by Susan Lindsay

It is not important to me

How many books you’ve read and digested.

 

 

You may be enlightened and peaceful,

You may be holding your own,

Sure and steady in the ways of the world,

Or be befuddled and muddled, as you clumsily stumble  

Over the stone you meant to put your foot upon.

 

 

It doesn’t matter to me if you have your doctorate in theology, or any other ‘ology,    Or your Primary Certificate in basic English,

 

 

If you’ve studied the worlds religions

Or been initiated by enlightened Masters.

If One Taste suffices for ever

Or if you’re enthralled in the womb’s soft embrace 

Or the longing for a mothers arms  

Or the safety of your fathers hand as you step out into the world 

Or the priests hand as you leave it  

Or any hand to steady you or to be a thread as you seek your way

To or from the catacombs you dare to explore.

 

 

It doesn’t interest me if you pray on your knees

Or meditate with a straight back,

If you sweat in the Lodges, face Mecca to bow in reverence three times a day,  

Or any times a day,    

If you eat kosher food, or honour your parents or leave the dead to bury the dead.

 

 

You may have been in therapy six times a week for ten years

Breathed to the music of the shamans

You may have been with Fritz in Esalen

Or tended to the dying in Calcutta with Mother Theresa,      

Or have never left home.

 

 

These things are important.   

                                                       

                                                  

But, I hope

That your heart has been touched

That you look with compassion on the failing of others

Knowing some of your own

 

 

That you can open your heart and still dare to love –     

Even if only for this one moment more.

 

 

Or,

If your wound is too deep,

That its searing cut has revealed through a chink

The ravine in the depth of your soul      

That never runs dry.

 

 

I hope

That

In the midst of your pain

Or the glory of your seeming success

You can take a moment to be touched

By the beauty that surrounds you   

To see the sunbeam, even if it only lightens the dust on a hard stone floor  

Or, when it travels in waves of light over the purple, green and yellow mountains.

 

 

I dare to hope

That

When truth touches your blind spot

You dare to allow yourself a moment of confusion

To let yourself discover something new

Despite the fact it doesn’t fit the jigsaw of constructs

You’ve so painfully put together  

And now must reconfigure.

 

 

I dare to hope

That

You can be a fool for love.

Not just for the passion that sweeps you away-

Although that is important too,

For it is the part of the dance that knowingly risks encountering fools gold at its end.

 

 

But, I dare to hope

That

You can be the innocent fool

Who will dare to be open to love

Knowing only too well that innocence is not valued by the world

But that it is the key to opening the heart

To the skein of gold

That leads to the place

Where the heart finds rest.

 

 

I want to know

If you endeavour

To materialise that love into compassionate action.

 

 

I want to know

Do you know

That

It’s often not what you say that counts

But the place in your heart from which you speak.

And,

Do you know, also,

That

Action is sometimes all that is needed

No matter from where it stems.

 

When you’re full of the need to be heard and seen

Can you hear compassionate action

And

When

You’re full of the need to act

Can you stop

To listen

And let yourself be touched by what you hear.

 

I want to know

If you seek that skein of Love

That is the thread of life.

And if,

Having caught a glimpse

Of the Spiral of beauty, truth and love,

You are willing to hold fast to faith

And dare to trust

Whilst the screaming voice of reason calls caution in your ear.

 

I want to know

If

You will share the story of that journey

And let its sacred narrative unfold

The compelling drama of the dance

That becomes,

A skein

In the weave

Of the universe itself.

*Reflections as in: memories, cogitations and mirrored images.

Acknowledgements:

Inspired by

‘Self Portrait’ by David Whyte

‘The Invitation’ by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Dancing the Spiral community workshop, June 2003.

Susan Lindsay is a psychotherapist, facilitator and workshop leader. She was a founder member of The Creative Counselling Centre, Dunlaoghaire, Connect Associates, Blackrock, and IAHIP.  She moved to Galway in 2004 where she has a practice at Nun’s Island. Susan conceived the Dancing the Spiral Community Workshops in 2000 and has been facilitating them regularly since. She can be contacted at Killeenaran, Kilcolgan, Co. Galway  091-776881.