Thoughts on Connections

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


I've been rereading a lot of poetry lately, especially Mary Oliver. In times of high stress, that's where I go for comfort or inspiration. Maybe it's her connection with nature, and her willingness to open herself to emotion and to be fully present. These are things I would like to learn to do better, things I'm consciously trying to work on in my life. Maybe I'm hoping that as the words sink in, the life lessons will follow. I could add life lesson osmosis to sink laundry meditation.

We are connected, all things, and we all have a place. We don't exist on our own. I've been reminded of that over and over lately. While I might be an individual, with my own thoughts and feelings and actions, my life supports other lives and is, in turn, supported by them. What I visualize is a web that holds and connects me and everyone else in the threads. We are separate, but not alone. I've been supported by a network, a web, of people who care, which makes me feel grateful and amazing lucky.