Day 14 of Year 2
It is comforting to remember there is a rhythm to the world that beats on whether I am there to hear it or not. The sun rises and sets without needing me at all. It takes so much pressure away to know the world doesn't revolve around Sybil ☺️, sometimes that's easy to forget! I can continue to do my best to be loving and kind in the world, but if I fall down and fail to meet my own standards, it's ok. Life goes on. The sun rises again and tomorrow I get another shot. As the alchemists taught, as above, so below. The internal rhythm echoes the external, energy/vision/will/satisfaction, you name it, rises and falls. In those falling times, I only have to look out and remember that just as the sun rises each day, my inner life will cycle back. Every ebb leads back to a flow. So I take heart and always wait for my internal sunrise.
Morning Poem
by Mary Oliver
Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange
sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again
and fasten themselves to the high branches --
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands
of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails
for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it
the thorn
that is heavier than lead --
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging -- there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted -- each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,
whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.