“Love after Love” by Derek Walcott is copyrighted. Follow the link for a poem written for those who are tired, burned out and feeling lost.
Leave a CommentTag: poetry
Is is easy to retreat from life
Barack Obama said of his natural father – he had difficult life because he did not reach out to people.
When times are difficult, we tend to retreat from the world. When we are unpopular in the playground, we pick up our toys and go home. Then we really have no one to play with us. Do you know that people who are lost in the bush or surrounded by fire actually hide from their rescuers? When times are bad, we may be tempted to hide.
We may be rejected but it will help us little to go this way
“I am learning to abandon the world
before it can abandon me.
Already I have given up the moon
and snow, closing my shades
against the claims of white.
And the world has taken
my father, my friends.”
By Linda Pastan, a new poet for me.
When we are out of sorts with the world, we must ask ourselves how we can change the conversation and fall in love with life again.
When we are feeling bruised, we might also remember “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver. “You do not have to walk on your knees for 100 miles through the desert . . You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves . . 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”.
UPDATE: I’ve just found this old post and link to a tremendous poem on living with fear
Last night, I stumbled on a wonderful collection of poems. Do bookmark this link and keep it for a moment when you want to relax.
For this morning, at a time when the economies of the UK and the US are about to become very turbulent, it is good to read a poem from German poet, Rainer Rilke.
…I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903
It is so hard to think about living without a clear goal. We’ve been taught to be wilful rather than curious.
Maybe the first question is what it would feel like to turn all my goals today into questions?
What would it be like to get up? What will it like to have a shower?
Just to ask a series of questions?
I’ve just found this snippet courtesy of a search for the first line that arrived at this blog.
“The time cracks into furious flower
Lifts its face all unashamed
And sways in wicked grace…”
“This is the urgency: Live!
and have your blooming in the noise of the whirlwind.”
– Gwendolyn Brooks, The Second Sermon on the Warpland
I previously had the expression
“Conduct your blooming in the noise and whip of the whirlwind”
This was written for all of us in the 21st century, don’t you think?
A time to love and a time to hate;
A time for war and a time for peace. (John 3:16-21)
As a youngster, I was baffled by the Biblical advice that there is a time for all everything under the sun. A time to be born. A time to die. It seemed perfectly obvious to me. But then I was a literal child.
Positive psychology and the seasons
A big message coming out of the positive psychology school and the poets like David Whyte, who write about work, is that we must take each season of our life in turn. It seems though that even positive psychologists struggle to understand the ups-and-downs of life.
Let me try by using the seasons.
It is autumn now in the UK
Summer officially ends in the UK this week. The trees have already turned. The paths are strewn with leaves of all colors and it is cold inside – because it is not cold enough yet to turn on the heating. If we were still farmers, our crops would be harvested and stored, and we would have fodder in the barn for the livestock to survive the winter.
Live life on its own terms
It is here that we find the message. We have to live in summer on summer’s terms. We plant and we reap and we store to provide for the winter.
And we must do the same in winter. We must live winter by the merits of winter.
I am still a ‘noobe’ in the northern hemisphere so let me talk about winter where I came from. Our winter was all of three weeks and days were a short 11 hours! So we lit a log fire in the evenings and gathered with friends and went to bed early to get warm. On weekends, we gathered again to have barbecues in the gentle mid-day sun. We might take advantage of the rainless days to do some maintenance. But mainly we didn’t. Winter was a time of rest and recovery before the growing season came around again.
Up here in the northern hemisphere, I think we are expected to be a lot more productive here. People use summer to play and the long winter nights to work.
Ups-and-downs of contemporary life
The old agricultural seasons help us understand the ups and downs of life and what it means to explore each for what it is.
Of course, we hate the downs. We don’t want them to happen. We are terrified they won’t end.
And the ‘ downs’ are real. I hate it when people tell us they are in our mind. People die. Economies collapse. We aren’t stupid or insane. These are real events. Very real. Very distressing. I hate the Nietzsche expression that what does not kill you makes your stronger. I don’t hate a lot of things but I really hate that. Downs are real. Please, don’t insult me by telling me they are in my mind.
Winter is not the absence of summer
But they downs need to be understood in their own terms for what they are. Just as we understand winter as winter not the absence summer. Winter comes before summer, and after summer, and must be respected for itself.
