there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody’s asleep.
I say, I know that you’re there,
so don’t be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he’s singing a little
in there, I haven’t quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it’s nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don’t
weep, do
you?

by Charles Bukowski

This poem came to me in one of those moments that stand out as transcendent. I was bumbling along in my day, and then out of nowhere there was a moment that seemed luminous and timeless, before the bumbling along resumed. Have you had any such moments?

In this case I was standing in a bookshop, listening to the poem being read to me by the shop keeper. We had been chatting about poetry and I’d asked him what his favourite poem of the moment was. Reading me Bluebird was his answer. I listened rapt, and heard the words in his voice, with his feeling coming through them. It brought tears to my eyes, for all the bluebirds within us all, usually hidden beneath the layers of toughness and self-protection. But paradoxically, in that moment, our two bluebirds were both ‘singing a little’ in the sharing of the poem and I knew we were both hearing them.

Moments like this are truly ‘poetic’. What I mean by this is that perhaps there is a poetry to life, if we have the presence to be there for it, the eyes to see it and the heart to appreciate it. Basho, the Japanese haiku poet said ‘Seen truly all things are poetic’. I wonder about seeing with poetic eyes, the eyes that don’t pass over life and instead fully receive the mystery, wonder and teaching in everything. And this may include all the feels – from the gritty realism of a city backstreet to the serenity of a moonrise, from cooking at home in the kitchen, to an overwhelmingly sacred moment like meeting your newborn.

Perhaps there is a great risk to living poetically – the same risk as the one that would allow the bluebird to be free and seen. It is undefended and this is scary, even terrifying. And yet it’s what we all long for. Let’s embrace this contradiction and start where we are – in loving the poetry of our defended selves, like Charles Bukowski does.

Ps. If you’d like to engage with poetry mindfully and experiment with living life poetically check out these two Mindfulness Meets Mystical Poetry opportunities: a online day retreat on 4^th July and a 6 week evening course beginning in November.

Photo by Vijayalakshmi Nidugondi on Unsplash

by Holly J. Hughes

This image of not being able to see the open door and therefore believing in the perceived limitations of captivity, has always felt both poignant and a bit tragic to me because it doesn’t have to be that way. Of course a bee buzzing against the window is not exactly tragic, but where am I doing the same, caught in the grip of limiting emotions when I could be awake to their arising and passing without losing the bigger perspective and freedom of choice?

So much grief and heartache comes from being caught in our illusionary limitations, in our stories of lack and resentment and the illusion that if only I buzz hard enough, I’ll get to where I think I want to be.

And then the wonder when the penny finally drops and though seemingly nothing has changed, there is peace and ease in a relationship where before there was strife, or a sense of freedom inside where before there was tightness… and all that strife seems an innocent misunderstanding. Do you know what I mean, have you experienced it too?

I think this is what the poet Holly J. Hughes is struck by when witnessing the bee stuck in her hut while the door is open in the early morning. I don’t know what help exactly would be useful for the bee, but for me I know that practice and the willingness to turn towards what’s here even when it’s deeply uncomfortable, can lead to an insightful clarity which offers freedom and flow and the connectedness I previously just longed for. Every reason to continue the practice, then!

PS We practice creating the causes and conditions for this greater freedom from suffering in the Level 3: Seeing deeply course…

Photo by Paolo Nicolello on Unsplash

Your digital eyes look into mine.
I change at Farringdon and I have changed.

Touched by you, my skin is kozo tissue,
my hair rose perfumed ink,

My eyelids are gold leaf.
The woman on my right,

reflected in the window opposite,
takes on the stillness of an icon,

The boy across the way
lifts his cheek to be pure marble

sculpted in living light. Together,
we travel on into the night,

all of us grown precious,
each of us alive and rare.

by Imtiaz Dharker
Have you ever experienced a moment where everything seems to shine as if luminous? Maybe when sitting looking out at a city scene or when looking at an expansive view of mountains or the sea, or when watching children playing…

Imtiaz Dharker, who is a Pakistan-born British poet, artist and video film maker, experiences such a moment through an intimacy with loss. Somehow the awareness of life’s transience brings an acute, luminous, extra-ordinary quality to her perception, as if, I imagine, the air in the tube were charged with effervescence.

