A Sort of Homecoming

WILD GEESE by Mary Oliver from Dream Work (The Atlantic Monthly Press)

 

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.


One time a pastor/friend was at a program with other churchy types where the presenter used a poem by Rumi to open up the discussion.  My friend said she turned to a colleague and said, "Ugh.  Not "The Guesthouse" again. . . "  Not that it isn't a great poem, it just was the go-to Rumi for so many contemplative circles and meditation groups, becoming so ubiquitous that it had lost its impact and meaning for her. 

As much as I love Mary Oliver, there are some of her poems to which I react the same way.  For a long time, "Wild Geese" was one of those but somehow after this past weekend I can read it again with fresh eyes.  Maybe it's because enough time has past.  Maybe it's because this weekend I sat outside watching flocks of geese and ducks fly overhead.  Or maybe it's because while sitting by the banks of the brackish Pamlico River, I was able to let the soft animal of my body love what it loves for the first time in  . . . well, years. 

Seaside in Northern Wales

There's something about salt water-- the smell, taste, color and life contained therein that always restores me.  It's like the .09% of my body that is salt quivers with excitement when I'm near the ocean. 

So many creation stories tell how humans were formed from earth, but I feel more like the salt doll in the Buddhist tale.  There's a realization that returning to the sea is a homecoming of sorts, a place of discovery and recognition where I'm able not only to let go of my ego, but also reconnect with the source of my being.