And you know
too well
by now
the body’s
hesitation
at the invitation
to undo
everything
others seemed
to want to
make you learn.

But your edge
of darkness
has always
made
its own definition
secretly
as an edge of light

and the door
you closed
might,
by its very nature
be
one just waiting
to be leant against
and opened.

And happiness
might just
be a single step away,
on the other side
of that next
unhelpful
and undeserving
thought.

Your way home,
understood now,
not as an achievement,
but as a giving up,
a blessed undoing,
an arrival
in the body
and a full rest
in the give
and take
of the breath.

This living
breathing body
always waiting
to greet you
at the door,
always
no matter
the long years
you’ve been
away,
still
wanting you
to come home.

by David Whyte

Well, here we have a poem to inspire meditation if ever I found one. This verse bears repeating:
Your way home,
understood now,
not as an achievement,
but as a giving up,
a blessed undoing…

Practice is the refuge to which we can take our ‘edge of darkness.’ In the sanctuary of practice the parts of us we turn away from can find welcome (sometimes!). In the rhythmic breathing of mindful presence the darkness can, over and over be blessedly undone. The dear body, who has the extraordinary patience and loyalty to always, after everything, still want and wait for our return, might celebrate this arrival with warm easing and opening sensations.

The ‘edge of darkness’ in the early verses is spoken of by David Whyte with a gentle and redemptive acceptance. I love the idea that an edge of darkness is, by definition, also an edge of light.

The great paradox of practice though is that if now, on reading this, you set to with the blessed undoing in mind and turn it into a goal or measure of success, then you’ve coopted the gift that can only be received, the blessing that cannot be pursued, only bestowed. Watch for under the radar inner missions to manufacture or hunt out a good meditation. So, next time you sit how can you form an intention which undoes the aim to do the blessed undoing and instead surrenders to the flow of now?

One of my meditation teachers once said ‘How can you fall in love with your practice?’ I find joy in allowing myself to ask this question and for me this poem provides an answer.

Ps. If you’d like a weekly immersion in the experience of receiving the wisdom of poetry into meditation practice check out our six week Mindfulness meets Mystical Poetry online course beginning in May.

Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino on Unsplash

In the glare of neon times,
Let our eyes not be worn
By surfaces that shine
With hunger made attractive.

When we look into the heart,
May our eyes have the kindness
And reverence of candlelight.

That the searching of our minds
Be equal to the oblique
Crevices and corners where
The mystery continues to dwell,
Glimmering in fugitive light.

When we are confined inside
The dark house of suffering
That moonlight might find a window.

When we become false and lost
That the severe noon-light
Would cast our shadow clear.

When we love, that dawn-light
Would lighten our feet
Upon the waters.

As we grow old, that twilight
Would illuminate treasure
In the fields of memory.

And when we come to search for God,
Let us first be robed in night,
Put on the mind of morning
To feel the rush of light
Spread slowly inside
The colour and stillness
Of a found world.

by John O’Donohue

At this time of the year many celebrate the riches found in darkness, stillness and introspection, and turn towards inner light. John O’Donohue’s poem leads us through a kaleidoscope of inner and outer shades of light and shadow textures. Each verse offering a different hue and feel, and a different illuminating reflection.

Isn’t this a beautiful verse ‘When we look into our heart, May our eyes have the kindness, And reverence of candlelight.’ This inspires me to sit with a candle in the darkness and see how it feels to take this as guidance for my practice – to regard my own heart with kindness, yes, and with reverence. A potent antidote to the way we often treat ourselves, which for many holds some a degree of judgement or even disdain. I believe each and every heart deserves reverence and is a sacred landscape to explore. What gift might you find there?

A bulb quickens in the dark. The dark ‘minds the interior’ when growth is not yet visible and is potential not manifest. If we can take a bit of time to slow down and dwell here in the darkness, we may find the crevices where ‘The mystery continues to dwell, Glimmering in fugitive light’. Fugitive light! This must mean the light that is hard to capture or grasp. The elusive light that is shy of ‘the glare of neon times’. In these neon times (what a perfect way to describe them!), does the idea of taking a bit of time and space to tune out of neon light and connect with darkness, twilight, dawn or candlelight entice you? I think we all need a bit of this to set us to rights at this time of year. Could you gift this to yourself?

As for the last verse, I hesitate to say much. I think perhaps my own thoughts need to stay ‘fugitive’ and not be captured. But I invite you to soften into the ‘mind of morning’, and if your mind won’t go there, to feel your longing for that freshness. Longing is a place to be when you aren’t ‘there yet’. I sit with longing a lot these days and I experience it as a doorway to the heart. Does longing linger about you when you read this poem? If so, why not let that longing be a place to hang out in, with reverence?

Ps. There’s still time to book in for one of our practice days over the holiday season this winter. There are three to choose from Mindfulness Practice Days.

Photo by Umesh Soni on Unsplash

by Jan Richardson

A fitting poem for this dark time of the year here in the northern hemisphere, by the artist, writer, and ordained minister in the United Methodist Church Jan Richardson. As I look out into the dark and cold evening, I have a clear sense of why light has been such a powerful metaphor through the ages and across cultures, especially in parts of the world where there is a period in the year with not much of it. And so, particularly if 2021 has been a year you have experienced as a difficult one, I wish you much lightness and brightness in the one to come. And I’m curious about what possibilities and opportunities each of us have of ‘turning ourselves towards’ the light, of ‘lifting our faces to let it find us’ and opening more and more to it. And then to recognise those opportunities, and act on them…

PS And if you feel the possibility of practising together with others may help, there are a lot of opportunities for that! And if finances have been an obstacle in accessing the course you’d like to join, there’s a warm welcome to pay what you can. For more info see here!

Photo by Cristofer Maximilian on Unsplash

extends the wand of its slow
slant and distant squint
farthest into the long depths

of our wintry rooms–to touch with
tremulous light, interior places
it has not lit before.

by Robyn Sarah

As we are coming closer to the year’s shortest day, ‘Solstice’ felt like a fitting poem for this week. Both in my own home and in the Salisbury Centre where the Edinburgh Mindfulness Association courses take place, I really notice this farthest reaching of the sun’s rays into ‘the long depths of our wintry rooms’. I love the gift of light and warmth even more for its briefness, drinking in its every moment to weigh against the long dark.

But I also have a sense of an internal version of this truth of the world at our latitude. In dark and difficult times, a brief moment of kindness or compassion can reach deep, and sustain and strengthen more generously than when a similar gesture comes on brighter days. It can be a hug or a “how are you?” that’s actually open to the answer, or a dropping in of the question “what do I need to hear?” and listening to the response of our own caring heart. I noticed a message from the Samaritans on the back of my train ticket the other day, saying: “Small talk saves lives”. Same principle…

A recent example in my life of this, was a moment of lostness and despair where right in the midst of it, my hands founds their way to my own heart – like we are invited to do when practising for example the self-compassion break. My hands only stayed there for a brief minute, but the gesture conveyed a real showing up to and care for my moment of suffering. It softened the bitter into bittersweet and it eased me into the rest of the day, more open to other signs of kindness along the way.

I hope you don’t have too many of these dark moments in your life. But when you do, I hope the sunshine of care and love will shine deep, to ‘touch with tremulous light, interior places
it has not lit before’.

Go well,

Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash