{"id":28,"date":"2014-05-13T22:45:23","date_gmt":"2014-05-13T22:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/?page_id=28"},"modified":"2020-02-14T08:07:27","modified_gmt":"2020-02-14T14:07:27","slug":"collected-poetry","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/collected-poetry\/","title":{"rendered":"Collected Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to subscribe to my blog<\/a><\/p>\n

The Way It Is<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a thread you follow. It goes among
\nthings that change. But it doesn\u2019t change.
\nPeople wonder about what you are pursuing.
\nYou have to explain to them about the thread.
\nBut it is hard for others to see.
\nWhile you hold it you can\u2019t get lost.
\nTragedies happen; people get hurt
\nor die; and you suffer and get old.
\nNothing you do can stop time\u2019s unfolding.
\nYou don\u2019t ever let go of the thread.<\/p>\n

\u2014 William Stafford<\/em><\/p>\n

Though your destination is not yet clear
\nYou can trust the promise of this opening;
\nUnfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
\nThat is at one with your life’s desire.<\/p>\n

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
\nHold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
\nSoon you will be home in a new rhythm,
\nFor your soul senses the world that awaits you.<\/p>\n

\u2014 John O’Donohue<\/em><\/p>\n

Wild Geese<\/strong><\/p>\n

You do not have to be good.
\nYou do not have to walk on your knees
\nfor a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
\nYou only have to let the soft animal of your body
\nlove what it loves.
\nTell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
\nMeanwhile, the world goes on.
\nMeanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
\nare moving across the landscapes,
\nover the prairies and the deep trees,
\nthe mountains and the rivers.
\nMeanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
\nare heading home again.
\nWhoever you are, no matter how lonely,
\nthe world offers itself to your imagination,
\ncalls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting \u2013
\nover and over announcing your place
\nin the family of things.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Mary Oliver<\/em><\/p>\n

The Journey<\/strong><\/p>\n

Above the mountains
\nthe geese turn into
\nthe light again
\npainting their
\nblack silhouettes
\non an open sky.
\nSometimes everything
\nhas to be
\nenscribed across
\nthe heavens
\nso you can find
\nthe one lie
\nalready written
\ninside you.
\nSometimes it takes
\na great sky
\nto find that
\nsmall, bright
\nand indescribable
\nwedge of freedom
\nin your own heart.
\nSometimes with
\nthe bones of the black
\nsticks left when the fire
\nhas gone out
\nsomeone has written
\nsomething new
\nin the ashes
\nof your life.
\nYou are not leaving
\nyou are arriving.<\/p>\n

\u2014 David Whyte, in The House of Belonging<\/em><\/p>\n

You Darkness<\/strong><\/p>\n

You darkness from which I come,
\nI love you more than all the fires
\nthat fence out the world,
\nfor the fire makes a circle
\nfor everyone
\nso that no one sees you anymore.
\nBut darkness holds it all:
\nthe shape and the flame,
\nthe animal and myself,
\nhow it holds them,
\nall powers, all sight\u2014
\nand it is possible: its great strength
\nis breaking into my body.
\nI have faith in the night.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by David Whyte, in Fire in the Earth<\/em><\/p>\n

I will not die an unlived life.
\nI will not live in fear
\nof falling or catching fire.
\nI choose to inhabit my days,
\nto allow my living to open me,
\nto make me less afraid,
\nmore accessible,
\nto loosen my heart
\nuntil it becomes a wing,
\na torch, a promise.
\nI choose to risk my significance
\nto live
\nso that which came to me as seed
\ngoes to the next as blossom
\nand that which came
\nto me as blossom,
\ngoes on as fruit.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Dawna Markova<\/em><\/p>\n

The Guesthouse <\/strong><\/p>\n

This being human is a guest house.
\nEvery morning a new arrival.
\nA joy, a depression, a meanness,
\nsome momentary awareness comes
\nas an unexpected visitor.
\nWelcome and entertain them all!
\nEven if they\u2019re a crowd of sorrows,
\nwho violently sweep your house
\nempty of its furniture,
\nstill, treat each guest honorably.
\nHe may be clearing you out
\nfor some new delight.
\nThe dark thought, the shame, the malice,
\nmeet them at the door laughing,
\nand invite them in.
\nBe grateful for whoever comes,
\nbecause each has been sent
\nas a guide from beyond.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Rumi, in The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks<\/em><\/p>\n

What I Must Tell Myself<\/strong> (excerpt)<\/p>\n

When you are alone
\nyou must do anything
\nto believe
\nand when you are
\nabandoned
\nyou must speak
\nwith everything
\nyou know
\nand everything you are
\nin order
\nto belong.<\/p>\n

