The Very Foundations

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began, 
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble 
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voice behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life that you could save.
   Mary Oliver
The Journey

The Very Foundations

​"The Very Foundations" - acrylic and charcoal on toned paper, 18" x 24".  Ready to frame.  Available here and at Artfinder.
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There comes a point along the path where you just have to go it alone.

And by "alone" I do not mean by yourself, without support, without friends, without the comfort of being with someone.  By "alone" I mean without the many experiences that may have wounded you and continue to haunt you.  The experiences which give you pause, make you hesitate, send you running for that thing you do to make yourself feel better, whatever that is. 

What would you do if you could leave all that baggage behind?  Oh sure, keep your wisdom and strength and compassion and all the positive things which that stone of sadness seeded inside you.  But if you could leave the weight of it - that coil of fear and insecurity and mistrust - what would you do?

We lost Mary Oliver this week.  A woman whose words touched as hands cannot.  I think of her now soaring in the ever-after, a stream of unfettered words and wisdom swirling in galactic vapors, freed from gravity.  I am grateful for these weighty gifts she left behind.