The Well of Grief - Poem and Image by David Whyte
Dedicated to all those who are grieving today, whether due to natural disaster, unprecented flooding, loss of a loved one, violence, unexpected accident, or despair over our culture or our changing climate. THE WELL OF GRIEF Those who will not slip beneath the still surface on the well of grief, turning down through its black water to the place we cannot breathe, will never know the source from which we drink, the secret water, cold and clear, nor find in the darkness glimmering, the small…
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Beyond paths packed hard by multitudes
there is an open field.
I gaze out across tall and swaying grasses
unbroken by footprint or mark. And I wonder:
If I persist on this wild journey, what is possible?
Caught between longing and dread
I throw back my shoulders
raise my hands to Heaven
and step faithfully into the night.
Overwhelmed by my not knowing, I am guided only
by hints of ancient wisdom and the promise of a rising moon.
Holding my breath at each step
I await the scary creatures that surely gather at the edge.
All too quickly beasts charge from the shadows
fierce with bluster and old threats.
With a deep sigh I face my accusers and
gently lay down my weapons.
Then, from the stillness she emerges
whom I knew long ago.
Lost to me until this very moment we embrace
and weave a song with sounds and a rhythm born only in the night. Moving together in the soft grass we twirl in silvery light,
dancing a dance as old as the moon herself.
Mothers of present times
Don’t weep for the Earth
Weep for your children.
The Earth does its own weeping.
Mothers of present times
Don’t weep for the Earth
Weep for your children
Who are numbed to pain
and obsessed with technology.
Mothers of present times
Don’t weep for the Earth
Weep for your children
Who have been raised foreign to the old ways
And are disconnected from nature.
Mothers of present times
Don’t weep for the Earth
Weep for your children
Who live running against time
and don’t stop to hear the sounds of the Universe.
Mothers of present times
Don’t weep for the Earth
Weep for your children
Who have forgotten the sacred language
Of humanity and walk into senseless wars.
Mothers of present times
Don’t weep for the Earth
Weep for yourselves
Weep for your children
Who have turned away from the soul
And cannot recognize
the Earth has been weeping.
© MLG
amongst the shells and seaweed--
wisdom pursues you
Gulf of Mexico
surf's monologue--ebb and flow
a kind of silence
ocean lullaby
rhythmically to and fro--
dance with me, my love
Schul, J. (2003). Haiku. DreamNetwork Journal. 22, 4, 38-39.
All people are children when they sleep.
there's no war in them then.
They open their hands and breathe
in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.
They pucker their lips like small children
and open their hands halfway,
soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.
The stars stand guard
and a haze veils the sky,
a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.
If only we could speak to one another then
when our hearts are half-open flowers.
Words like golden bees
would drift in.
- God, teach me the language of sleep.
By Rolf Jacobsen (1907 - 1994)
English version by Robert Hedin
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.
I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?
~From Rilke’s Book of Hours, translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows (1996)
because the mass man will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.
In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you,
when you see the silent candle burning.
Now you are no longer caught in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making sweeps you upward.
Distance does not make you falter.
Now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.
And so long as you haven't experienced this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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.
Infinite variety
Broken now
Chance catches us
And solutions are just smoke
Too much will be sacrificed
While we learn
Real value
Hold the creatures
Nameless and infinite
Whose deaths will force
Us to look with care
At a reflection we no longer admire
Caught in evening light
Owning our errors
Taking responsibility
All of us
Then use the anger
As a tool
With edges sharpened
By the knowledge
That the time has come
To set the old world aside
Carry the water
Purify its soul
In the clarity of insight
Who birthed us all.
The sea that calls us back.
The waves upon placid shores,
The waves within ourselves.
Sometimes crashing
Eating away at our false peace,
Sometimes soft,
Soothing our burning sands.
The great tides, low and high,
Reflections and expressions,
Of the symbol of love and madness,
The moon.
The crosscurrents of hot and cold,
Beneath the deceptive calm,
Sometimes pushing the sinking to shore,
Sometimes drowning the stone-hearted.
The end of all rivers, streams, creeks
From inner pools, violent storms,
Melting ice, warm summer rains.
All are fed and feed the great Mother Ocean.
At the end of the rapids,
At the end of the falls,
At the end of the dammed,
In her there is peace,
We are more liquid than other.
As we poison ourselves,
We poison our Mother Ocean.
Why do we not listen to our Mother?
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