You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Hello and Happy September 🙂
A reminder of Mary Oliver’s beautiful poem spoke to me today so I thought you might like to read it too 🙂. I hope it offers a reminder that however things are - good, bad, lonely, tiring, worrying - we can, just for now, allow ourselves to be whatever we are; that when we still the mind, our place in the family of things makes a little more sense. Peace makes a little more sense. Allowing love makes a little more sense.
I’m itching to get back to all things intothebliss. Musings may be a little sparser or sporadic for the time being, as my family establishes itself back in the UK (yes there’s been blood, sweat and tears, but also lots of joy reuniting with this wonderful place we get to call ‘home’!).
Love,
Jo x
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