Happiness is respecting the winter of our lives
That is happiness. Happiness is respecting the quieter times, and the harder times, and seeing them as part of the pattern of life.
Then, and only then, do we have the heart and the courage to explore them, not to love them, but to do what is required of us, respectfully and gently, and patiently.
Then we can be in them without rushing them to end. It is pointless to try to make them end. They will end in their own time, just like winter.
We’d do better to accommodate ourselves to their nature and live within them. And live well within them. Just as we don’t have frolics in the sun during winter, we may not be bubbling with joy in the hard times. But demanding they end does not end them sooner. It just makes them harder.
The trick is to live winter on winter’s terms. I am pretty clear that it is easier to do if you understand winter as something that precedes summer and follows summer.
Does the analogy of the seasons apply to our non-agricultural, frenetic, confused modern lives?
When it is less clear that our suffering “is not our fault,” or when it is not clear when our suffering will end, I’ve found it helps to find a mentor who might explain the objective situation. It also helps to live through hard times in a group. Because much of our fretting is really a cry of “why me?”, when we are all in it together, at least we do not have to protest that the hard times are part of our personality.
When we are leading a group in times of suffering and distress, I’ve found 3 things help.
- Bring together people who suffer in the same way.
When they hear each other’s stories, they’ll sort out in their minds what is a feature of the situation and what is in their minds. But don’t tell them to cheer up or that it will all be alright! Dismissing their hardship is insulting and confuses them more.
- Assure them that you will be there for them and live your promise.
Listen. Engage eye contact. Be interested in their story. When they hear themselves telling their story and they see you still listening, they’ll calm down, a lot. Life will still be hard but you won’t have made it harder. They know they have you at least.
- And celebrate what goes well.
Don’t pick on one small thing and say that the life cannot be hard if that one thing went well! That is also very debilitating. They do not need their reality dismissed or tell feel an impossible distance from you. Just give them the space to talk about what is going well. That reinforces your relationship and you will hear more about what goes well. See! Easier for you too. 
Be a warm, companionable log fire in the winter of our lives?
Understanding why bad times is part of happiness is tough, and living through hard times happily is tougher
I hope using seasons helps you understand the issue. And that the 3 forms of aid for your group are helpful. They are classical prescriptions from positive psychology.
And of course we can ponder why we made happiness so hard to understand in Western thought when we began with the right advice in the Bible! The philosophers can help us with that!
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- Image via Wikipedia
Hold On…
A Pueblo Indian Prayer
Hold on to what is good,
even if it’s a handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe,
even if it’s a tree that stands by itself.
Hold on to what you must do,
even if it’s a long way from here.
Hold on to your life,
even if it’s easier to let go.
Hold on to my hand,
even if I’ve gone away from you.
Found on Inspiration Peak
[Use this when the day has made you too gloomy to fill out a gratitude diary. Remember what is good, what you believe in, what you must do and who is important to you.]
I think back to the most frustrating times of my life and I felt exactly like David Whyte standing in front of a ravine, desperate to be the other side and with palpitations because it seems impossible.
Whenever we feel frightened it helps to visualize the ravine. And draw the ravine on a piece of paper.
- What is on the other side that we want so deeply?
- What is the gap and the frayed rope bridge that seems too dangerous to use?
- And where are we now?
I want to be clear: when we are really frightened, we forget to do this. And we chide ourselves for forgetting! But we shouldn’t – we are anxious because our dream is important!
When we remember, our task is to imagine the ravine and draw, or jot down, our answers to all 3 questions.
Then we concentrate on question 3 and write down everything we can think about where we are now. We might want to concentrate on the other two questions. That is understandable but we should write down point after point about HERE & NOW. Set a goal – write 1, then write 2 more, then write 2 more, until we are on a roll.
Lastly we underline the parts that work well. This is important. We go through our list of HERE & NOW and underline what works well.
And if you don’t think of something that will move you forward, write to me and complain!
But I guess you will write to me to say how well this method works.
Come with me!
- Think of your biggest dream that you have put aside to attend to your obligations or because you think you have to be cautious during the recession.
- Feel your fear and honor it! You only feel fear because this goal is important to you.
- Then draw the diagram and remember to write down in detail where are now Finally, underline what works well.
Are you feeling better? Can you see a way forward?
Prepare for a winning week!
