Now of all voyagers I remember, who among them
Did not board ship with grief among their maps?
Till it seemed men never go somewhere, they only leave
Wherever they are, when the dying begins.

For myself, I find my wanting life
Implores no novelty and no disguise of distance:
Where, in what country, might I put down these thoughts,
Who still am citizen of this fallen city?

On a cot by an open window, I lie and remember
While the birds in the trees sing of the circle of time.
Let the dying go on, and let me, if I can
Inherit from disaster before I move.

O, I go to see the great ships ride from harbor,
And my wounds leap with impatience; yet I turn back
To sort the weeping ruins of my house:
Here or nowhere I will make peace with the fact.

by Mary Oliver

Against the backdrop of spring, we accompany American poet Mary Oliver on her cot by the open window. Lying there, listening to birdsong, she – and we through her – connect with the infinite; to the countless moments since time immemorial, when one human or another has meditated in the sweet company of the birds.
Lying there Mary entertains the mind’s antics, contemplating the human compulsion to try to escape from grief, disaster and dying. With remarkable surety she is not swayed. She has enough insight to know that what Tara Brach calls ‘True Refuge’ can only be found by staying present and making ‘peace with the fact’; allowing the truths of life to be just that, true.

So much of the time, at the first twinge of discomfort we head straight to the harbour and jump on a boat heading for the horizon. We each have a repertoire of ways to not remain here when the going gets tough. When we ricochet into ‘False Refuges’ – addictions, technology or any habit that promises something nice initially but drains or disconnects us in the long run, we abandon the moment, ourselves, others we love or would like to respect, and reality as it is.

Mary Oliver recognises this deeply. She is resolved to stay to ‘sort the weeping ruins of her house’ even though her ‘wounds are leaping with impatience’. ‘Wherever you go, there you are’ says the grandfather of mindfulness, Jon Kabat-Zinn or in Mary’s words ‘Where, in what country, might I put down these thoughts?’ Having the insight, tenacity and compassion to do this is no small feat, but the rewards are great.

What can we inherit from disaster? I find I’m often able to ask this question in the midst of the disaster! Standing there even in the thick of it, I already know and trust that there’s a gift somewhere hidden in this apparent wreckage. This doesn’t sugarcoat anything, and it doesn’t make life nicer. But it does feel real, and in my experience feeling real, is often better than feeling nice. Feeling nice can have a fragility to it, you somehow know it’s shaky ground, somewhere you are twisting yourself out of shape in order to resist the truth. Feeling real is connection. It is alignment with truth, and it brings resilience. You are with life rather than against it.

And this, of course, is the promise of mindfulness training and practice.

Ps. Do you feel inspired to develop the skill of ‘being real’ in order to find true resilience? Come along to our free live guided twice daily meditations on Zoom to start your journey, or sign up for an in-depth progressive training in mindfulness here.

by Maria Popova

Maria Popova wrote this poem as a collage, in a fascinating way. She has created one hundred others too, all named after birds. This is how she did it as a kind of divination: she read about the bird before bed, in the night the words would be swirled through her unconscious in dreams and then on waking reshuffled beside the ‘daily perplexity of living’, into a kind of poem-message.

This one speaks of the alchemy of sadness. Coming from a culture and upbringing where tears are thought to be a sign of something wrong, my heart swells with this opportunity to ‘enter into’ the crucible of sadness. As a mindfulness teacher and coach, I know without hesitation, that sadness, much of the time, is a kind of medicine for untangling our inner knots. We travel through the self-judgement and the tight muscles, and when we find the tears, something shifts and there’s a lift where before there was heaviness. Tears release valves which the rational thinking ‘get on with it’ parts of us like to keep closed. This brings relaxation, letting go and a gentle return to ourselves.

And yet if I let go of professional roles for a moment, I notice that, as a human being, I still find that avoiding tears and holding things in is one of my deepest habitual patterns.

I think this is why this poem is so touching for me – it invites me to where I know, at heart, that I long to go more and more. I know the beauty of tears. They can connect us with the tenderest truths in ourselves, in others and in life. The tender truths of love and loss, of vulnerability and openness, of hurt and of wonder. And under it all it’s the ever-present weave of connection, care and compassion that is touched. Sadness is a path to realness – to our ultimately defenceless position as human beings in this storm of life. But here’s the alchemy – it’s not only this, it’s simultaneously a path deeper into our miraculous heart that can defy circumstance, and that can go on growing into a ‘great globe of being that cannot but glow’ despite it all.

