Clare O'SullivanA Cradle For Quiet Thoughts
Poetry For Breakfast
So here I am in Gloucester City, toast and marmalade and a strong cup of tea, candle light and gnomies at my round table, the most wonderful gifts as I cross the threshold from sleep to waking. Now living in my own wee place, my nervous system begins to find some equilibrium. I now love my nervous system, in all it's expressions, as it is, hearing the ways it wants to support me towards homeostasis.
And through reading a poem by David Whyte, over breakfast this morning he used the phrase 'a cradle for quiet thoughts'; I received support for this hermetic life. May my arms reach for it, for all the movement it will bring internally and all the warming I long to do for myself, to love myself, to no longer wait for things to 'get better'. And so my experience weaves in and out of mourning and celebration, impacted by the tragic expression of humans in the world for so long and the celebration of what it is to be alive. Both/And.
And in the pit of my stomach the attachment hunger aches, always, for the warmth of soft breathing life around me in some form, tears now. (Hope to have a doggie pal again one day). The softening warm presence I invite towards myself creates room for all of it. Missing the shape and form of my husband and two doggies. My eyes and heart seeking their presence. As if my eyes are arms reaching out. This memory attached too to the ache of young Clare, to be held, and the hunger of my ancestors, those who died of hunger and those who had to leave their home and ached for their homeland for the rest of their lives. Our music, poetry and writing is filled with it.
And so, tear filled I put on my warm clothes and wellies (love being in wellies) and take a sun-filled January walk to the cemetery (the nearest green space) to invite warm breathing life to reach me. Once there, all I could do was smile and feel my heart open and expand, as I walked passed the neatly lined Yew Tree paths, asking my body to connect with them, each pair as I passed. (I touched them and felt how soft they were, a bed of that would do quite nicely). How they softened my existence into the present and the loving holding that is our natural heritage on this earth. And too the power of the bird song and the darling pigeons nestling up in the high trees. I'm certain they too were loving the sunny morning, all I could really take in was their beautiful feathery white chests, filled with light.
And this morning I leave you with this poem by David Whyte, it brought me ballast and courage to keep 'plugging in' to my intuition and life force in this solitary way of life, and I thought too that it might bring solace to those of you who may have been thrown more upon your 'self' during these times. May it support you to lean into the sweet gifts in the silence and bring you courage to walk with and approach dialogue with what is revealed to you there. Thank you David Whyte.
IT HAPPENS TO THOSE WHO LIVE ALONE
By David Whyte
It happens to those
who live alone
that they feel sure
of visitors
when no one else
is there,
until the one day
and one particular
hour
working in the
quiet garden,
when they realise
at once,
that all along
they have been
an invitation
to everything
and every kind of trouble
and that life
happens by
to those who
inhabit
silence
like the bees
visiting
the tall mallow
on their legs of gold,
or the wasps
going from door to door
in the tall forest
of the daisies.
I have my freedom
today
because
nothing really happened
and nobody came
to see me.
Only the slow
growing of the garden
in the summer heat
and the silence of that
unborn life
making itself
known at my desk,
my hands
still
dark with the
crumbling soil
as I write
and watch
the first few lines
of a new poem
like flowers
of scarlet fire,
coming to fullness
in a new light.