\u2014 David Whyte, in The House of Belonging<\/em>
\n\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Four Quartets, East Coker<\/strong> (excerpt)<\/p>\n

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
\nWhich shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
\nThe lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
\nWith a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness
\non darkness,
\nAnd we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
\nAnd the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away\u2014
\nOr as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too
\nlong between stations
\nAnd the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence
\nAnd you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
\nLeaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
\nOr when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious
\nof nothing\u2014
\nI said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
\nFor hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
\nFor love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
\nBut the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
\nWait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
\nSo the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
\nWhisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
\nThe wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
\nThe laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
\nNot lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
\nOf death and rebirth. . . .
\nIn order to arrive there,
\nTo arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
\nYou must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
\nIn order to arrive at what you do not know
\nYou must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
\nIn order to possess what you do not possess
\nYou must go by way of dispossession.
\nIn order to arrive at what you are not
\nYou must go through the way in which you are not.
\nAnd what you do not know is the only thing you know
\nAnd what you own is what you do not own
\nAnd where you are is where you are not.<\/p>\n

\u2014 T. S. Eliot<\/em><\/p>\n

Enough<\/strong><\/p>\n

Enough. These few words are enough.
\nIf not these words, this breath.
\nIf not this breath, this sitting here.
\nThis opening to the life
\nwe have refused
\nagain and again
\nuntil now.
\nUntil now.<\/p>\n

\u2014 David Whyte, in Where Many Rivers Meet<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWanda\u201d Walking Wounded<\/strong> (excerpt)<\/p>\n

We think we get over things.
\nWe don\u2019t get over things.
\nOr say, we get over the measles
\nbut not a broken heart.
\nWe need to make that distinction.
\nThe things that become part of our experience
\nNever become less a part of our experience.
\nHow can I say it?
\nThe way to get over a life is to die,
\nShort of that, you move with it,
\nlet the pain be pain,
\nnot in the hope that it will vanish
\nbut in the faith that it will fit in,
\nfind its place in the shape of things,
\nand be then not any less pain
\nbut true to form.
\nBecause anything natural has an
\ninherent shape and will flow towards it.
\nAnd a life is as natural as a leaf.
\nThat\u2019s what we\u2019re looking for:
\nnot the end of a thing
\nbut the shape of it.
\nWisdom is seeing the shape of your life without
\nobliterating, getting over, a
\nsingle instant of it.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Albert Huffstickler<\/em><\/p>\n

One or Two Things<\/strong> (excerpt)<\/p>\n

One or two things are all you need
\nto travel over the blue pond, over the deep
\nroughage of the trees and through the stiff
\nflowers of lightning\u2014some deep
\nmemory of pleasure, some cutting
\nknowledge of pain.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Mary Oliver, in Dream Work<\/em><\/p>\n

Clear<\/strong><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t surrender your loneliness
\nSo quickly.
\nLet it cut more deep.
\nLet it ferment and season you
\nAs few human
\nOr even divine ingredients can.
\nSomething missing in my heart tonight
\nHas made my eyes so soft,
\nMy voice
\nSo tender,
\nMy need of God
\nAbsolutely
\nClear.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Hafiz<\/em><\/p>\n

Cry Out in Your Weakness<\/strong><\/p>\n

Where lowland is,
\nthat\u2019s where water goes. All medicine wants
\nis pain to cure. . . .
\nTear the binding from around the foot
\nof your soul, and let it race around the track
\nin front of the crowd. . . .
\nGive your weakness
\nto one who helps.
\nCrying out loud and weeping are great resources.
\nA nursing mother, all she does
\nis wait to hear her child.
\nJust a little beginning-whimper,
\nand she\u2019s there.
\nGod created the child, that is, your wanting,
\nso that it might cry out, so that milk might come.
\nCry out! Don\u2019t be stolid and silent
\nwith your pain. Lament! And let the milk
\nof loving flow into you.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Rumi, in The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks<\/em><\/p>\n

To appreciate beauty;
\nto find the best in others;
\nto give one\u2019s self;
\nto leave the world a little better,
\nwhether by a healthy child,
\na garden patch,
\nor a redeemed social condition;
\nto have played and laughed with enthusiasm,
\nand sung with exultation;
\nto know even one life has lived easier
\nbecause you have lived . . .
\nThis is to have succeeded.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Ralph Waldo Emerson<\/em><\/p>\n

i thank You God for most this amazing
\nday: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
\nand a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
\nwhich is natural which is infinite which is yes
\n(i who have died am alive again today,
\nand this is the sun\u2019s birthday; this is the birth
\nday of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
\ngreat happening illimitably earth)
\nhow should tasting touching hearing seeing
\nbreathing any\u2014lifted from the no
\nof all nothing\u2014human merely being
\ndoubt unimaginable You?
\n(now the ears of my ears awake and
\nnow the eyes of my eyes are opened)<\/p>\n

