Mary Oliver's poem "Wild Geese"

[greenstorm]

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

This is the poem I was looking for. It's very beautiful, but right now it doesn't seem very true.

I wonder if resignation is in order here, or if I should fight to change things? I generally think I will always be alright with the final product, but maybe that isn't true in this case. Maybe I need to deliberately choose the place I want to be and then go there.

How do you choose these things? Just picturing situations in the future and thinking, that one's good, or, that one's bad doesn't work; you can't get a comprehensive picture from a situation just from the inside of your head if it hasn't happened yet. How do you decide where you want to be? And I guess, what does it matter anyhow, since you rarely get where you want to be by your own choosing.

The Mission Folk Fest is not this coming weekend but the next. I'm scared. I'm only half sure I'm going to go. What would it mean to close that chapter of my life so completely, or even just to put it aside for a little bit? Would it be a betrayal of myself out of fear of the pain Kynnin can cause me, or does it only make sense to retreat in that way as well?

Apparently he's always been unhappy going to the fest with me. This year he is willingly going with Mouse, and camping. He'll be everywhere there. I do not resent her in any way, but the idea of seeing them there together fills me with a sort of dread. It highlights the fact that every time he went with me in the past was a lie, that where I thought he was appreciating being with me and watching me in my own element he was really bored and resentful and wishing I didn't do the things I liked there.

I probably need to go. It will be okay in the end. I'm still very afraid.

Comments

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

[estrellada.livejournal.com]

you love the folk fest. sometimes I think it's your favorite thing.

I know I'd be in the stubborn place of 'why am I letting my fear of X get in the way of something I really love?'

I think you should go, but give yourself space and oppotunities to avoid stuff that would be unnecessarily hard for you.

[wik.livejournal.com]

Yes. You need to go. A year or two ago, I remember you chomping at the bit about going to this thing. I know you really enjoy it. By this time next year, it'll be a lot easier to be seeing them. You just have to not give up your fun stuff in the meantime.

hug

[http://users.livejournal.com/_greenwitch_/]

Did Kynnin admit these things? Are you sure that's how he feels? You need to do what feels most comfortable to you, for this year at least. If you go to the Fest, go for yourself and enjoy, if not, there's garage building and Illuminaries in town. Either way, you shouldn't be alone.

[khamura.livejournal.com]

I say you should go. You mustn't forget to be yourself in all of this, and if I ever knew anything about you, it's that dancing is one of the things that was completely and utterly you; like gardening, but more focused on the now.

Don't take it on your shoulders that Kynnin got bored -- you didn't go there to entertain him but because going is a big thing for you, after all.

But I understand the dread, the highlighting. I'll not tell you to ignore it, you know as well as I do that it's not that simple; but for those few days, simply let dread be dread, and dance. I think you need it.

[saxifrage00.livejournal.com]

I did enjoy seeing you in your element there. I was also lonely and left behind, watching something fascinating through imperfect glass.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_locke/]

Well, if you don't go you are welcome to come and lounge on my lawn and watch me fumble about trying to build a garage. :)

[princess-joy.livejournal.com]

Hi. I don't know you at all and therefore surprise myself to be posting at all. But your words always resound within me, remind me of a loss not that long ago...and they make me wonder about the potential for future loss and what it would mean...

But that is about me, and I wanted to your current quandry. I've wrestled with this kind of thing a few times myself, and am doing so currently about an event this weekend.

To not go means feeling like you've missed something. Something important and special to you, not to mention fun, as seems to be the case with this festival. And yes, in some way to not go means allowing 'them' to deny you that which you will enjoy...some might say it's hiding, or not just facing up and continuing on by going and enjoying...

But I know for me, in all cases I've faced I've chosen not to go. Because it's 100% about you. At the end of the day, will your soul be more healed by staying or going? The festival will be there for many years. But to nurture yourself this year, perhaps taking a pass is the less hurtful route?

You can't worry about them, or about what other people need right now. It needs to be about you for a while -- that which best serves your ability to heal, and feel the pain, and move on from it too.

I am very, very sorry for what you have been experiencing lately...whatever you do this weekend, I hope you find some peace and opportunities to smile and feel good about *you*.

[echo2oak.livejournal.com]

First ****HUG****

Second... that's a fabulous poem, very evocative. But what struck me is the underlying theme of how life goes on even when we are suffering and in despair, that there are still songs to sing, dances to dance, plants to grow.

Swil Kanim tells the story of an elder of his tribe asking Swill to join him and listen to the oldest tree in this area. Swill went up there and all he could hear was the creeking of the trees. He was disappointed, thinking that he was clearly missing the message the elder had to say. Finally, the elder helped him hear the music around him, the creeking of the trees, the birdsong, the highway buzz, even his own breathing....

I was at a woman of Color dinner recently and the main speaker said that whenever her grandmother got to feeling blue, she would put on her best dress and her favorite shoes and dance salsa in her living room. We danced that night, in the aisles between tables, swishing hips, arms raised and smiles. We couldn't help but smile, and suddenly I felt in the moment, right there, beyond worry and care, happy to be alive and me...

From what I've read of other's comments, that's the sort of thing this Festival offers, a chance to dance, to celebrate survival and a new life, to listen and experience the music of your life, of the life that surrounds you and permeates you.

Pain may come, it is part of the dance. Joy from memory might come, it is part of the dance. You are part of the dance, and you are the dancer. May your feet drum the beat that is your own, unique truth.

Re: You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

I can't be stubborn about the folk fest. It's not in me. :/ The folk fest is one of the few things in my life that isn't a matter of principle or a demand, it's only something that must happen, like fall coming.

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

It will be very different this time, although oddly I am still myself for it.

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

You're right. And I do need the now very much lately. One of my biggest defensive mechanisms is going elsewhere, into the future or the past or the alternate. I'm forgetting how to be here, and that's not a good thing to forget.

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

I don't know what to say to you anymore. :/

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your response. You're certainly welcome to post as much as you want -- if you read this you know (some sides) of me fairly well, I imagine. Mostly the unhappy ones. ;)

Certainly I will find peace. I will lose it again, too, but it does always return.

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

I've always been strange enough that I've felt the need to veil some of it lest I make others very uncomfortable.

I guess they can just deal with a bald girl waving her arms around and crying in public this year.