When the storms of life
come bearing down
threatening to
lash you senseless,
seek shelter.
Find the warm
blanket you caress
like the felted fur
of your cat
curled before
a glowing hearth,
of breath that fills
both heart and earth.
Breathe.
There’s always time
to curse the darkness.
After the tears,
light a honeycomb candle
and heal your own sun.
The bridge
from sorrow to joy
may seem to vanish
in the flood,
but who says you
can’t join those
who cross over,
with a single
braided rope
of gratitude.
by Nadine Pinede
What really helps, when ‘the storms of life come bearing down’? What supports us to dig deep to find the resilience to keep going and find new goodness in the eventual aftermath – or even in the thick of it? From reading a bit about Nadine Pinede’s life on her website, I have the sense that she has distilled her life experience into the wisdom that has important things to say on this topic – and this poem offers some powerful hints. Warmth, breath, lighting a candle – and: crossing over from sorrow to joy with ‘a single braided rope of gratitude’. Wow!
And immediately the question: where to find gratitude in the midst of the storms? How to braid a rope out of the thread that might be there? I guess the first and most important thing is to know to look in the direction of gratitude – and then to practice so it grows!
Photo by Nikita Ivanov on Unsplash