Great News: A new blog series by my colleague and friend Judy Brown, who has agreed to be the poet laureate for this site, offering poems from time to time. Judy is a poet, leadership educator, author, speaker, and coach whose work revolves around the themes of leadership, change, dialogue, and creativity. She is particularly interested in the inner dimensions of leadership and the roots of authenticity.

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Judy will write about the context in which she wrote each poem and what it means to her, and I will conclude with my reflections about the archetypes expressed in it.

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Trough

There is a trough in waves,

A low spot

Where horizon disappears

And only sky

And water

Are our company.

And there we lose our way

Unless

We rest, knowing the wave will bring us

To its crest again.

There we may drown

If we let fear

Hold us within its grip and shake us

Side to side,

And leave us flailing, torn, disoriented.

But if we rest there

In the trough,

Are silent,

Being with

The low part of the wave,

Keeping

Our energy and

Noticing the shape of things,

The flow,

Then time alone

Will bring us to another

Place

Where we can see

Horizon, see the land again,

Regain our sense

Of where

We are,

And where we need to swim.

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    - Judy Brown, A Leader’s Guide to Reflective Practice

The poem “Trough” emerged out of a distant memory, growing up on the Great Lakes, of a fisherman friend’s father and grandfather whose fishing tug caught fire on Lake Michigan and burned leaving them miles from land and alone in the water. His father survived the cold waters, but the grandfather did not. The poem is one of those that seemed “dictated to me” and has continued to offer me counsel in difficult times—to rest in the low part of the wave until time alone brings me to a different place. Strangers write me about what they have found in “Trough” that steadies them in their own challenges. The zig-zag format of the poem is an echo of the waves—low, then high, then low.

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How does the poem “Trough,” and Carol’s reflections on it, speak to your own life experience?

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Carol’s Archetypal Thoughts: I have been intrigued by this poem for quite some time, but had not experienced anything quite like this, so put off writing about it. Over the past few years I have felt secure in a variety of “boats” that seemed to keep me safe in different parts of my life and work. But recently one of those boats tilted over, sliding into what felt like deep, cold, treacherous water. My first response was to emotionally flail around, feeling abandoned, misled, and alone.

But then I remembered Judy’s poem and the natural phenomenon it offered to deal with such situations. That memory triggered my Realist archetype, telling me that my fear needed to give way to facing my own responsibility. It was on me to figure out what to do. Because the Realist is also about being open to help, I surveyed my environment to find those who or what might offer support. Success with this triggered my optimistic Innocent archetype, which then offered the recognition that I’d recovered from worse situations than this one, so surely I would be OK in that part of my life threatened when the boat let it fall.

From this recognition, I became calm, collected, and generally OK. It was then easier to remember that the Magician archetype helps with changing one’s perceived reality by shifting its/my story. And Judy’s poem provided that new narrative. Life is always in flux, so I suddenly acknowledged that likely a new wave of potential, hidden by the present one, could help me see a new shore and a new horizon. Then I focused on how to “swim”—that is, identify the actions needed to ride that wave into a positive, but still unknown, outcome. 

Thanks, Judy. Keep writing these poems!

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