Courage, by David Whyte

Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work; a future.  To be courageous is not necessarily to go anywhere or do anything except to make conscious those things we already feel deeply and then to live through the unending vulnerabilities of those consequences.  To be courageous is to seat our feelings deeply in the body and in the world: to live up to and into the necessities of relationships that often already exist, with things we find we already care deeply about: with a person, a future, a possibility in society, or with an unknown that begs us on and always has begged us on.  To be courageous is to stay close to the way we are made.

On the inside we come to know who and what and how we love and what we can do to deepen that love; only from the outside and only by looking back, does it look like courage.

-- from David Whyte's essay "Courage", from the book Consolations

(The word 'courage' comes from the French word 'coeur'.  Heart.)

I Said to the Wanting Creature, by Kabir

I Said to the Wanting Creature

I said to the wanting-creature inside me:
What is this river you want to cross?
There are no travelers on the river-road, and no road.
Do you see anyone moving about on that bank, or nesting?
There is no river at all, and no boat, and no boatman.
There is no tow rope either, and no one to pull it.
There is no ground, no sky, no time, no bank, no ford!

And there is nobody, and no mind!
Do you believe there is some place that will make the
soul less thirsty?
In that great absence, you will find nothing.

Be strong then, and enter into your own body;
there you have a solid place for your feet.
Think about it carefully!
Don't go off somewhere else!

Kabir says this: just throw away all thoughts of imaginary
things,
and stand firm in that which you are.
 

I Said to the Wanting Creature, by Kabir, trans. Robert Bly

Cutting Loose, by William Stafford

Cutting Loose

Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason,
you sing. For no reason,
you accept
the way of being lost, cutting loose
from all else and electing
a world
where you go where you want to.
Arbitrary, a sound comes, a
reminder
that a steady center is holding
all else. If you listen, that
sound
will tell you where it is and you
can slide your way past
trouble.
Certain twisted monsters
always bar the path—but that’s
when
you get going best, glad to be lost,
learning how real it is
here
on earth, again and again.

Cutting Loose, by William Stafford

Leaves and Blossoms Along the Way

Leaves and Blossoms Along the Way

If you're John Muir you want trees to
live among.  If you're Emily, a garden
will do.
Try to find the right place for yourself.
If you can't find it, at least dream of it.

When one is alone and lonely, the body
gladly lingers in the wind or the rain,
or splashes into the cold river, or
pushes through the ice-crusted snow.

Anything that touches.

God, or the gods, are invisible, quite
understandable.  But holiness is visible,
entirely.

Some words will never leave God's mouth,
no matter how hard you listen.

In all the works of Beethoven, you will
not find a single lie.

All important ideas must include the trees,
the mountains, and the rivers.

To understand many things you must reach out
of your own condition.

For how many years did I wander slowly
through the forest.  What wonder and
glory I would have missed had I ever been
in a hurry!

Beauty can both shout and whisper, and still
it explains nothing.

The point is, you're you, and that's for keeps.

-- Mary Oliver
from the collection "Felicity"

paradise, by Teresa Williams

paradise

is the moment
you realize
you've never been
apart from it

it is the bookstore
on Tuesdays   scent of scones
and word blossoms
it is the dahlia    autumn lantern
the warm mug in your hand
it is all this exchanging
of light   hello and goodbye and
how are you

it is the decision you make
to let it all in

the rainbows    the dead crow
the hurt knee
a black cloud in the face
your incapacities    your strengths
hurricanes and earthquakes
even deep down pain
the kind that wants to hide
behind hate

when
everything belongs
paradise
isn't somewhere else

it is here
it is us

it is loving
Life itself.

-- Teresa Williams

The Quiet Power

The Quiet Power

I walked backwards, against time
and that’s where I caught the moon,
singing at me.

I steeped downwards, into my seat
and that’s where I caught freedom,
waiting for me, like a lilac.

I ended thought, and I ended story.
I stopped designing, and arguing, and
sculpting a happy life.

I didn’t die. I didn’t turn to dust.

Instead I chopped vegetables,
and made a calm lake in me
where the water was clear and sourced and still.

And when the ones I loved came to it,
I had something to give them, and
it offered them a soft road out of pain.

I became beloved.

And I came to know that this was it.
The quiet power.
I could give something mighty, lasting,
that stopped the wheel of chaos,

by tending to the river inside,
keeping the water rich and deep,
keeping a bench for you to visit.

Leaves of Grass

This is what you shall do; Love the earth, and sun, and the animals.... dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far.  It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere-- on water and land.

Do I contradict myself?  Very well, then, I contradict myself.
I am large-- I contain multitudes.

-- Walt Whitman