She Let Go

She let go.

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of the fear.

She let go of the judgments.

She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.

She let go of the committee of indecision within her.

She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.

Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask anyone for advice.

She didn’t read a book on how to let go.

She didn’t search the scriptures.

She just let go.

She let go of all of the memories that held her back.

She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.

She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn’t promise to let go.

She didn’t journal about it.

She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.

She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.

She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.

She just let go.

She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.

She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.

She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.

She didn’t call the prayer line.

She didn’t utter one word.

She just let go.

No one was around when it happened.

There was no applause or congratulations.

No one thanked her or praised her.

No one noticed a thing.

Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort.

There was no struggle.

It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.

It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be.

A small smile came over her face.

A light breeze blew through her.

And the sun and the moon shone forevermore…

--Safire Rose

Dogfish

...

You don't want to hear the story

of my life, and anyway

I don't want to tell it, I want to listen

to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.

And anyway it's the same old story - - -

a few people just trying,

one way or another,

to survive.

Mostly, I want to be kind.

And nobody, of course, is kind,

or mean,

for a simple reason.

And nobody gets out of it, having to

swim through the fires to stay in

this world.

*

And look! look! look! I think those little fish

better wake up and dash themselves away

from the hopeless future that is

bulging toward them.

*

And probably,

if they don't waste time

looking for an easier world,

they can do it.

--Mary Oliver

The Myth of Sisyphus

We tend to think of Sisyphus as a tragic hero, condemned by the gods

to shoulder his rock sweatily up the mountain, and again up the mountain, forever.

The truth is that Sisyphus is in love with the rock. He cherishes every roughness

and every ounce of it. He talks to it, sings to it. It has become the mysterious Other.

He even dreams of it as he sleepwalks upward. Life is unimaginable without it,

looming always above him like a huge gray moon.

He doesn’t realize that at any moment he is permitted to step aside, let the rock

hurtle to the bottom, and go home.

Tragedy is the inertial force of the mind.

--Stephen Mitchell 

Symphony

In the womb, we learn to listen

long before we can even breathe.

Maybe this is our body’s way

of saying, listening is a form of

breathing, and hearing is more 

essential than air. Maybe we spend 

our lives trying to get back to a time 

when the voices around us sounded 

like a distant music, strange song 

of the everyday that plays even now 

when I pause at the street corner 

before crossing, and just listen—

to snippets of phone conversations, 

someone’s radio, a mother calling 

to her child to keep him near—this 

endless symphony of the world.

—James Crews