What I actually saw as my problem is actually a crucial resource.*
Stephen Gilligan

I am reminded of a time
before I identified my talents and abilities,
When some with whom I worked, and
one in particular, were
critical of the way I saw and thought and
behaved.

It turned out what they wanted me to rein back on
what turned out to be my talents, but
what I needed to do was to
use them more adeptly and wisely.

This became my journey, so
when I read Kenneth White’s words,
I sense that he is writing about the kind of
simplicity that lies on the far side of complexity,
My slow journey in the same direction:
religion and philosophy
what I’d learned in churches and schools
were all too heavy
for this travelling life
all that remains to me was poetry
as unobtrusive as breathing
a poetry like the wind
and the maple leaf
that I spoke to myself
moving over the land.**

What I do is not for everyone, and
I am more than content in that, but
what matters most is that
some know it is for them.

*Stephen Gilligan and Robert Dilts’ The Hero’s Journey;
**Philip Newell’s Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul.