Site Map |
Blog| ln
Corrogue | Storytelling
| Articles | Products
| Services | About Me
|
The Blessing of Poetry
- Christopher Fry
I am accompanied by the blessing of poetry. This is the poetry of John O`Donaghue. I have on my knee his beautiful collection of poems entitled “Conamara Blues.” I sit on Lough Melvin’s equivalent of the “boon tree.” This is a tree stump washed up on the shoreline. It is weathered and has been abused by fire. Still it is welcoming in its wounded ness. There is quietude and there is gratitude. There is wind and there is sunshine. John O`Donaghue loves Conamara. I guess he loves it the way I love our town land and its surroundings. This is the town land known locally as “Corrogue.” Corrogue translates as “the place of the briars.” This “Conamara Blues” poetry anthology has a beautiful blue cover. It reminds me of the colour of exquisite pottery. On the cover is a picture. This shows a boat resting on the shore. In the background are, what I imagine to be, the “hills of Conamara.” These hills surround a Lough just as this Lough Melvin surrounds me. Surrounding this picture of a Lough is a Celtic weave. This imitates connection. Within this Celtic pattern of weave there is no beginning and there is no end. Within this weave of no beginning and no end there is the connection to a sense of time-lessness. This visit to the shoreline of Lough Melvin allows me to dip into beauty. It allows me to remember the delight of the now. This is the way I connect to poetry. I simply open the poetry book and allow it to speak to my heart. This is not a linear process. It is a simple opening up to “what is.” I open the book and I open my heart. I enter a dynamic of trust with the writer of the poem. Opening this book of beauty I arrive at the section entitled “Approachings.” Within this section is a beautiful poem by Naomi Shahib Nye. What a great name. This is a poet’s name. How could it be other? When you read her poem you know you are being asked to come to the edge. She wants to take you flying. She wants to know who you are. She is daring. She is a questor. She asks questions of intimacy. These questions are not for the squeamish. They are not questions for the warrior. They are not questions for achievers. They are not questions for those who are successful within our present social understanding. These are questions to be answered by lovers. In our society of the “forever wanting” the questing of lovers is not appreciated. This poet of questing asks you to “think of things that disappear.” She asks you “think of what you do best.” She asks you “what brings tears to your eyes.” OK enough. This woman is asking too much already. These are intimate questions. These are the sorts of questions one can expect from a poet. Poets are co-creators. They live outside the norm of social consciousness. Those poets deeply connected to “the place of knowing” tend to live short lives. They are not interested in the small talk of persona. They are interested in the perfume of being. The questions this poet asks are those related to your intimate self. You begin to connect to your “Love Is Flowing Eternally.” You connect to your life force. These are questions that will stretch you beyond your social persona. These are questions that take you beyond your day-to-day thinking. They take you into the silence beyond thought. They take you to the place of silence between words. This is a place of emptiness. It is a place most of us avoid. We fear our aloneness. Yet we forget that we are forever alone. Please note that “forever alone” is very different from “forever lonely.” The poet asks, “What do you do best?” When I think about this I answer thus. I write about presence. I write about the only time we ever have to know who we are. I encourage the experience of being. I discourage the avoidance of responsibility for love. This is the best I do. It is the one thing I love to do above all else. I spend time being here now. This is my joy. This I know is the solution to our “forever doing” and “never feeling we are enough” society. What I do best is simple this. I tell you “you are forever enough.” This is because I know that you are “forever enough.” I have not learned this in school. I have learned it from the darkness of my soul. Only I have been graced to be able to turn such darkness into gold. This poet takes you deeper. This poet with the poets name takes you to the places you avoid. Maybe you have been asked, “What do you do best.” We love to be asked about ourselves. We love to share our life’s experience. We all love to be given the opportunity to tell our story. Only she goes beyond social convention. She asks “What brings tears to your eyes?” She is so daring. With this question she is prepared to take you to the edge. This is not your usual dinnertime conversation. This is not your usual social connection over a glass of wine or beer. This is not even a “behind bedroom doors” type of question. This is a question only a “knower of love” can really answer. Most people will answer this question in the negative. They will tell you how love has brought them sorrow. They will tell you about the horridness of this world. They will tell you that the only salvation is via this Guru or that Guru. They will tell you the only solution is via heaven if you are a Christian. They will tell you the only solution is via Paradise if you are a Muslim. Always the answer will be other than in the present. They will tell you that the only salvation is a place and time available to you when the body you enjoy (or do not enjoy) exits this planet. They deprive you of your birthright. They deprive you of your relationship with the delight of now. This poet wants you to share your story of delight. She wants you to share what it means to be human. She wants you to share the delight of being here now. When you so share you will know what it is to cry for joy. She wants you to share period. This is what children do before they learn the despair of insecurity. Children are the professionals of love before they are taught to lose faith in their “being of