Ps. If you want to connect with the wonder and realness of your own life more deeply, while also embracing the ‘perplexity of daily life’, have a look at our Wonder of the Every Day course which begins in the new year – it’s a beautiful way to start afresh.

Photo by Transly Translation Agency on Unsplash

At times I wish I could crawl in,
Because there are things
No one should bear alone.
I have to trust
That holding
Is enough.

At the end of the day,
I set the bowl down,
Returning it to something
Or someone
Who holds us all.

by Martha Postlethwaite

At times, we all walk at the cliff edges of pain. I first read this poem when feeling close to overwhelm at the pain of someone dear to me. It was a tonic. When I imagined listening to the pain in this way, receiving it in my ‘beautiful bowl’, it felt very tender, like honouring the pain as precious. This helped me to stay with it, rather than rejecting the pain to protect myself.

The power of listening and presence, rather than answers and advice, is something I’ve come to trust profoundly. I find that if I’m able to receive someone’s truth into the bowl of my listening, I learn more and more deeply what it is to be human. This is a great privilege. It is humbling and awakens the heart.

I still notice though, that I can have a habit of carrying the burden of pain, whether my own or a dear one’s, more than is necessary. I also hear a lot, especially of late, of how people are holding the pain in the world as a burden.

For me pain can get into my shoulders and jaw, chest and arms, showing up as tightness. The last stanza of the poem feels essential, but putting the bowl down is easier said than done. I imagine putting it down and there is a whisp of lightness, but the tightness is still there. Perhaps those who feel this, like me, are going to need to commit to a long, slow road of teaching our body/mind/heart to put down the burdens. So, this is a stanza to take with me as a mantra, to return to in my practice and to nurture as aspiration.

I’ll close with a little quote which I think is so very poignant. It points to the essential goodness of human beings, that we often miss if we forget ‘the bowl’. It is from Martha Postlethwaite’s book that contains the above poem Addiction and Recovery – A Spiritual Pilgrimage:

‘Once a person tells you their story, it is hard to see anything other than beauty.’

Ps. If you’d like to learn more about how to bring poetry into your mindfulness and compassion practice, take mantras from poetry to live out in your life and absorb the wisdom in both ancient and modern poetry, come along to our Mindfulness meets Mystical Poetry course beginning at the end of October.

Photo by Esra Afşar on Unsplash

Sometimes it feels so inadequate
to offer you a poem, a prayer,
the small light of a candle,
a hammock woven only of blessings.

Still, as you meet these difficult hours
I wish you the peace of the amber field,
wish you the rose quartz of dawn.

Because it’s what I can do, I offer you poems,
prayers, the small flame of a candle, and
a hammock of blessings woven with dark, with light.

by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

I often find myself listening to people speaking about the ‘difficult hours’ of their life (or difficult days, months, years, for that matter), and feeling so moved by their suffering I wish I could offer all that Rosemerry speaks of in this poem. And yet so often I feel emptyhanded and inadequate in the face of what I see, despite this heart’s yearning to reach out and alleviate that pain somehow…

Recently, we explored the Self-Compassion Break during the Compassion in Action weekend, and after mindfully acknowledging the difficult situation, sensing into the shared humanity of struggle, I asked the question: what could kindness look like here?

One of the participants shared a helpful further question to that: does this long to be “helped,” “heard,” or hugged?” Looking into this further through a little wander into the world wide web, it seems a lot of people are finding this a useful question and are taking it into a range of situations. It looks like it originated from an article written by Jancee Dunn titled “When Someone You Love Is Upset, Ask This One Question”, but it’s traveled far and wide since, including into Sesame Street – which must mean it’s helpful! It certainly has the potential to shortcut the habitual fixing version of helping, and already the openness to enquire in this way can be a gift of true responsiveness.

And of course maybe even offering help, hearing or hugging is not available. Luckily there’s always the possibility of poems, prayers, the small flame of a candle, and a hammock of blessings woven with dark, with light…

Photo by Fulvio Ciccolo on Unsplash