Reflections on a Poem: What to Remember when Waking by David Whyte

The ESSENCE and SPIRIT of poetry connects the reader to the Artist. This connection may not be a literal understanding of the words but a resonance to an experience, a felt sense that is shared in the heartbeat of the poem. Its message is abstract, existential, and unique to each individual who chooses to engage with the MUSE that reveals one’s SOUL interpretation.

That’s the PLAY I engage with here as I surface words|phrases that open something in me. It might be very different for you… I invite you to explore for yourself. 

WHAT URGENCY CALLS YOU TO YOUR ONE TRUE LOVE? 

I like good questions.  I love great questions even more.  

This question asks us to plumb the depth of our SOUL and understand our one true calling. What if that call remains in the shadows and is unknown to us?  What if we’ve followed a prescribed or predicative path? What if we allowed someone else to influence our choices and decisions? What if our “one true love” doesn’t inhabit the path we’re currently on?

Some of us are lucky or fortunate or could do no other than to follow our hearts desire but this poem asks us this question each morning when we wake. In what places do you allow your heart to sing? Where does your proverbial cup get filled amidst the noise of the day? And, how might you discern the voice of your SOUL that calls to you and asks you to wake up to “your one true love”.  This is the invitation.

But URGENCY? I’ve often wrestled with the idea that nothing in life is URGENT other than life and death; emergency room care where doctors are literally saving lives. However, URGENT may be your life’s desire edging closer and closer to the surface of your consciousness. It may not be in so much what you do but who you are and how you show up in the world. URGENT is the Divine opening within your humanity.

The world needs YOUR VOICE.  The world needs each and every person’s expression even if it’s quiet or subtle.  No one says your voice in this world needs to be BOLD and SPLASHY, just full and WHOLESPIRITED and authentic. Our voice, our vision is gifted to us at different points in our lives.  We are each on our own path and are invited to stay awake to heed the call.

WHAT YOU CAN PLAN IS TOO SMALL FOR YOU TO LIVE

WHAT YOU CAN LIVE WHOLEHEARTEDLY WILL MAKE PLANS

These next two sections travel together and are 2-sides of the same coin.

Our DREAMS are bigger than what we can do all at once. It could create overwhelm and stop us before we start. Yet, that seed lives within you and inhabits your days. It is the ESSENCE of who you are when you show up in the world; the TRUE YOU! 

Each and every day is the opportunity for further unfolding into “your one true love”. Upon waking in the morning the invitation is HOW do I live more FULLY into WHO I am? Authentically.

When we honor the invitation to step into our WHOLESPIRITED self with each singular step, the path appears. The steps may be erratic.  They’re definitely not linear or rational, more of an unfolding like a Lotus Flower - not an onion like Shrek suggests. But that “wholehearted” living is the wisdom within that guides you; a North Star of sorts - your Divine nature seeking expression. 

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