Moment to Moment - Etty Hillesum

...every moment gives birth to a new moment...

Life courses through one as a constant current in a great

series of moments, each having its own place in the day.

...whenever suffering thrusts itself upon us we must not
avoid it - but accept it.

Does that mean I am never sad, that I never rebel, always
acquiesce, and love life no matter what the circumstances?

No, far from it.  I believe that I know and share the many
sorrows and sad circumstances that a human being
experiences, but.....they pass through me, like life itself;
as a broad, eternal stream, they become part of that stream,
and life continues...

...ought we not, from time to time, open ourselves up to
cosmic sadness?

Your sorrow must become an integral part of yourself.
You mustn't run away from it, but bear it like an adult.
Do not relieve your feelings through hatred, do not seek
to be avenged on all German mothers, for they, too,
sorrow at this very moment for their slain and murdered
sons.  Give your sorrow all the space and shelter in yourself
that is its due, for if everyone bears his grief honestly and
courageously, the sorrow that now fills the world will abate.
But if you do not clear a decent shelter for your sorrow, and
instead reserve most of the space inside for your hatred and
thoughts of revenge - then sorrow will never cease in this
world and will multiply...

Etty Hillesum
From: Etty Hillesum - Essential Writings
by Annemarie S. Kidder

Etty was Dutch living in Nazi occupied Netherlands
during the Holocaust, and died in Auschwitz at the age
of 28 or 29. Her writings were taken from her journals.

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
"walking in Divine shoes"

~

May all those observing Hanukkah
find peace in their sorrow...

 

 

Suffering - Francis Weller

No one escapes suffering in this life.
None of us is exempt from loss, pain, illness and death.
How is it that we have so little understanding of [and empathy for]
these essential experiences?  How is it that we have attempted
to keep grief separated from our lives and only begrudgingly 
acknowledge its presence at the most obvious of time, such as
a funeral.

It is the accumulated losses of a lifetime that slowly weigh us
down - the times of rejection, the moments of isolation when we felt
cut off from the sustaining touch of comfort and love.  It is an ache
that resides in the heart, the faint echo calling us back to the times of
loss.  We are called back, not so much to make things right, but to
acknowledge what happened to us.

Grief asks that we honor the loss and, in doing so, deepen our
capacity for compassion.  When grief remains unexpressed, however,
 it  hardens, becomes as solid as stone.  We, in turn, become rigid and
stop moving in rhythm with the soul.... with the flow of life.  Grief is
part of the dance.

As we begin to pay attention, we notice that grief is never far from
our awareness.  We become aware of the many ways it arrives in
our daily lives. It is the blue mood that greets us upon waking.  It
is the melancholy that shades the day in muted tones.  It is the
recognition of time's passing, the slow emptying of our days.  It
is the searing pain that erupts when someone close to us dies -
It is the confounding grief when our life circumstances are
shattered by the unexpected....  the ground beneath us opens,
shaken by violent rumblings.  Grief enfolds our lives....

It is essential for us to welcome grief, whatever form it takes.
When we do, we open ourselves to our shared experiences in life.
Grief is our common bond.  Opening to our sorrow connects us
with everyone, everywhere.  There is no gesture of kindness that
is wasted, no offering of compassion that is useless.  We can be
generous to every sorrow we see.  It is sacred work.

Francis Weller

from The Wild Edge of Sorrow:
Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief;
The Threshold Between Loss and Revelation
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Invitation - Oriah

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.

I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow,
if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become
shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,
without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can....dance with wildness and
let ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember
the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself;
if you can hear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your
own soul...

I want to know if you can see beauty, even if it's not pretty,
every day, and if you source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine,
and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver
of the full moon, "Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much
money you have.  I want to know if you can get up, after the
night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone,
and do what needs to be done...

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be
here.  I want to know if you can stand in the center of the fire
with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have
studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside,
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if
you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Oriah
From: The Invitation

~

Art - Woman Dancing in the Fire
(looking down from above, her arms and hands held out
in front of her)
Done with Craypas oils and fingers

c.2012

 

Don't let your fire go out - Ayn Rand

For All who are oppressed...

