Poetic Revelations: Don't Give Up
The light that fills us
“We are the one part of creation that knows what it’s like to live in exile, and that the ability to turn your face towards home is one of the great human endeavors.”
~ David Whyte
This is a weekly publication for heart-centered warriors, trying to make it through this thing we call life with an intact, open heart (and strong voice).
SELECTED POEMS
Belonging, Rosemary Trommer
On Belonging and Coming Home, David Whyte
Dear Embodied Hearts and Dancing Souls,
In the waning summer light, I too am folding into myself. I am taking a break this week and next. This week’s message —more of a postcard than letter— is the one I most need to hear myself. Don’t Give Up!
The Blues. I’ve been resonating with a certain uneasiness, tripping over differences and lack of commonalities with people in my life who are not creatives. I do wish the currency of the heart held more sway in the world. Its like a different operating system. Its like this rendition of It Ain’t Easy Being Green by Ray Charles. Its the blues, but in green. :)
Space Cat. I gave myself to a bout of creative writing, about a girl who felt so tired of being different that she rowed out into the middle of a lake in the middle of the night while her family was sleeping.
In this moment, she could feel so clearly that she was not from this planet. She must have come from somewhere else. It was the only thing that made sense.
She looked up to the starlight and determined, she sent out a distress call. “This is an SOS,” she transmitted from her heart. “I’m in trouble. I don’t want to be here anymore. There is no one to share anything with. I feel alone. Take me home.”
The space beings heard her and pulled up their space ship over Earth’s atmosphere. “We can’t take you yet,” they said. “But we’re sending you a cat.”
The little girl turned her head down and found a black and white cat in her arms. She held the cat in front of her and told it what was in her heart. “People shake their head at me,” she said. “They dismiss my inclinations or laugh at them.” The cat immediately scrambled closer to the girl, putting its paws on her heart and snuggling its head and body onto her chest. She felt into his body, laying itself on hers, as she breathed in and out. A physical presence in this physical reality.
She turned her head to the side, and looked back up. “This’ll do,” she said. She looked back at the cat on her chest, stroking it in a peaceful rhythm. “For now, this’ll do.”
I know I am not the only person to feel like this. To have this heart light and find people don’t speak its language. I came across this rendition of a different song, “Don’t Give Up,” by Willie Nelson and Sinead O’Connor, which has the feeling of the story above.
Intrigue: I am intrigued by the question mark in the image by NASA’s Webb telescope last week. Kind of how I’m feeling, lol. And I’m intrigued by David Whyte’s invitation below:
It’s interesting to think that no matter how exiled you feel from your contribution to the rest of the world or to society — that, as a human being, all you have to do is enumerate exactly the way you don’t feel at home in the world — to say exactly how you don’t belong — and the moment you’ve uttered the exact dimensionality of your exile, you’re already taking the path back to the way, back to the place you should be. ~ David Whyte
Time to start enumerating, me thinks.
Lots sifting. Stay #heartwoke. To your exquisite unfolding.
Monisha
I love the way the girl holds the cat in front of her and tells the cat what is in her heart, and the way the cat responds. She's the Christ Cat!
Love this, Monisha. My inner alien cat really felt seen in this one 💜 thank you.