We trundle along most of the time in a trance characterised by narrow, calcified tracks of habitual thinking. But, once in a while, something cuts through this and the world springs into magnificent life almost like it’s super-charged.

This can be catalysed by intense life events, spiritual buildings – like cathedrals (stained glass windows evoke this quality I think), poetry, art, films and natural beauty. But it can also become more available in our lives through mindful presence and heart opening compassion.

Ps. If you’d like to taste how poetry can evoke mindfulness and open heartedness, check out these two upcoming opportunities:

• Mindfulness meets Mystical Poetry 6 week course (May)
• Mindfulness meets Mystical Poetry 6 week course (September)

And if you’d like to begin your mindfulness journey at the beginning, try our Level 1 Being Present course.

Photo by Jacek Dylag on Unsplash

then —

why spend a moment more refusing,
worrying about who might disapprove,
measuring every move
as if there is some fixed formula you must
find? Why hold tight to anything?

Why not, instead, love every honeyed drop of yourself,
why not leap into life—belly-laughing
and light, light like the soft kiss of moonlight,
light like the light that you are,
have always been, will always be—

why not take this quickly passing day
by the hand and dance
like there’s no tomorrow? And if you’re too tired
to dance, why not rest lightly here
just as you are?

by Julia Fehrenbacher

I remember as a teenager the Christmas speech of the Dutch queen including the following sentence: “It is the approach of death that makes life even more precious”. It was the first time that this idea landed with me and it hasn’t left me since, although there have been times it’s been more, or less, in the foreground.

Recent events of loved ones being closer to that passage into the great unknown, have brought it very close to home again, and so the poem by the wonderful mindful poet Julia Fehrenbacher struck a clear chord. And the poignancy of the first lines touches my heart directly – it’s real, and it includes absolutely everyone I know and love… It also made me smile to see the link with the poem Fay shared a while ago: The Dakini Speaks. Same theme, different tone of voice, similar invitation: to dance!

Or to rest. And I don’t find it easy to value rest as much as ‘dancing’, or doing in some way… and I think I may not be alone here. Recently I’ve received no less than three recommendations for the book Rest as Resistance by Tricia Hersey, you’d almost think the universe is trying to tell me something! I guess it’s the same principle that leads many people to struggle prioritising practice: it seems like doing nothing, and therefore can’t be much valuable or important. But what if dancing and resting was like the in- and outbreath, and a full, well-lived life included a good balance of both… indeed, why not?!

PS if you’d like to explore how to live well so that in time we can die well, there’s a course on that very topic, you can read more about it here…

Photo by Maksym Kaharlytskyi on Unsplash

Three hours of work on the last chapter
Friends I thought I had for life
The golden cross pendant my godmother gave me
Faith in God
Frequently, my equanimity

I almost lost:

The way out of the woods
My passport and smartphone at the Dutch tulip show
My virginity before I was ready
Three months’ earnings when I was mugged
Consciousness

I could easily lose:

The ability to walk down hills
More of my teeth
The man I will marry next month
The German names of birds
My sanity

No doubt I will lose:

My life and identity
My possessions
My achievements
My family and friends
Anything ‘me’ and ‘mine’

What cannot be lost:

a black-and-white cat
stalking the edge of the field
ready to pounce

by Ratnadevi

An intriguing poem by Ratnadevi – mindfulness teacher, poet, painter and author of the book Bringing Mindfulness to Life (which I highly recommend, by the way, as probably the most alive and relatable-to books on mindfulness that I have read, and I’m not the only one who thinks that). It’s an evocative mix of ingredients, which made me curious about what I would have written to these topics. But the last one in particular really left me pondering. Why did she name this seemingly random moment with the black-and-white cat as that which cannot be lost? Because it although it can be found, it cannot be owned as it’s life itself, happening right there at the edge of the field?

I can only guess. But it leaves me curious about what can be found but not held on to in this moment, and the next. Perhaps… everything?

PS if you’re curious to explore the magic of meeting life as it’s flowing, the Being Present course might be a good place to start…

Photo by Irene Strong on Unsplash