Discerning & Expressing Your Divine Passion Pt. 2

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This poem “Kindness,” plays a part in why I must revamp my blog.  Somehow via reading “O” magazine from the library, I got inspired-yes it can be hokey and so commercially driven but the heart of the Oprah magazine is in the right place.  It was the April 2011 issue, which focused on poetry- that and my daily intuitive reading led to a huge inner explosion of clarity and energy. I realized that all my disparate interests can come together and weave into a coherent and beautiful garment via this blog.  My reading for yesterday said-you can create something by participation that will surpass what any of you can do alone and you all will be nourished by it. Intuition said to open Embark up more — via participation from writers, artists and such as well as my own voice. I love writing, I love artistic expression and had been confused as to how to move forward on both or either.  

So I’m getting clearer…but how can this (besides sharing this deeply moving poem,) be of any help to you?  BIG QUESTIONS? On Life Purpose…

Are you looking for the big picture?  Is there a new you that could be forged out of the fire of your most difficult and your most enjoyable experiences?  What have you survived, how did you thrive?  What little things do you love? 

Embark is about “loving the life you live,” so I encourage you to see how all of your history can be food for a new and nourishing banquet? For me it’s staying open to all the little things of the days as they pass and seeing the theme.   Something,  the final spark, was looking at a magazine-but it pulled together so many questions I’d been ruminating on…

And finally I first heard this poem read at a Insight Meditation Retreat at IMS in Massachusetts.  So as part of this opening of this blog-I invite submissions of true stories about “reinventing oneself.” If you know someone who has a lovely, uplifting story to share please be in touch.  I hope to make that a part of monthly feature.  Namaste, Kala.

OH and please share this post use buttons above and below, I’d really appreciate it! And your comments.

Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye from her book [amazon_link id=”0933377290″ target=”_blank” ]Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (A Far Corner Book)[/amazon_link]

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride

thinking the bus will never stop,

the passengers eating maize and chicken

will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,

you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho

lies dead by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you,

how he too was someone

who journeyed through the night with plans

and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day to mail letters and

purchase bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

it is I you have been looking for,

and then goes with you every where

like a shadow or a friend.