Starting again . . .

Tew's day's mailbox had a lovely note and poem posted by David Whyte from his site:

One of the more difficult but rewarding states to achieve in today's world, where we seem to hover on the one hand between being completely overwhelmed by other people or finding ourselves in extreme states of isolation and loneliness. All the more necessary then, to learn how to be rewardingly alone, to find solace in the familiarity of our own breath and our own body and perhaps even, if we are lucky, our own garden. Resting into our aloneness, we inhabit our bodies as a beautiful unspoken question, rather than a fraught and never ending explanation.

At Home

At home amidst the bees

wandering the garden

in the summer light.

the sky a broad roof

for the house of contentment

where I wish to live

forever in the eternity

of my own fleeting

and momentary happiness.

I walk toward the kitchen

door as if walking toward

the door of a recognized

heaven, and see the

simplicity of shelves and

the blue dishes and the

vapouring steam rising

from the kettle

that called me in.

Not just this aromatic cup

from which to drink

but the flavour of a life

made whole and lovely

through the imagination

seeking its way. Not just

this house around me

but the arms of a fierce

but healing world.

Not just this line I write

but the innocence of an

earned forgiveness flowing

again through hands

made new with writing.

And a man with no company

but his house, his garden,

and his own well peopled solitude,

entering the silences and chambers

of the heart to start again.

- David Whyte, from The House of Belonging