragment
Raymond Carver

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Satya Robyn (she/her) is a writer, IFS therapist and Buddhist minister, living happily at the feet of the Malvern hills in the UK. She is interested in going gently, facing truths, and the consolations of a spiritual life. She lives with her spouse Kaspa (they/them) and their two little dogs, Aiko and Ralph. Her main website is here.

My most loved books, films and people don’t flinch from the dark, tangled corners of life, and they also leave me with more clarity, energy, warmth and hope.

This is what I will be bringing you every Monday: a short story from my life that will acknowledge my fallibility (and maybe yours) and that will also point towards some beauty, a learning, or the thin places where the light might get in.

We are living through difficult times. I sometimes feel like I’m walking a tightrope - at constant danger of falling either under a thick blanket of denial or into despairing hopelessness.

I do think we need to face the truth - about the parts of us that cause harm to us or to others, and about the violence in the world.

I also think we need to find ways of living gently and happily - of being extremely kind to ourselves, of seeking meaning, of taking refuge in what is reliable, of appreciating the astonishing beauty and tenderness that is all around us.

This is the paradox from which my writing emerges. Can I find joy in the tadpoles squirming their way out of their jelly homes, knowing that only a few of them will make it into frogs? Can I set boundaries with true compassion? Can I feel the depth of my eco-grief and also delight in a carpet of pale yellow primroses?

I have received many precious teachings over the years - from Buddhism and other spiritual traditions, from brilliant writers, from the therapeutic world, from the 12 steps, from nature. As well as passing these jewels on, I also want to pass on my love of life.

If you’d like to try me out as a companion, subscribe below for a few weeks and see how you feel after reading my Monday stories (starting soon). I am so looking forward to it.

We will be tilting our faces towards love.

Love, Satya <3

I will continue my year of Moving Towards Love concurrently with these new pieces until the end of August. You can catch up on that so far here and step in at any time by becoming a paid subscriber.

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