Write it, Writer.
The time is today. A poem and manifesto on living fully.
What do you feel about your life today?
Yes, you.
What do you feel about your life today?
Write it, writer. There is no wrong way.
Say it, express the things you aren’t sure how to say —
it is time to be true.
How do I feel, at this moment, on this day?
I feel uncertain and uncertainty, the shadow of insecurity.
I feel marvel and wonder and awe and fear, aware of the ever-present mystery.
I feel shoulders tensing and belly breathe falling and rising, I feel laughter waiting and pleasures wanting.
What else?
I’ve been thinking about money, I’ve been overthinking, over tensing, over-fearing and it can be overwhelming. Overwhelmed, I say this often, I know this feeling and it is not True.
I’ve been thinking about success, sifting through definitions of success that I’ve absorbed, that are not mine. I am listening to what success means to me. I’m in a process, I’m learning.
Do you live your every day with excitement and happiness?
(Do I live my every day with excitement and happiness?)
— and my answer is a smile that comes from within and excitement that is the excitement of living.
— and my Practice is thanking, Thank you, thank you for today.
— and my body answers in movement, in softening, and expansion.
and could it be any other way?
(Why is it, how is it that this joy is forgotten, overshadowed by stress and anxiety and graspings?)
There are so many other ways, fearful small, and despairing ways.
I do not want to live in fear anymore. I do not want to hide. I do not want to live in the lackings.
I hear the other voices in my head, the ones that want to hold on to the pain.
I see my words and I call myself Simple, which the voices distort to mean stupid, naive.
Those voices, they can call me stupid and naive.
But the truth (the Truth) is simple.
It’s wordless and wanting to be written, in whatever however way it emerges from you.
Write it, writer. There is no wrong way.
Write about the things you want to do before you die.
I want…
I want to live joyfully. I want to dance, sing, laugh from my soul. I want to walk in the forests and hike in the mountains. I want to drink in the sun and breathe, deep.
I want to live in connection with the world.
I want to meet and grow with my partner. I want to build a home and family together.
I want to love and learn with this partner, a lover and husband and friend.
I want to make a home with books and plants and art and nature nearby.
I want…
I want to create and to create.
I want to write, and I want my writing to be read. I want to be published. I want to write a book, many books, about things beautiful and true.
I want to teach.
I want to travel.
I want to serve
I want…
I want to trust.
I want to live with trust.
I want to live with excitement and happiness.
I want to live with marvel and wonder, today and every day.
(May it be, may it be).
A poem by Mary Oliver:
My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.~ “Messenger” by Mary Oliver, from Thirst
Prompt:
What do you feel about your life today? Do you live your every day with excitement and happiness? Write about the things you want to do before you die. Have you made your bucket list, yet? If yes, then share your lists in a poetic form at Lifeline.
