​Nearer to the earth’s heart,
Deeper within its silence:
Animals know this world
In a way we never will.

We who are ever
Distanced and distracted
By the parade of bright
Windows thought opens:
Their seamless presence
Is not fractured thus.

Stranded between time
Gone and time emerging,
We manage seldom
To be where we are:
Whereas they are always
Looking out from
The here and now.

May we learn to return
And rest in the beauty
Of animal being,
Learn to lean low,
Leave our locked minds,
And with freed senses
Feel the earth
Breathing with us.

May we enter
Into lightness of spirit,
And slip frequently into
The feel of the wild.
Let the clear silence
Of our animal being
Cleanse our hearts
Of corrosive words.
​
May we learn to walk
Upon the earth
With all their confidence
And clear-eyed stillness
So that our minds
Might be baptized
In the name of the wind
And the light and the rain.

    - John O'Donohue

​Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,

between “green thread”
and “broccoli” you find
that you have penciled “sunlight.”

Resting on the page, the word
is beautiful. It touches you
as if you had a friend

and sunlight were a present
he had sent you from some place distant
as this morning—to cheer you up

and to remind you that,
among your duties, pleasure
is a thing

that also needs accomplishing.
Do you remember
that time and light are kinds

of love, and love
is no less practical
than a coffee grinder

or a safe spare tire?
Tomorrow you may be utterly
without a clue

but today you get a telegram,
from the heart in exile
proclaiming that the kingdom

still exists,
the king and queen alive,
still speaking to their children,

—to any one among them
who can find the time,
to sit out in the sun and listen.

    - Tony Hoagland

There will come a time when you know
you cannot be understood.
And you will open your hands,
curled fingers sliding into grace,
and you will let the wind blow away every seed
that wanted to be good.

You will know that to speak up,
to own your preferences, silliness, brilliance and delight,
it will cost you everything
you've known so far.

This is sure.

Take heart,
you are becoming real.

The goal is no longer to make certain the boat doesn't take on water
because you've rocked it a bit too much.
You are the ocean, for god's sake.

There will come a time when you know
the vines grown around your throat must be cut,
when you must unbind your pelvis and thighs
and unleash your wild no.

You will know that your hair cannot be 
compliant and well behaved,
a feral mane moving in waves,
straight lines denying the holy ruckus inside.

Nice no longer works.

What have you said yes to in this lifetime?
What is yours to be?

Great Mother holds your warm, round face in her hands
and says, "Free."
And you know it has always been true.

There will come a time when fear will be a too-small shoe
and being misunderstood
right-sized.
All your gold-plated judgments will fly away,
birds that fathom nothing of bad or wrong.

You will know that slow, deep and in
is the unsung path, the only way left after all the
trying to be shiny.

This will turn everything to tears or fire. Mostly both.

The womb of the oak is down.
Roots and soil, blood and bone.
There is no mountain, no method, no modality.

This is the slow gestation of Love.

    - Jessica Browning

​once
i saw my grandmother hold out
her hand cupping a small offering
of seed to one of the wild sparrows
that frequented the bird bath she
filled with fresh water every day

she stood still
maybe stopped breathing
while the sparrow looked
at her, then the seed
then back as if he was
judging her character

he jumped into her hand
began to eat
she smiled

a woman holding
a small god
​
    - Richard Vargas

So I can’t save the world--
can’t save even myself,
can’t wrap my arms around
every frightened child, can’t
foster peace among nations,
can’t bring love to all who
feel unlovable.
So I practice opening my heart
right here in this room and being gentle
with my insufficiency. I practice
walking down the street heart first.
And if it is insufficient to share love,
I will practice loving anyway.
I want to converse about truth,
about trust. I want to invite compassion
into every interaction.
One willing heart can’t stop a war.
One willing heart can’t feed all the hungry.
And sometimes, daunted by a task too big,
I tell myself what’s the use of trying?
But today, the invitation is clear:
to be ridiculously courageous in love.
To open the heart like a lilac in May,
knowing freeze is possible
and opening anyway.
To take love seriously.
To give love wildly.
To race up to the world
as if I were a puppy,
adoring and unjaded,
stumbling on my own exuberance.
To feel the shock of indifference,
of anger, of cruelty, of fear,
and stay open. To love as if it matters,
as if the world depends on it.

    - Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

​I no longer pray— 
now I drink dark chocolate 
and let the moon sing to me.

I no longer pray--
I let my ancestors dance 
through my hips
at the slightest provocation.

I no longer pray--
I go to the river
and howl my ancient pain 
into the current.

I no longer pray--
I ache, I desire,
I say “yes” to my longing.

I no longer pray as I was taught
but as the stars crawl
onto my lap like soft animals at nighttime 
and God tucks my hair behind my ears 
with the gentle fingers of her wind
and a new intimacy is uncovered in everything,
perhaps it's that I’m finally learning 
how to pray.

    - Chelan Harkin

​Up ahead it’s white. Snow animal,
I’m running at your back. I’ve failed to tell you
I’ve been hungry all this time, to tell you
I’ve been searching for you, like meat,
like water. All my life, I’ve distanced
myself. As if to know you was to drown.
As if to find you I’d usher myself further
from what is real. I’ve been adrift along
the threads of time leading me out
beyond an imagined frame. I’ve untied myself,
uncuffed the arms and neck. I didn’t know
I was hurt like that. I didn’t know
there was a force pulling me downward
toward a bedrock, lulling me to sleep.
You are the one escaping, you are the one
breaking free. I understand your astonishing
dash to freedom, done with the estranged wind,
done with frost and storm, orchids curling
outward beyond grief. The road widens
to glory. The road disappears.

​    - Tina Chang

​Let’s forget the world for a while
fall back and back
into the hush and holy
of now

are you listening? This breath
invites you
to write the first word
of your new story

your new story begins with this:
You matter

you are needed—empty
and naked
willing to say yes
and yes and yes

Do you see
the sun shines, day after day
whether you have faith
or not
the sparrows continue
to sing their song
even when you forget to sing
yours

stop asking: Am I good enough?
Ask only
Am I showing up
with love?
​
Life is not a straight line
it’s a downpour of gifts, please--
hold out your hand
​
    - Julia Fehrenbacher

You there.
Have you forgotten something?
Something about choosing?
Look around: is this the world you promised yourself?

I want to know who you could become
if the conditions were just right.
I want to know the you that's possible
with just enough thunder
and just enough sun.

Who taught you the human smile,
and did it ever land
in the living tissues of your human heart
beating miracles for free--
or is your face always onstage?

When you speak do you hear that one
as the oldest friend
since your microcosmic firework of conception,
which made creatures of the earth and sky alike
shudder with jollity and not know why,

or does your own voice
still sound to you like a stranger?
I want to know if you need permission
to arrive home right now
into your body longing to learn you.

Do you know breath as always a holy door?
Who are you when you breathe
down deep, at last allowed to feel it all,
and your hair bursts into flame, and you remember:

we don't choose once and it's over,
but are asked to re-engage in every instant.
Look around: this very world
needs your arrival now, like sun
and like thunder, now and now and now.

​    - Brooke McNamara