In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice [your]
world to those who are at its worst.  In the name of the values
that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted
by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless...  Do not let your
fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark...  Do not let the
hero in your soul perish...

Ayn Rand

From: Atlas Shrugged
(Russian born controversial American Writer)

with thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

My heart feels Great Sorrow for the people
of Ukraine in this moment in time,
 and the suffering they are enduring... 
But also for those others who
experience the same oppression by
autocratic ideologies.

Blessings

 

The Amusement Park - Jed McKenna

Awakening to your True Nature is like dying; it's a certainty,
inevitable.  You're going to get there no matter what you do,
so why rush?  Enjoy your life, it's free.  Cosmic Consciousness
and Altered States and Universal Mind are the names of the
rides in this vast and fascinating dualistic amusement park.
So are Poverty and Disease and Despair.  Enlightenment,
though, is not another ride.  Enlightenment means leaving the
park altogether, but why leave the park?  In the park you can
be a saint or a yogi or a billionaire or a world leader or a
warlord.  Happiness, misery, bliss, agony, victory, defeat, it's
all here.  When the time comes to leave the park, you'll know
and you'll go...

Jed McKenna

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

"Doo, doo, doo, lookin' out my back door" ;)

(a line from Credence Clearwater Revival's song
"Lookin' Out My Back Door" - 1970)

https://youtu.be/Aae_RHRptRg

Take a ride :)

The Wildest Comfort - Kathleen Dean Moore

 I don't know what despair is, if it's something or nothing, a kind
of filling up or an emptying out.  I don't know what sorrow does
to the world, what it adds or takes away.  What I think I do
know now is that sorrow is part of the Earth's great cycles,
flowing into the night like cool air sinking down a river course.
To feel sorrow is to float on the pulse of the Earth, the surge from
living to dying, from coming into being to ceasing to exist.
Maybe this is why the Earth has the power over time to wash
sorrow into a deeper pool....  And maybe this is why, even though
 sorrow never disappears, it can make a deeper connection to the
 currents of life and so connect, somehow, to sources of
wonder and solace...

...I don't know what gladness is or where it comes from,
this splitting open of the self.  It takes me by surprise.
Not an answer of beauty and mystery, but beauty and
mystery themselves, flooding into a mind suddenly
without boundaries.  Can this be gladness, to be lifted
by that flood?

...The Earth holds every possibility inside it, and the mystery
of transformation, one thing into another.

This is the wildest comfort.

Kathleen Dean Moore
Excerpts from - Wild Comfort - The Solace of Nature

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Melancholy - Fred LaMotte

 Even on the most radiant days, there is a sorrow at the heart
of life.  When we deny it, the day becomes a desperate quest
for happiness, and the night is long.  But when we absorb the
trough into our rhythm, like the shadow of the breath, that
benign negation infuses all things with spaciousness, tinges
creation with golden poignancy, like Autumn itself.
What is heavy is not sadness, but the denial of sadness.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance
original title - "Autumn"

~

For all those tasting the sadness of these
unimaginable strange times that we are living through -
not only the losses from COVID, but
from the devastating fires on the West Coast, and the
hurricanes on the Gulf Coast affecting so many lives,
as well as the racial unrest, and the political upheaval
across this country.
May we all find the deep Quiet within..

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Sunset Heart Leaves

"Freinds" - Oriah

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for, and if you
dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.  I want
to know if you risk looking like a fool for love,
for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring
your moon.  I want to know if you have touched the
center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened
by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed
from fear of further pain.  I want to know if you can sit
with pain, mine or your own without moving to hide
it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own,
if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill
you to the tips of your fingers and toes without
cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember
the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is
true.  I want to know if you can disappoint another to
be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of
betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be
faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it's not
pretty every day, and if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours
and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and
shout to the sliver of the full moon, "Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how
much money you have.  I want to know if you can
get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and
bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for
the children, [or your elderly parents, your spouse, or a
dying loved one].

It doesn't matter to me who you know or how you came
to be here.  I want to know if you will stand at the center
of the fire with  me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or with whom you have
studied, [what your title is, or "spiritual" status].  I want to
know what sustains you from the inside, when all else falls
away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if
you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

[This - is Love].

