GardenMama

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice---
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do---
determined to save
the only life you could save.


--Mary Oliver

Katiekate

I love Mary Oliver.

Thanks for posting it. :ghug3

Lara

Very powerful words - thank you for posting

Ilovemysonjj

Beautiful and very appropriate.
Hugs
TT

GardenMama

Thanks, I am glad you found it inspiring. Reading Mary Oliver is, for me, pure reverence, one of my most helpful spiritual exercises.

I shared this today because I think there are lots of us here who need this kind of permission--the kind we so rarely give to ourselves--to move forward, to save our own lives/hearts/sanity.

I used this poem for many years in a class I taught for women who were hoping to change their lives by getting a college education, and it wasn't until I was myself in a deep personal crisis that I realized I'd had the answer right in front of me all along...Isn't it something how the answers are never too far out of our reach?