I've recently discovered the poet Mary Oliver. I'm sure many of you are aware of her work (she's not exactly an unknown - won a Pulitzer in 1984!) but I love the themes and the way she relates to the world.
The piece below fills my heart. Thought I would share here as it speaks to beingfulness, Buddhism, nature-connection, all that good stuff we talk about 😊 The wonderful phrase "resplendently empty" in particular jumps out to me:
Last night
in the fields
I lay down in the darkness
to think about death,
but instead I fell asleep,
as if in a vast and sloping room
filled with those white flowers
that open all summer,
sticky and untidy,
in the warm fields.
When I woke
the morning light was just slipping
in front of the stars,
and I was covered
with blossoms.
I don’t know
how it happened—
I don’t know
if my body went diving down
under the sugary vines
in some sleep-sharpened affinity
with the depths, or whether
that green energy
rose like a wave
and curled over me, claiming me
in its husky arms.
I pushed them away, but I didn’t rise.
Never in my life had I felt so plush,
or so slippery,
or so resplendently empty.
Never in my life
had I felt myself so near
that porous line
where my own body was done with
and the roots and the stems and the flowers
began.
I've been reading her poems a while now, a favourite is 'How I go to the woods"