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Original Title - "The Invitation"

[brackets mine]

~

Photo - 5 baby raccoons:)
The Mama is on the other side of the fence
coaxing them over...
early June 2020

Embracing the Reality of Sorrow - Adyashanti

Sooner or later we will all experience the tragic quality of life.
Perhaps this quality of life is brought to us through illness, or
the death of a loved one, or losing a job, or an unexpected
accident, or having your heart broken.  But we will all
experience this tragic quality of life in both small and
overwhelmingly large ways over the span of our lives.
Whether we want to face it or not, life, with all of its beauty,
joy, and majesty, also has a tragic element to it.  This is
exactly what the Buddha saw, and it inspired his entire
spiritual search.

It seems that most people look for various ways to escape
from this tragic quality of life, but ultimately to no avail.
There is no escaping it.  And it must be faced sooner or
later.  The question is, when we are faced with this aspect
of life, how do we respond?  Surely, to avoid it only leads to
denial, fantasy, life-numbing withdrawal, cynicism, and fear.
It takes great courage to face the totality of life without
withdrawing from it or trying to protect ourselves from it.

Paradoxically, to face the totality of life we must face the

reality of death, sorrow, and loss as well.  We must face them
as unavoidable aspects of life.  The question is, can we face
them directly without getting lost in the stories that our mind
weaves about them?  Because if we can, we will find a
tremendous affirmation of life, an affirmation that is forged
in the fierce embrace of tragedy.

At the very heart and core of our being, there exists an
overwhelming 'yes' to existence.  This yes is discovered by
those who have the courage to open their hearts to the
totality of life. This yes is found only by
embracing the reality of sorrow and going beyond it. 

Adyashanti

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

For Grief - John O'Donohue

When you lose someone you love,
Your life becomes strange,
The ground beneath you gets fragile,
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;
And some dead echo drags your voice down
Where words have no confidence
Your heart has grown heavy with loss;
And though this loss has wounded others too,
No one knows what has been taken from you
When the silence of absence deepens.

Flickers of guilt kindle regret
For all that was left unsaid and undone.

There are days when you wake up happy;
Again inside the fullness of life,
Until the moment breaks
And you are thrown back
Onto the black tide of loss.

Days when you have your heart back,
You are able to function well
Until the middle of work or encounter,
Suddenly with no warning,
You are ambushed by grief.

It becomes hard to trust yourself.
All you can depend on now is that
Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.
More than you, it knows its way
And will find the right time
To pull and pull the rope of grief
Until that coiled hill of tears
Has reduced to its last drop.

Gradually, you will learn acquaintance
With the invisible form of your departed;
And, when the work of grief is done,
The wound of loss will heal
And you will have learned
To wean your eyes
From the gap in the air
And be able to enter the hearth
in your soul where your loved one
Has awaited your return...

John O'Donohue

from: To Bless the Space Between Us

~

Photo - from Keukenhof Tulip Garden in Holland
by Ellen Ratmeyer

~

The world still grieves its losses...
And the hatred and tragedies that keep occurring...

Kindness and Sorrow - Naomi Shihab Nye

[.....]

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters
and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crown of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

Naomi Shihab Nye

from: Words Under the Words: Selected Poems

[this is only an excerpt from one of the poems
in that collection].

Photo from the Internet

Embrace the Losses - John O'Donohue

May you know that absence is alive with hidden presence,
that nothing is ever lost or forgotten.
May the absences in your life grow full of eternal echo.

May you sense around you the secret Elsewhere,
where the presences that have left you dwell..
May you be generous in your embrace of loss.
May the sore well of grief turn into a seamless flow
of presence.

May you be embraced by God in whom dawn and
twilight are one - within the Great Belonging.

John O'Donohue
from: To Bless the Space Between Us

Original title: A Blessing for Absence

~

In memory of my mother
who passed from this life into
the "secret Elsewhere"
one year ago today...

~

And this goes out to all
who have experienced loss
around the world in our ongoing
coronavirus crisis...

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
"Mom's last wave"

Moment to Moment - Etty Hillesum

...every moment gives birth to a new moment...

Life courses through one as a constant current in a great
series of moments, each having its own place in the day.

