I often refer to the poems on this page in my work because they hold a special place in my heart. The messages are powerful and have been life-changing for me…perhaps, they will provide an opportunity for you to see life through a new perspective as well.
Edges
This poem brings comfort and peace to my soul. Even though a part of me would often like to know more details in certain situations, I can count on one of these two things to happen. It is a choice grounded in faith.
When we walk to the edge
of all the light we have
and take the step into the
darkness of the unknown,
we must believe one of
two things will happen –
There will be something solid
for us to stand on,
or we will be taught
how to fly.
~ Claire Morris
For a New Beginning
This poem is a “yes” to life honoring a person’s process and the possibilities that lie ahead…
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
~ John O’Donohue
(To Bless the Space Between Us)
The Invitation
I appreciate the depth of this poem and the invitation to go deep within as the inquiry “I want to know “ unfolds.
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love,
for your dream,
for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow,
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shriveled and closed
from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain,
mine or your own,
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy,
mine or your own,
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful,
to be realistic,
to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself;
if you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul;
if you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty
even when it’s not pretty
every day,
and if you can source your own life
from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure,
yours and mine,
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes!”
It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up,
after the night of grief and despair,
weary and bruised to the bone,
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the center of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.
© Mountaindreaming, from the book The Invitation published by HarperSanFrancisco, 1999 All rights reserved
The Journey
“You knew what you had to do…determined to do the only thing you could do – determined to save the only life you could save.”
If you do not honor your own soul, who will?
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice –
though the whole house began to tremble
“Mend my life!” each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy was terrible.
It was already late enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own,
that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world, determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save the only life you could save.
~ Mary Oliver
I Will Not Die An Unlived Life
A beautiful invitation to live fully making conscious choices…
I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible;
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
~ Dawna Markova
