Chaff: A Depth Psychology Meditation On The Inner Critic

There's a skill in you for separating the good from the useless. You've done it so long it runs on its own now — the keeping, and the throwing away.
This one goes to the part of that skill that overreaches. The part that would rather throw away something good than risk keeping one thing that isn't. You stand in a steady wind, cleaning a season's grain, and you begin to feel that the effort itself — the throwing, the need to be sure — has been costing you more than you knew.
One question, asked once, and then a long silence held over a quiet music bed. Nothing here to fix. Only something to feel the weight of.

Transcript

There is a wind and you're standing in it. Study. One direction. Coming across an open ground and not letting up. Let the eyes go and feel it on the side of your face. At your feet, A heap. Craned. And beaten loose from the stalk. Gathered into one pile. The whole of what a season made. Threshed and waiting to be cleaned. Breathe in. Let it out slow. All the way to empty. Again. And your hands, They know this work. They reach to the pile. The lift. The fall. None of it needs you anymore. So you begin. Take up a double handful. Lift it. And let it fall. Just pour it back down out of your hands. From a height. Watch what the wind does to it on the way down. The heavy part drops straight. It goes where you aimed it. The light part. The broken husk. The bits of stock. The dust. The wind catches that in the falling and pulls it off to the side. Downward. Out of the drop. That's the whole of it. Lift and let fall. And the wind combs the light stuff out of the fall. What's heavy lands. What's light leaves. Again. And again. The rhythm comes up under you fast. The lift. The far. The wind taking its share. It does not need watching anymore. It runs on its own now. Clean. While the rest of you goes somewhere else. Now come back to the hands. Watch one thing and then. . . You do not only let it fall. Somewhere along the way, You started to throw it. A small flick at the end of the lift. To send it up higher into the wind. Then a plane will fall down. Feel why. A plain fall leaves you unsure. That some husk might ride down with the grain. Might land in the clean pile. Might stay. One bit of sheaf kept by mistake. And something and you won't have it. You throw harder. To be certain the wind gets everything with any lightness in it at all. But the wind can only work with what you hand it. Throw the green up harder. And it does not lift more husk. It lives screened. The smaller seeds. The lighter ones. The ones that would have dropped straight back into your palms if you would only let them be. Only fall. They go up with the chief now. Out into the wind. Gone downwind with the waist. You have been doing that too. Under the clean rhythm. A little extra force on every throw. Losing good grain by the handful. Slow. To be sure of losing every husk. There is a part of you. That would rather throw away something good. Than keep one thing that isn't. Let the hands go still. Grain resting in the palms unthrown. One question. Ask it once, And let it fall the way the green does. Down and out of your hands. What have you been throwing off as chef? The husk was always going to go. It is the good green that went up with it. That's the one to ask about. Try it now, Without the throat. Once. Take up a handful and let it fall. Only fall. No flick at the end. No help given. The wind comes through it the same as ever. The huskos. The dust goes. And the grain comes straight down into your hands. All of it. Every seed with any weight in it. The wind could not take those if it doubled. They are too heavy to lift. They were never going anywhere but down. That is what the wind is. Exact. It only ever takes what actually lights. Left alone, It does not make a single mistake. It could not carry off a thing that has weight in it. The good green was never at risk. Rep to fall. It falls back every time. It is built to fall back. The only thing that ever sent it up into the wind was your own hand. The extra force. You throwing it to be sure. So you can stop throwing. Let a fall be a fall. What has weight? And keep. Not by holding it. Not by washing for it. It stays because it's too heavy to leave. And what goes. Goes because it was light. Only ever because it was light. Lower your hands. But the grain rests on them a moment, Unthrown. It is heavy. Feel that. The whole of what stayed. Pooled in the palms. Dense with its own weight. Some of what Blue Walk Downwind should have stayed. You know that now. That is true, And it stays true. This does not reach out into the wind and bring any of that back. Your hands have the weight of that now. Before the next throw, They will feel it. The drag of the real thing in the palm. A thing that would have stayed on its own. Let the wind fall off. The heap goes still. The dry air quiets. Come back to the hands in your lap. Nothing in them now but the memory of that weight. The floor under you. The room and the quiet where the wind was. When you are ready. And the grain's weight has gone back to your own being. Let your eyes open.