The Fields of Kindness
A courageous and utterly beautiful articulation of the sheer weight and terror of depression
‘… maybe I’m always going to be a woman full of stones and some words and some cakes and some love and some despair.’
Caroline used to cook for us on the Inner View Programs in England. And on this particular June afternoon, as time stood itself still, she walked towards the camera as if beckoned by something more powerful than the need to be seen.
note, this film contains a couple of (rightful) f-bombs.
‘… I don’t think there was anywhere left to go. And a sort of giving up happened in a deep deep place in my heart and soul and my body. And then, I was in the fields of kindness.’
What happened next was as naked as naked gets. A courageous and utterly beautiful articulation of the sheer weight and terror of depression. And of a place arrived at. A place that had always been there. The Fields of Kindness.
You can add observations and questions below. Caroline will be reading this.
The film can also be found at its permanent home in the Soul Biographies Monochrome Collection. Feel free to use this film, and to pass this on to anyone who may find it of help.
Caroline and her uncommonly deep observations can be found here on substack. I found these few words of hers; “… I believe we wait for ourselves, and maybe we get home, partially home, nearly home. Maybe we don’t. Maybe we live and die in homelessness. So much of my life I have been homeless, searching, seeking and longing for a sense of place.”
Finally, I’ve posted some Inner View Method Programs for 2025. Two In-Person Cohorts, UK in March and USA in April. And a Virtual Cohort in February.
The long and the short of it is that I can show you how to witness the human soul. The essence of someone, behind the persona. It is an innate capacity and extremely demonstrable. I can even show you how to capture such bristling authenticity in camera. And how to create an extraordinary bond in a group using collective witnessing (major partnership opportunity here if anyone is interested).
recent note added to the description : this is a departure from many of the recent developments in deep listening. It recognizes awareness as the witness, not us, and so largely absents us from the usual acts of encouragement, acknowledgment, questioning, holding space, and the like. This is a method of radical subtraction. It is not of the mind, and provides a way to see the essence of a person beyond the ever moving form of the persona. And for the subject to reconnect with this essence.
Barcelona. Small group. 4-Hour firsthand experience of the Human Soul. November 11. Message me if interested. Pass on if you know someone in the region.
note: I’m planning to run more of these short intensive experiences for small groups most places I travel (soon). Perhaps even consider invitations to places I have not yet traveled. Plans afoot.
thank you, Nic for posting this again - and thank you for the comments, responses - it’s lovely being felt.
There are so many horrifying shadows to the underbelly of the internet, yet also light, doorways, connection across many borders, and places to meet in ‘rooms’ that have no walls, floors, doors or windows. My gratitude to being alive in this era of technology is beyond measure.
As a writer, the internet is a portal for my scribbled life to be relational. I offer myself up, and am received. This almost accidental Soul Biography is one fine thread in the extraordinary fabric of Nic’s borderless work. He offers himself up as a doorway, with his camera and open invitation to be with the one you’re with. His artless art has/is creating an archive of humans being human.
Dear Caroline, thank you. Mij first impressions: maybe the fields of kindness can be seen in the mirror. I was very touched by your different eyes, the one with darkness before the light and the other one light before the darkness. I was touched by the light that your face radiates( see 04.12) but more powerful when you close your eyes. Maybe, maybe, looking inward is connecting with the light and that is like the sun behind your skin.
You share about the weight. Maybe, next to the fields of kindness, there was also this connecting with the earth, who carried you, no matter what weight you offered in your footsteps.
I try to be a buddhist practitioner and I have to work very hard to slow down and to experience the strength one needs to lift the (mental and physical) weight of your body. There is this connection between weight and light (in the sense of radiation, not in the meaning of 'less weight')
My father was a deeply depressed person. He couldn't talk about this. There was this weight of silence, and an unmeasurable weight of being very scared to share with me, my son. So I am very well trained to see the balance between light and darkness in someone's eyes, face, body, talk, movements. And your sharing gives me the courage to cross the threshold of asking, of sharing, of accepting. My father has passed away for almost two years now. But I still have that never started conversation in my head and heart.
Thank you for walking to the camera's, the lights must have been overwhelming. You already have the skill to cook, now you can start to become a gardener and plant your own vegetables, rice, patatotoes on your fields of kindness. water them with your whole being, full of acceptance and the dish will be healing. You know (your dog's name is leonard) the crack is where the light gets in.
I am going to close my eyes of a night sleep. One day i will meet my father on the same fields.
This is a long expression of: thank you.
Joost Vriens