Many versions of ourselves finds themselves on shakey grounds, having come forth from false notions. We keep searching for our authentic selves because we long to be that human Being.

Tidbit: Long ago when I was in some yearly writers’ workshops with Martín Prechtel in New Mexico, he taught us to not use the verb “to be” (am, is, are, was, has been, being) in our writings. The indigenous Mayan language he knew, and spoke and lived when he worked in Guatamala many years ago before the people in that village were killed, had no word for this verb at all. I find it “to be” an enlightening practice to write sentences without it and not so easy to do.

photo © David Whyte

TWICE BLESSED

So that I
stopped
there
and looked
into the waters,
seeing not only
my reflected face
but the great sky
that framed
my lonely figure

and after
a moment
I lifted my hands
and then my eyes
and I allowed
myself
to be astonished
by the great
everywhere
calling to me
like an old,
invisible
and unspoken
invitation,
made new
again
in the sun
and the spring,
and the cloud
and the light,
like something
in one moment
both calling to me
and radiating
from where I stood,
as if I could
understand
everything
I had been given
and everything ever
taken from me,

as if I could be
everything
I have ever
learned
and everything
I could ever know,

as if
I knew
both the way
I had come
and, secretly,
the way
I was still
promised to go,
brought together,
like this,
with the
yielding light
and the symmetry
of the moving sky,
caught in still waters.

Someone I have been,
and someone,
I am just
about to become,
something I am
and will be forever,
the sheer generosity
of being loved
through loving:
the miracle reflection
of a twice blessed life.

…

Twice Blessed
THE BELL AND THE BLACKBIRD
Poetry by David Whyte
APRIL 2018 © David Whyte and Many Rivers Press

…

EVENING PERSPECTIVE
Photo © David Whyte
Asilomar Beach
Monterey Bay. January 11th 2018