...whenever suffering thrusts itself upon us we must not
avoid it - but accept it.
Does that mean I am never sad, that I never rebel, always
acquiesce, and love life no matter what the circumstances?
No, far from it.  I believe that I know and share the many
sorrows and sad circumstances that a human being
experiences, but.....they pass through me, like life itself;
as a broad, eternal stream, they become part of that stream,
and life continues...

...ought we not, from time to time, open ourselves up to
cosmic sadness?

Your sorrow must become an integral part of yourself.
You mustn't run away from it, but bear it like an adult.
Do not relieve your feelings through hatred, do not seek
to be avenged on all German mothers, for they, too,
sorrow at this very moment for their slain and murdered
sons.  Give your sorrow all the space and shelter in yourself
that is its due, for if everyone bears his grief honestly and
courageously, the sorrow that now fills the world will abate.
But if you do not clear a decent shelter for your sorrow,
and instead reserve most of the space inside you for hatred
and thoughts of revenge - then sorrow will never cease in
this world and will multiply...

Etty Hillesum

From: Etty Hillesum - Essential Writings

by Annemarie S. Kidder

Etty was living in Nazi occupied Netherlands during
the Holocaust, and died in Aushwitz at the age of
28 or 29.  Her writings were taken from her journals.

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
"walking in another's shoes"

The Unbroken - Rashani Rea

There is a brokenness
out of which comes the unbroken,
a shatteredness
out of which blooms the unshatterable.
There is a sorrow
beyond all grief which leads to joy
and a fragility
out of whose depths emerges strength.

There is a hollow space
too vast for words
through which we pass with each loss,
out of whose darkness
we are sanctioned into being.

There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart
as we break open to the place inside
which is unbreakable and whole,
while learning to sing.

Rashani Rea

The Blessing of The Deer - Jane Hirshfield

As the house of a person
in age sometimes grows cluttered
with what is
too loved or too heavy to part with,
the heart may grow cluttered.

And still the house will be emptied,
and still the heart.

As the thoughts of a person
in age sometimes grow sparer,
like a great cleanness come into a room,
the soul may grow sparer;
one sparrow song carves it completely.
And still the room is full,
and still the heart.

Empty and filled,
like the curling half-light of morning,
in which everything is still possible...

Filled and empty,
like the curling half-light of evening,
in which everything now is finished...

Beloved, what can be, what was,
will be taken away from us.

I have disappointed.
I am sorry.  I knew no better.

[.....]

This morning, out the window,
the deer stood like a blessing, then vanished.

Jane Hirshfield
Original title: "Standing Deer"
from The Lives of the Heart

Thanks to - The Beauty We Love

The Art of Suffering - Etty Hillesum

Most of us in the West don't understand the art of suffering
and experience a thousand fears instead.  Man suffers most
through the idea of suffering, and through his fear of suffering.
We cease to be alive, being full of fear, bitterness, hatred and
despair.  Don't we live an entire life each one of our days,
and does it really matter if we live a few days more or less?
There is room for everything in a single life.

When I say I have come to terms with life, I don't mean I
have lost hope.  It is a question of living life from minute to
minute and taking suffering into the bargain.  But does it
matter if it is the Inquisition that causes people to suffer in
one century, and war and pogroms in another?

Suffering has always been with us, does it really matter in
what form it comes?  All that matters is how we bear it
and how we fit it into our lives.

I can sit for hours and know everything and bear everything
and grow stronger in the bearing of it.  And at the same time
feel sure life is beautiful and meaningful.  Despite everything.
But that does not mean that I am always filled with joy and
exaltation [about life and its circumstances].  I am often dog-
tired after standing in queues, but I know that this too is part
of life, and I know something inside me will never desert me...

We carry everything within us. God and Heaven and Hell and
Earth and Life and Death and all of history.  The externals are
simply so many props; everything we need is within us.  And
we have to take everything that comes; the bad with the good,
which does not mean we cannot devote our life to curing the
bad.  But we must know what motives inspire our struggle
[against] and we must begin with ourselves.

Living and dying, sorrow and joy, the blisters on my feet and
the jasmine behind the house, the persecution, the unspeakable
horrors - it is all as one in me, and I accept it all as one mighty
whole and begin to grasp it better, if only for myself, without
being able to explain to anyone else how it all hangs together.

