Tell Me About Despair, Yours, and I Will Tell You Mine

I took this photograph just minutes from our home

along the Columbia River.

It comes to me again to post Wild Geese, which is among my favorites by Mary Oliver. Tonight while walking along the beautiful Columbia River with Ron and our two retrievers, this poem came to me as we were twice greeted by huge throngs of geese. First would come the distant sound, then coming closer and closer, stopping us in our tracks as we became mesmerized with the sight and sound of the wild beauty that permeated our bodies and hearts and spirits, reminding us of the Wildness within ourselves and all of life. And I felt my despair, despair and grief for my mother and myself... It is hard to find the words to describe what it is like to see my aging and ill mother this past Tuesday for the first time in nearly 15 years, ... then to not have her remember the next day how we had hugged and cried as we embraced just hours earlier. Now it isn't just the mental illness separating us. There is also the illness that is devouring her memory. And there is the son of my mother's deceased third husband whose illness is greed, and whose retirement plan is my inheritance and that of my children. At every turn, there he is blocking me with his intention to crush any threat and cling to what he believes is rightfully his, my mother and me be damned.... Meanwhile the beautiful geese continue their wild song. And I remember my warrior self and that I am strong and fierce and grounded in intention and prayers that the highest good prevail. As I listen and open, I am able to reconnect with love and gratitude and tenderness for the suffering of us all. And the joy and great gifts of being invited again and again and again to remember our place in the family of things. Blessed be.... Molly

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Wild Geese
 

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.

~ Mary Oliver ~
 

(Dream Work)