Good day, team,
I cannot let today go by without noting that April is poetry month. I have no idea who thought this designation up or when they decided it should be celebrated in April, but I’m acknowledging it because poetry has always been meaningful for me. Not that I love all poetry, but when I read a poem I do love, I’m reminded of some truth I already know, expressed in a way I’ve never seen. It speaks to me in a way that deeply touches me.
When I enjoy a poem, the words often create images in my mind that allow me to see something I hadn’t seen before, like looking at those strange drawings that appear to be one thing but, when you look at them more closely, actually represent something else: an image within an image. Poetry can capture a very simple moment or detail and give us insight into something much larger, reminding us how everything in this world is interconnected, as in these few words from Rumi about spring:
Step barefooted on the ground and make it giddy,
pregnant with joking and buds.
A Spring uproar rises into the stars.
The moon begins to wonder what’s going on.
Other people feel this way about music, or the visual arts, or dance, or prose: Engaging art gives them energy and provides them with new ways of relating to what’s true for them.
Your challenge this week is to find what you love and make some time for it. Whether it’s poetry or music or any other form of artistic expression, make time to enjoy it and allow it to speak to you.
Finally, I can’t let the month go by without sharing one of my favorite poems.
Wild Geese
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.
~ Mary Oliver
Have a great week!
Kathleen
Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249
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