Our Existential Messenger…

Image by Josep Molina Secall

Every day divine or existential messengers cross our paths if only we would choose to see them. For me, today, the message was loud and clear “Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination” (Mary Oliver in Wild Geese).

I am unsure if I am permitted to write out the whole poem without permission, so what I am going to do is give you a link to where Mary Oliver reads Wild Geese. (Thank you for this link Philip Chircop)

The lines that resonate so strongly are of course the first few “You do not have to be good…You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves”. For the whole poem go to Mary Oliver's poem Wild Geese (Thank you https://www.vanderbilt.edu/olli/class-materials/2017Summer.MindfulnessWk1.pdf).

Mary Oliver understands human nature and the importance of the heart. I love how she reminds us that the world is offering belonging if only we would notice. When we surround ourselves with beauty, in nature, and in art making, we can shift how we are in the world. I am hoping we all have the opportunity to stand under a tree, look up at the sky and breathe. Walk along a shoreline, noticing the dance of the waves, heading along a bush track. Noticing your existential, your divine messenger. Noticing and then acting accordingly.