love.” Those who “make love the key” know the joy of love. Those who “make love the key” also know the sorrow of love. These two are companions. They are sides of the same coin. Each is welcomed. Each is a teacher of the process of allowing. Each asks you to be present to the eternal moment of love. This experience is not in the next world. It is in the world of this eternal moment. Most of us weep for what we see as a world of sorrow. To few of us are weeping for this world of joy and beauty. This is, I think, in part due to the fact that we refuse to ask difficult questions. We avoid our individual quest in this “Love Is Flowing Eternally” experience. We allow others to ride into the forest of unknowing. We wait for them to return with answers. Their certainty convinces us we need not quest on our own behalf. We accept their answer as our own. We thus avoid our journey into our own forest of unknowing. We do not do as my beloved poet Rumi (a twelfth century Persian mystic) suggests. He says, “Do not care what others think.” He advises, “risk all for love.” We do not make the quest for love our key priority. We hold other keys. We hold tight any key that promises us security. We hold tight the key that promises security in relationship. We hold tight the key of financial security. Whatever security we can get we cling to like a drowning man or woman. We are rarely if ever taught the wisdom of insecurity. This would prove disastrous to our present way of viewing the world of economics. We are not taught the wisdom of allowing our lives to flow moment to moment. This is why the poet asks us to “think of things that disappear.” Everything disappears. We fail to embrace the wisdom that “all things shall pass.” We feel anxious at having to consider this question. It is the question we avoid most of our lives. Our culture trains us to avoid it. Our lives then become an experience of avoidance rather than an embracing of “what is.” The poet asks you to think about the question “think of what disappears?” She knows the answer. She is a wise woman. She knows the ultimate security is in disappearing. She knows the ultimate security is in allowing yourself to be nobody special. This is the role of poetry. It is there to help you remember. It is there to help you see into the beauty of your “love flowing eternally.” It is radical. It asks you to quest. It therefore asks you difficult questions. The wave disappears into the ocean. The raindrop disappears into the ever-flowing river of life. It comes. It goes. Your body is a river of energy. It is replaced every seven years in total. Everyday there is a part of you that dies to become renewed. This is the cycle of life. It is not fixed. It is love flowing eternally. You have never had a beginning and you will never end. You are beyond time and you are beyond space. You are forever becoming. You have a choice. This is to cycle at higher and higher levels of conscious unconditional loving. This takes tremendous courage and means you cannot belong to our social conditioning. It means you become one of those who surrender to uncertainty and unknowing. The best you do is this. Be courageous. Love unconditionally. You know this beyond all the entrapments you tie yourself to daily. What brings tears to your eyes? I think for most of us it is our connection or separation from the experience of unconditional love. You are a being of unconditional love. You are made in Gods image and God is love. God is unconditional love. This means your essence is “unconditional love.” You are never “not unconditional love.” You never have been "not unconditional love." You never will not be "not unconditional love." You have only forgotten that you are a “forever being of unconditional love.” When you disappear you will know. You will know that you are love eternal. There is no need for you to “be saved.” This is like telling a wave it does not belong to the ocean. There is nothing you have to do. You only have to be. You cannot save something unless you are separate from it. You never have been and you never will be separate from that which has no beginning and no end. You are love flowing eternally. So think about “things that disappear.” Invite your own disappearance. When you are graced with this experience of disappearance you make God available to you. God is a dance waiting for you to recognise you as a being of love. When this recognition happens God pours unconditional love into this empty space When you learn the knack of allowing you will walk the middle way. This is the way of compassion. What more is there to desire? All else is compensation for a life that refuses to ask the question “what brings tears to my eyes?” God is forever waiting. God is not violent. God is the ultimate in allowing. When you allow yourself to be then being happens. You will know you are blessed. You will know “what brings tears to your eyes.” You have entered into joy. You enjoy love flowing eternally. This is only how it is now and forever. Poets know this when they are allowing enough. The river flows and the grass grows by itself. Just disappear. Just be in this forever becoming joy filled moment. Tears will flow. Sometimes joy and sometimes sorrow. Each is welcome. Neither is judged. Each is only what it is. Neither is a problem to be asked “why.” RECOMMENDED READING
John O'Donohue was awarded a Ph.D. in philosophical theology from the University of Tübingen in 1990. He is the author of several works, including a collection of poems, Echoes of Memory, a book on the philosophy of Hegel, Person als Vermittlung, Conamara Blues, and the international bestsellers, Anam Cara and Eternal Echoes. He travels widely in Europe and the US, where he lectures and holds workshops. He lives in Ireland Get more weekly flow and inspiration from a lover of poetry - the language of the soul. Sign up for your FREE copy of our weekly ezine Blessings for YOU.
Tony Cuckson who runs these groups is a storyteller, writer, workshop leader and Anam cara (Soul Friend) .
Site Map | Blog| ln Corrogue | Storytelling | Articles | Products | Services | About Me |
