by Mary Oliver

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 clean 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.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver

by Kat Lehmann

let yourself
stumble a little
trip yourself open
let the sunlight
warm your soul

by Robert Augustus Masters

If you’re not afraid, it’s not your edge. If you’re not resistant, it’s not your edge. If you can coast through it, it’s not your edge.

If you’re not feeling raw, it’s not your edge. If you’re trying to fit yourself into a cognitive framework, it’s not your edge. If you think you’ve got it figured out, it’s not your edge.

If you leap too soon, you’ll bounce back to your old ways before long; and if you wait too long to leap, you’ll remain bound to your old ways after the novelty of seeing different ground has worn thin. Going to your edge is not a one-time activity; it’s a way of being.

If you’re clinging to complication, ricocheting between perspectives, it’s not your edge. If you’re clinging to easy answers, it’s not your edge. If you’re settling for crumbs, it’s not your edge.

If you’re being seduced by hope, it’s not your edge. If you’re making explanation more central than revelation, it’s not your edge. If you’re overthinking this, it’s not your edge.

If you’re trying to make it all make sense, it’s not your edge. If you’re clinging to despair, it’s not your edge. If you’re remaining intact, it’s not your edge. If it doesn’t peel back your eyelids, it’s not your edge.

If you’re handing your inner critic a megaphone and an uncritical ear, you’ll approach your edge only partially, sideways, half-heartedly. If you’re fusing with your inner child, your approach to your edge will slow to a crawl, and then a standstill. If you look as you leap and leap as you look, your edge no longer will be ahead of you, but a deepening plunge into an unmapped, fully alive now.

If you keep shelving your invitation to your edge, you run the risk of dying before you truly live, of settling for a meager portion when the feast is not out of reach. If you allow self-sabotage to dethrone you, your edge will be reduced to a postcard you occasionally mail to yourself.

Your edge is where you are most alive, most challenged, most broken open, most in touch with what you were born to stretch into. Your edge may not be a precipice, but it is a naturally precarious place until you learn to homestead there, no longer turning impermanence into a problem or inconvenience.

If it’s easy, it’s not your edge. If it doesn’t call for the very best from you, it’s not your edge. If it doesn’t seize your heart and ignite your belly, it’s not your edge.

If it remains conceptual, it’s not your edge. If it gets bogged down in emotion, it’s not your edge. If it values the spiritual over the personal, it’s not your edge.

Going to our edge uproots us until we find truer ground. It shakes and quakes us, stripping us of our lethargy, reluctance, and bypassing. It is rough grace unbraked, at once undoing and reforming us, without our usual input.

Going to our edge is a risk; not going to our edge is a bigger risk. Listen very closely — do you not detect the pull, however subtle, of your edge? And do you not also feel a response, however slight, to this, regardless of the hubbub of the rest of your life?

Your edge, as always, awaits you. Now.

 

If – A Poem by Rudyard Kipling

Video version, as shared by parents and guardians.

If

by Rudyard Kipling
(written in 1896, this poem by the author of The Jungle Book, was first published in 1910 as part of a book titled “Rewards and Fairies”)

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;
If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on! ‘

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And- -which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son!

If – a poem by Rudyard Kipling, as read by fathers, mothers and god parents

a film by Arran North
October 1, 2015

Watch an authentic reading of Rudyard Kipling’s world famous poem, If.

A moving collaboration between fathers, mothers and god parents.

Filmed to coincide with the Cheltenham Literature Festival 2015, this film was planned and shot over the last weekend of September 2015. The film was created with no-budget and everyone generously volunteered their time.

Shot in the cellar bar of Café René, Gloucester, UK – Gloucester’s best known secret. A collaboration between two Gloucester based creative groups: Artists Collaborate and Food for Thoughts. Created by (in order of spoken words): Magdalena Payne, Daniel Woolf, Stig Godding, Steve Bracewell, Salvador Moncholi, Angela Bracewell, Kishi de l’Allebone, Joey Gill, Kieron Bates and Chris Atine.

Arran North (hello@arrannorth.com): Camera/Audio/Creative Direction/Editing/Grading/Production | Tara Kaliszewski: Concept/Creative Direction/Asst. Editing

Source: Playing for Change

We share with you “The Leaves Turn Brown, ” a beautiful original song from Luke Winslow-King and his bandmates, Christian Carpenter (bass) and Chris Davis (drums). This song and performance are dedicated to the loving memory of Luke’s father, Kurt Albert Balzuweit, who passed away one year ago. “He gave so much that so that I could be where I am today,” says Luke. May this sweet melody fill you with love and bring you a sense of peace.

by Thich Nhat Hanh

Walk and touch peace every moment.

Walk and touch happiness every moment.

Each step brings a fresh breeze.

Each step makes a flower bloom.

Kiss the Earth with your feet.

Bring the Earth your love and happiness.

The Earth will be safe

when we feel safe in ourselves.