By Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.
❤❤❤
In January 2019, Mary Oliver, the Pulitzer Prize winning poet, was welcomed by heroes Walt Whitman and John Keats to the great storytellers club in the sky.
In her poem The Summer Day, she gave us words to live by, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
…’I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing as though I had wings’ (just like our girls trips!)
Our girls trip are epic spiritual awakenings!
…how beautifully appropriate…here’s to listening to that small voice within.
So happy to go through this journey with you! ❤
She was a wise woman❤️
I thank yoga for making the introduction! ❤