When your eyes are tired

the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone

no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark

where the night has eyes

to recognize its own.

There you can be sure

you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb

tonight.

The night will give you a horizon

further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.

The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds

except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness

to learn

anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

David Whyte from “The House of Belonging”

I can’t make every minute holy.

I don’t want to stand before you

like a thing, shrewd, secretive.

I want my own will, and I want

simply to be with my will,

as it goes toward action.

And in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times,

when something is coming near,

I want to be with those who know

secret things or else alone.

I want to unfold.

I don’t want to be folded anywhere,

because where I am folded,

there I am a lie.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Willing to experience aloneness,

I discover connection everywhere;

Turning to face my fear,

I meet the warrior who lives within;

Opening to my loss,

I gain the embrace of the universe;

Surrendering into emptiness,

I find fullness without end.

Jennifer Welwood

We have come to be danced

Not the pretty dance

Not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance

But the claw our way back into the belly

Of the sacred, sensual animal dance

The unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance

The holding the precious moment in the palms

Of our hands and feet dance.

We have come to be danced

Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance

But the wring the sadness from our skin dance

The blow the chip off our shoulder dance.

The slap the apology from our posture dance.

We have come to be danced

Not the monkey see, monkey do dance

One two dance like you

One two three, dance like me dance

but the grave robber, tomb stalker

Tearing scabs and scars open dance

The rub the rhythm raw against our soul dance.

We have come to be danced

Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle

But the matted hair flying, voodoo mama

Shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance

The strip us from our casings, return our wings

Sharpen our claws and tongues dance

The shed dead cells and slip into

The luminous skin of love dance.

We have come to be danced

Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance

But the meeting of the trinity, the body breath and beat dance

The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance

The mother may I?

Yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance

The olly olly oxen free free free dance

The everyone can come to our heaven dance.

We have come to be danced

Where the kingdom’s collide

In the cathedral of flesh

To burn back into the light

To unravel, to play, to fly, to pray

To root in skin sanctuary

We have come to be danced

We have come.

by Jewel Mathieson

I’ve burned my own house down,
the torch is in my hand.
Now I’ll burn down the house of anyone
who wants to follow me.

Kabir

I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

Pablo Neruda, from One Hundred Love Sonnets translated by Stephen Mitchell

This being Human is a guest house.
Every moment a new arrival,
a joy, a depression, a meanness.
Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all,
even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house empty of all its furniture.

Still treat each guest honorably,
they many be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
open the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whomever comes,
for each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi

There is a force within
Which gives you life -
Seek that.

In your body
Lies a precious jewel -
Seek that.

O wandering Sufi,
if you are in search of the greatest treasure,
don’t look outside.
Look within, and seek that.

Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi

You see, I want a lot.
Perhaps I want everything:
the darkness that comes with every infinite fall
and the shivering blaze of every step up.
So many live on and want nothing,
And are raised to the rank of prince
by the slippery ease of their light judgments.

But what you love to see are faces
that do work and feel thirst.

You love most of all those who need you
As they need a crowbar or a hoe.

You have not grown old, and it is not too late
To dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out its own secret.

Rainer Maria Rilke, from Das Studenbuch, translated by Robert Bly

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

Rainer Maria Rilke, from The Book of Hours, translated by Barrows and Macy