poem

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The Path of Wanting

It is ok to want what you actually want. It’s ok to know what brings you joy, and want that. It’s ok to wait for it, hold out for it, make changes to support your having it. It’s really ok, and not just ok, it is how you are led to where you’re supposed to be.

Also, be easy with those things that aren’t what you want, because it’s not in their nature to be that way. If you’ve tried a few times and it’s just not happening, let it be. Honor the difference.

It’s ok if you love something and wish it would love you back in the specific way you want to be loved. It’s ok to recognize that that’s not going to happen. It’s ok to be sad about it, but try to hold the sadness lightly. You don’t want wishing for something to be other than it is to stop you from moving on toward something that will really nourish you in the deep places where you yearn to be fed.

It’s ok to want something that is rare. It’s ok to always be following that dream. Sometimes we’re given a longing for a kind of love that’s out of fashion, or requires special skills, or pushes the edges of what most people think of as love. It doesn’t mean you’re wrong to want it. It just means that getting peaceful with the presence of hunger might be part of your path. It’s ok. That’s a healing that helps everybody relax just a little bit more and lean into wanting what they really need, instead of what’s safe or what’s popular or what’s there.

In order to create it, we must first accept that we want it. And that’s ok.

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Who or What

Who or what is this thing called God?
God is the one who directs my studies,
who nods and smiles approvingly
and pats me on the back and says
Job well done
while another of God’s countless hands
is pulling the rug out from under my feet.
And as I go down,
hitting my head on every sharp corner,
and somehow finding with my heart,
exposed and open in my moment of accomplishment,
the one long slender thorn, hard as steel,
growing up from below,
and managing, as though destined, to run myself through,
I look up, bleeding, and see God
smiling and nodding, and saying
with infinite kindness,
Very well done.

More art from the Althea Center for Engaged Spirituality.

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Sound-maker’s Prayer

Oh Great One
You Only know the highest potential of each heart
and You Only know what will call it forth,
but Oh
if you can tell us
just the word or sound
that will cause the first leaf
to unfurl from its seed-shell,
the sound that is like sunlight to each soul
and that whispers to each destiny
Awaken Now …
I do not need to know
what each soul’s mission will be;
I do not even need to know
the name of the town
at the end of these directions
that I blindly follow.
Just give me that tone
that will set each heart awakening,
and Beloved, I will sound it
with all my breath
till no seed remains
unshattered.