Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

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 clear 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.

Compassion
by Miller Williams

Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don’t want it.
What appears bad manners, an ill temper or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.

The same poem can be adapted as a self-compassion poem by inserting the following italicized words:

Have compassion for yourself, even if you don’t want it.
What appears bad manners, an ill temper or cynicism may be a sign of things your ears have not yet heard, or long forgotten, your eyes have not yet seen, or since overlooked.
You may not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.

Forget about enlightenment

Forget about enlightenment
Sit down wherever you are and listen to the wind that is singing in your veins.
Feel the love, the longing, and the fear in your bones.
Open your heart to who you are, right now, not who you would like to be
Not the saint you’re striving to become,
But the being right here before you, inside you, around you.
All of you is holy.
You’re already more and less than whatever you can know.
Breathe out, look in, let go.

-John Welwood-

Today

Today is a day for healing
not for striving or achievement
not for confrontation or conflict
not for pleasure or diversion.
Today is a day for healing.

Today is a day for retreat
a day for regeneration
a day for reconnection
a day to slow down, step back and observe.
Today is a day for retreat.

Today is a day for being.
Today there is no future or past, only the present.
Today there is no becoming.
Today there is no doing, wanting or gaining.
Today is a day for being.

– Steve Taylor –

FB posting August 2 2015

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

– Rumi –