Tag Archives: poetry

David Whyte and the Fire of Invitations

How many ways can you be invited to dive in?  How many questions can one Englishman, Jungian-esque genius poet ask a crowd of 300 people and evoke a sigh of truthful recognition? The reality check.  The just wakeup questions. The I can’t look away moment.  How many poems and stories about “the ecology of being human” can you take in and not feel like you are on the 5th consecutive TED talk by one of your favorite speakers and you need an out-breath?

“What is the most important conversation you aren’t having right now?”

“What are the conversations you shouldn’t be continuing to have anymore?”

“What promises are meant to be kept?

“What promise or promises should you be breaking?”

 

 

 

Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

~Mary Oliver

light shapes, heartscapes

The recent gestures of two people reminded me how simple acts of gratitude, generosity, and kindness connect us to our shared essential goodness, the inherent light within us. One gesture inspired the poem below. The other filled my palm with sea glass, followed by a heart-shaped stone. Both brought joy and helped me to remember that blessings are where we find or open to them, passing them back and forth, hand-to-hand, heart-to-heart.

sunbeam heart: “You are a beam of light, too.” (shared photo)

sunbeams and shadows
like stars cut through
the dark cloth of night,
all portals, parts of the universe
we embody as one

~love under a blue sky