1. Read the poem 

2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

4. Use the selection of prompts below the poem

5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

Falling Through

I have fallen through, 
and though it felt like dying, 
once below, I saw the bottom 
of things lighted from above 
and this has made the difference.

Of course, this is not the end of it. 
Like Sisyphus or Prometheus, 
each day re-enacts the whole thing.

Each day, I wrestle with waves 
of doubt and fear and recurring 
blindness, and then, if I suffer 
or love enough, I fall through 
and die to my undoing again, 
to where it’s holy to be silent 
and drift, and there I see the 
belly of all fear lighted from 
above.

And this makes you and me 
and the stranger we avoid 
shine like the flawed beings 
we are.

It makes me leave the house 
unlocked and enter the world 
full of praise. It makes me 
reach through the fire 
in reckless song.

—Mark Nepo

Note: Next Read Around is:
Sep 24, 2021 at 4:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

A persistent theme in the work of Mark Nepo is that there is no endgame of permanent perfection. We humans will err, fall down, and fail repeatedly in spite of our best efforts and finest intentions. In the poem Falling Through, Nepo offers a perspective we can only get when we not only fall, but “fall through,” which he poetically describes as a time when we die to our undoing and enter a space where it is holy to be silent and drift.

We typically think of hitting bottom as a tragic loss of everything in our lives, driven to the brink through addiction or pride or extreme behavior; or as a crushing defeat and a complete surrender. Hitting bottom doesn’t have to be a raging fire that burns the house down. It dosn’t need to be an ocean of grief in which we we drown. It doesn’t require us to be consumed in a sinkhole that takes down our life. In fact, Nepo suggests that falling is part of being human and that we re-enact the experience in everyday when the ground we hit is not so far away. It may still hurt badly. It still may break our frames or injure our pride. And it may be easy, in this state, to point fingers as we nurse our woe and wallow in the pain. The transformation occurs whe we “fall through” the pain and cross a threshold of either “suffering enough” or “loving enough.” We don’t just hit bottom then, but fall through it and see the bottom of things, even the belly of all fear, lighted from above. We accept ourselves, at least for the moment, as flawed restoring us to our own light.

I have had the good fortune to attend two year-long programs with Mark Nepo, the secondof which ends this October. You can learn more about Mark Nep’s work at: https://marknepo.com

Prompt Menu

1. Journal or write a poem about a experience of a fall, either physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually and what came out of that experience.

2. What might Nepo mean by “falling through?” Use that phrase as a prompt and journal or write about what it means to you.

3. Describe a time when you suffered enough or loved enough to go over a threshold and what happened after you crossed that threshold. Journal or write a poem about that experience.

4. In what way is Nepo’s kind of falling Nepo a recurring experience in life? Think of little experiences of falling—being let down, falling into a funk, falling into something, falling over something or someone, etc. and write about that experience.

5. With what waves of doubt or fear do you wrestle? In what ways to you doubt yourself? What fears do you have about life or about things or people in general? How to you deal with them?

6. Use the stem “I die to my undoing when…” and write whatever comes to mind from there.

7. Describe a time when you were able to shine as a flawed being or descirbe what you imagine it would be like to know you are flawed and shine anyway.

8. Journal or write a poem about what it is like, or might be like, when you “leave the house unlocked and enter the world full of praise.”

9. As usual, write about anything else from the poem or life that inspires you