"OH! SENSIBILITY! Thou busy nurse"

We don’t know something until we name it. Ann Yearsley not only named the force that moved her heart, but she gave it life and purpose. Sensibility was her busy nurse:

"OH! SENSIBILITY! Thou busy nurse

Of Inj'ries once received, why wilt thou feed

Those serpents in the soul? their stings more fell

Than those which writh'd round Priam's priestly son;

I feel them here! They rend my panting breast,

But I will tear them thence: ah! effort vain!

Disturb'd they grow rapacious, while their fangs

Strike at poor Memory; wounded she deplores

Her ravish'd joys and murmurs o'er the past."

(From"Addressed to Sensibility", Poems on Various Subjects (1787), 1-6)

http://www.english.upenn.edu/~curran/250-96/Sensibility/yearssen.html

That busy nurse allowed Ann Yearsley to be in touch with the most painful, and yet most beautiful, parts of herself. That busy nurse took her closer to her own heart, and created the gift of her poetry that remained centuries after her. She welcomed sensibility with open arms and poured it out for is all to see.

What is striking to me is that Ann Yearsley is not sitting at the door of her soul wondering whether or not Sensibility should enter. She is not inundated by questions and fears about being close to her feelings. She is such a stark contrast on how I have lived my life for so many years...

For many years I believed I could reason myself out of pain and sadness. I thought that the only acceptable feelings to have were humility and happiness for others. All other feelings were only acceptable if preceded by Don’t : Don’t be afraid; Don’t cry; Don’t desire. Don’t love yourself.

By the time I turned 38 years old, I had successfully denied myself to the point where I no longer wanted to be Me.

And so I succumbed to the only emptiness a soul deprived of her honest feelings knows: depression.

Depression made my busy nurse lay inside of me motionless and half dead. She no longer roamed free in my soul. She had forgotten how to tend to her feelings and to those around her.

Or was she too hurt to try? Perhaps my busy nurse had been bitten by those vicious serpents, which even to Ann Yearsley’s  amazement, her busy nurse still tried to feed:

"...Of Inj'ries once received, why wilt thou feed Those serpents in the soul? ..."

Those serpents in the soul are vicious! They lie deep inside all of us and have different names. Mine are called Regret and Shame: offspring of trauma and pain. And like Ann Yearsley, I tried to tear them out of me:

"I feel them here! They rend my panting breast,   But I will tear them thence: ah! effort vain! "

She is true to note that this effort is in vain. I can’t run away from the pain and horror if I want to find beauty and love.

But I couldn't face those snakes alone. Those snakes lay undisturbed inside of me until I found someone willing to hold my hand and walk though the terrifying land my heart had become. In the process of remembering and healing, I do feel those snakes are digging their fangs deeper:

"Disturb'd they grow rapacious, while their fangs Strike at poor Memory;

wounded she deplores Her ravish'd joys and murmurs o'er the past."

As I remember the loving moments and the sweet memories, the serpents of trauma and pain dig deeper and joyful memories give room to the things I once chose to forget, or were forgotten for me. However, with the help of my trusted guide, I learn to sort through the pain and keep what is beautiful.

Little by little, the better memories come together and get stronger.. Those serpents get tired of bitting and my busy nurse becomes immune to their venom. She gently awakes and swiftly goes back to work: healing my heart and bridging impossible gaps inside and outside of me.

Ann Yearsley’s busy nurse also managed to connect herself to her own heart and the heart of others. She spoke of a truth so undeniably powerful that it bridged impossible gaps in her time: educated men wanted to read her poems; women of a different classes were coming together to publish her work. She brought them all together in the name of something so fundamental and natural as the heart:

"Does Education give the transport keen, Or swell your vaunted grief? No, Nature feels Most poignant, undefended, hails with me The Pow'rs of Sensibility untaught. "

That untaught power of being close to her heart, even in the most difficult moments...that is what connects her poetry to my heart today, many centuries later. And that alone is what connects all of our hearts: our individual fragmented hearts and everyone’s collective heart...

All we need is the bravery to hail within us The Power’rs of Sensibility untaught.