\u2014 e. e. cummings, in 100 Selected Poems<\/em><\/p>\n

Fill me roaring with your
\nnecessary music.
\nLoose upon me your stories
\nscreaming for life,
\nRavenous as gulls over a
\nfishing boat.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Marge Piercy<\/em><\/p>\n

Sweet Darkness<\/strong><\/p>\n

When your eyes are tired
\nthe world is tired also.
\nWhen your vision has gone
\nno part of the world can find you.
\nTime to go into the dark
\nwhere the night has eyes
\nto recognize its own.
\nThere you can be sure
\nyou are not beyond love.
\nThe dark will be your womb
\ntonight.
\nThe night will give you a horizon
\nfurther than you can see.
\nYou must learn one thing.
\nThe world was made to be free in.
\nGive up all the other worlds
\nexcept the one to which you belong.<\/p>\n

\u2014 David Whyte, in The House of Belonging<\/em><\/p>\n

Water Night<\/strong><\/p>\n

Night with the eyes of a horse that trembles in the night,
\nNight with eyes of water in the field asleep
\nIs in your eyes, a horse that trembles is in
\nYour eyes of secret water.
\nEyes of shadow-water,
\nEyes of well-water,
\nEyes of dream-water.
\nSilence and solitude,
\nTwo little animals moon-led,
\nDrink in your eyes,
\nDrink in those waters.
\nIf you open your eyes, night opens doors of musk,
\nThe secret kingdom of the water opens
\nFlowing from the center of the night.
\nAnd if you close your eyes,
\nA river, a silent and beautiful current, fills you from within,
\nFlows forward, darkens you:
\nNight brings its wetness to beaches in your soul.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Octavio Paz, translated by Muriel Rukeyser<\/em><\/p>\n

Kindness<\/strong>
\nBefore you know what kindness really is
\nyou must lose things,
\nfeel the future dissolve in a moment
\nlike salt in a weakened broth.
\nWhat you held in your hand,
\nwhat you counted and carefully saved,
\nall this must go so you know
\nhow desolate the landscape can be
\nbetween the regions of kindness.
\nHow you ride and ride
\nthinking the bus will never stop,
\nthe passengers eating maize and chicken
\nwill stare out the window forever.
\nBefore you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
\nyou must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
\nlies dead by the side of the road.
\nYou must see how this could be you,
\nhow he too was someone
\nwho journeyed through the night with plans
\nand the simple breath that kept him alive.
\nBefore you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
\nyou must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
\nYou must wake up with sorrow.
\nYou must speak to it till your voice
\ncatches the thread of all sorrows
\nand you see the size of the cloth.
\nThen it is only kindness that makes any sense anymore,
\nonly kindness that ties your shoes
\nand sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
\nonly kindness that raises its head
\nfrom the crowd of the world to say
\nIt is I you have been looking for,
\nand then goes with you everywhere
\nlike a shadow or a friend.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Naomi Shihab Nye<\/em><\/p>\n

may my heart always be open to little
\nbirds who are the secrets of living
\nwhatever they sing is better than to know
\nand if men should not hear them men are old
\nmay my mind stroll about hungry
\nand fearless and thirsty and supple
\nand even if it\u2019s sunday may i be wrong
\nfor whenever men are right they are not young
\nand may myself do nothing usefully
\nand love yourself so more than truly
\nthere\u2019s never been quite such a fool who could fail
\npulling all the sky over him with one smile<\/p>\n

\u2014 e. e. cummings, in 100 Selected Poems<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>

When we turn to our innate wisdom for the harmony of mind and gut, we heal the entrance to the heart as it seeks to beat in rhythm with the world.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2014 Stephen Levine<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>

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The Way It Is There\u2019s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn\u2019t change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain to them about the thread. But it is hard for others to see. While you hold it you can\u2019t get lost. Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you suffer and get old. Nothing you do can stop time\u2019s unfolding. You don\u2019t ever let go of the thread. \u2014 William Stafford Though your destination is not yet clear You can trust the promise of this opening; Unfurl yourself into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-28","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/28\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":898,"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/28\/revisions\/898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}