If you destroy the ideas behind [suffering] which life lies
imprisoned within, you liberate your true life - and then you
will have the strength to bear real suffering...

Etty Hillesum
Jewish Mystic of the Holocaust
from: An Interrupted Life

~

Wishing the Jewish community
a peaceful and light filled Hanukkah
as it comes to an end...

Go There - Sarah Carlson

Don't go there - worst advice ever.
At least it was for me.
In truth,
it became vital to go into
that which was causing my dis-ease.
You can wrap it up,
store it away,
deny its existence.
But there IS there,
will continue to be.
It's not easy to take the leap.
You'll need support and love,
but when the time is right,
when you hear the call or
feel the tug
go there.

You'll gather what is necessary,
enabling you to take
what there has to teach
and utilize it for good.
Over time you will discover
slivers of understanding,
shards of insight,
specks of wisdom
that, together,
provide illumination and peace.
There has virtues all its own
that will mingle and mesh with
here and now
revealing the beauty
of a familiar landscape
anew.
So go there -
wander and wonder,
explore and examine,
and in time,
restore and recover.

Sarah Carlson

~

Sarah's husband suddenly died 15 years ago leaving
her alone with 2 kids to raise, having to carve out a life
for herself.  She turned to writing poetry to express her
process of facing into life...

~

My note:  In the Buddhist tradition, as I understand it, and I am not a Buddhist, when we are facing a "darker" place, the "remedy" is to face it and embrace it.  There is no condemnation or judgment for *feeling* the way we do, about any situation.  There is no denial of our feelings, there is no "prescription", or "non-dual" script to follow to realize or "awaken" to our True Nature/Self, thereby "avoiding" or "erasing" our feelings; nor are there admonitions to be in the Here and Now.  There is just being who we are in the experience we find ourselves in...

Something that some "spiritual" teachings don't teach: It's all allowed, the dark and the light, the totality of our lived experience.  It is self-compassion, not selfishness, to open ourselves to our feelings, and to sit with what has caused our "dis-ease" - to discover the cause of our suffering, despair, angst, fear, grief, sorrow, etc., individually and as a society.  And to be fiercely present to that from a compassionate heart, which we can then offer to another who is suffering.

The Invitation - Oriah

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,
for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own
sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,
without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own,
If you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to
be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of
being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to
yourself; if you can hear the accusation of betrayal and not
betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore
trustworthy.

I want to know if you cans see beauty, even if it's not pretty,
every day, and if you source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine,
and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver
of the full moon, "Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much
money you have.  I want to know if you can get up, after the
night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone,
and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be
here.  I want to know if you stand in the center of the fire
with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have
studied.  I want to know what sustains you,
from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and
if you truly like the company you keep in the empty
moments.

Oriah

From: The Invitation

~

Art - Woman Dancing in the Fire
(looking down from above, her hands held out in front of her)
Done with Craypas oils and fingers.

c. 2012

Tell us of Pain - Khalil Gibran & Nisargadatta

And a woman spoke saying:

"Tell us of Pain"

And he said:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your
understanding.  Even as the stone of the fruit must break,
that its heart may stand in the sun,
so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily
miracles of life, your pain would not seem less wondrous
than your joy.  And you would accept the seasons of
your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons
that pass over the fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the winters of
your grief.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within heals
your sick self.

Therefore, trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence
and tranquility.  For his hand, though heavy and hard, is
guided by the tender hand of the Unseen.

And the cup he brings,
though it burn your lips,
has been fashioned of the clay
which the Potter has moistsened
with His own sacred Tears.

Khalil Gibran

The Prophet


~

The real world is beyond the mind's ken;
we see it through the net of our desires,
divided into pleasure and pain,
right and wrong, inner and outer.
To see the universe as it is,
you must step beyond the net.

Look at the net and its many contradictions.
You do and undo at every step.
You want peace, love, happiness
and work hard to create pain, hatred and war.
You want longevity and overeat,
you want friendship and exploit.
See your net as made of such contradictions
and remove them...
Your very seeing them will make them go.

Nisargadatta

Kindness - Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
Like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters
and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crown of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

Naomi Shihab Nye

from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems

via: The Beauty We Love