Well-Water: Poems & Readings That Refresh the Soul
This page offers you poems and readings that will take you deep inside your own life, your own soul, and your own spiritual practice. Please check frequently for new offerings.
your vision will become clear only when you look into your own heart.
who looks outside, dreams.
who looks inside, awakens.
(Carl Jung)
The
Moment
The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the
trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.
No, they whisper. You
own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.
~ Margaret Atwood
~
(morning in the burned
house)
Stream of Life
The same stream of life that runs
through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances
in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life that shoots in joy
through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves
of leaves and flowers
through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances
in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life that shoots in joy
through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves
of leaves and flowers
It is the same life that is rocked
in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.
in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs are made glorious
by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages
dancing in my blood this moment. (Rabindranath Tagore)
by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages
dancing in my blood this moment. (Rabindranath Tagore)
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep. (Rumi)
Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you go is called Here,
and you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask it permission to know and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two branches are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you. (David Wagoner)
What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone,
in the forest, at night, cherished by this
wonderful, unintelligible,
perfectly innocent speech,
the most comforting speech in the world,
the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges,
and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows!
Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it.
It will talk as long as it wants, this rain.
As long as it talks I am going to listen. (Thomas Merton)
You are looking outward, and above all you should not do so now. No body can counsel or help you, nobody. There is one single way. Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you write; find out whether it is spreading its roots in the deepest places of your heart. (Rilke)