Leave a CommentToday, Barack Obama spent his first day in the office
This is the week of the new Presidency in the US of A and I’d resolved to write in response to events. My business, as it does, demanded my full attention today, and as evening came around, I was tired, with still lots to do, and very little idea what Barack Obama had done in his first day in office.
My favourite business in the village, Much do, had set me up with dinner – cold roast turkey and cherry foccacia (made by Gareth – I recommend it), and I was able to catch up with the events in Washington while I ate.
What a work ethic
I was amazed by what Barack Obama achieved in one day.
He spoke or requested to speak to each of the leaders closely involved with the dispute in Gaza. He spoke to his own military leaders including a linkup to the General on the ground in Iraq. He suspended activities at Guatanemo, pending review. He pronounced an ethical code including strictures on salaries in the White House.
A role model for role models
I felt a little sheepish at my fatigue, and also inspired. It is quite extraordinary how a role model, enacting a full and organized day, motivates us to do the same, and not by lessening what we have done, or chiding us, or exhorting us, but through showing the road ahead clear of obstacles, and suggesting that our contributions, too, are valued and invited.
We are not trouble guests on this earth
David Whyte, the poet, has a line that says
“You are not a troubled guest on this earth, you are not an accident amidst other accidents, you were invited from another and greater night than the one from which you have just emerged.”
From ‘What to Remember When Waking’ in River Flow.
What have you been inspsired to do by Barack Obama’s election?
Have you too, been tentatively, resurrecting projects, which you had pushed to the back burner in those hard decades, thankfully ended, when too much was rejected as too idealistic, too charitable, too sincere, too including, too worthwhile?
I’d be interested to know what today you believe possible and previously would only whisper when no one could hear.
I am watching with interest what tomorrow brings.
Creeping into our shells
Some people are already having a hard time in the recession. I can see it on their faces in the village. And I’m sure there are also many others who are having worse, and who are at home, deeply worried.
If you are one of them, and arrived at this post this weekend, I hope I might persuade you to think back to when you were a kid in the school yard. What you really hated were the times when other kids wouldn’t play with you. It was in these times, that we creep into our shell.
But not so, when the teacher took our ball away. We didn’t go home, or shrink back. Not at all. We thought up another game. And we stuck together.
Solidarity
Sticking together, or solidarity, is the key to surviving bad times, and enjoying them too!
Two poems
If you are still reading, I have two poems for you. The first is called Wild Geese, and it is by Mary Oliver. In short, it tells you not to beat yourself up, and to come back out to the yard to play.
The second, I stumbled on the web last night. It is a love poem, by Nizar Qabbani, and though written by a man for a woman, it reminds us, that togetherness and belonging come from commitment.
Back in those school yard days, there was always one kid, who kept us together and suggested other games.
Come with me
Reach out to someone this weekend?
It does not need to be expensive. A smile for people in the shops. A chat over the fence with your neighbour. A walk with a friend. A companionable cup of tea.
You may not know whom, but somone may need your solidarity very badly.
Here are the two poems. I hope they give you comfort and inspiration.
+++++
Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver
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 clear 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.
+++++++
Love Compared
by Nizar Qabbani
I do not resemble your other lovers, my lady
should another give you a cloud
I give you rain
Should he give you a lantern, I
will give you the moon
Should he give you a branch
I will give you the trees
And if another gives you a ship
I shall give you the journey.
+++++
P.S. If you own the copyright for either poem, please do let me know. And to the authors, I thank you.
- Image via Wikipedia
Have you read The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency? Or did you see its premiere on BBC1 last Easter Sunday?
The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency is that – the first detective agency run by a woman – and its novelty is that this series of detective stories is set in contemporary Botswana.
The star of the series, Patience Ramotswe is a heroine, with a large heart, but she is no superwoman. She is famously ‘traditionally built’ and has few pretensions. She runs her detective agency on the basis of one “how to” book, and has no particularly skills. She dislikes telephones, and drives with her handbrake on.
Jill Scott’s plays Patience Ramotswe in the BBC series. Ian Wylie quotes Scott’s description of her character:
“She believes in justice and she loves her country. . . She’s a real woman who has experienced the loss of a child, being heartbroken with her first marriage, but decided that life is so much better, that there’s so much more than those particular heartaches.”
The series of books are written by Alexander McCall Snith and are available from a library or book shop near you! Fabulous reading but do read them in order as the lives of the characters unfold. No 1 Ladies . . is the first in the series.