A beautiful walk along the river in Portland today, Hearts-Open-Wide, with a dear friend. Sharing the remarkable connection that occurs when the Heart, is witnessed, recognized and heard. Really heard. Then in turn, to offer Generous Listening. To offer witness. To hear. Validation. Yes! Perfect timing this morning to discover a new reflection by one of my favorite poets, David Whyte. Tonight I take forgiveness to a full moon fire gathering at a friends house. We will sit with the fire, be with silence, witness each others stories. I will release to the flames that which no longer serves and invite my intention with the question: 'What shape waits in the seed of you to grow and spread its branches against a future sky?' (David Whyte from 'What to Remember When Waking') I am getting quite clear which seeds I am ready to sprout and plant deep into fertile soil... Clear where my path is heading. Leaning, leaning, leaning into the next expression of my dharma. I am so Grateful for all the assistance that is showing up. Delightful Blessings! 'Forgiveness' by David Whyte Forgiveness... is a heartache and difficult to achieve because strangely, it not only refuses to eliminate the original wound, but actually draws us closer to its source. To approach forgiveness is to close in on the nature of the hurt itself, the only remedy being, as we approach its raw center, to reimagine our relation to it. It may be that the part of us that was struck and hurt can never forgive, and that strangely, forgiveness never arises from the part of us that was actually wounded. The wounded self may be the part of us incapable of forgetting, and perhaps, not actually meant to forget, as if, like the foundational dynamics of the physiological immune system our psychological defenses must remember and organize against any future attacks – after all, the identity of the one who must forgive is actually founded on the very fact of having being wounded. Stranger still, it is that wounded, branded, un-forgetting part of us that eventually makes forgiveness an act of compassion rather than one of simple forgetting. To forgive is to assume a larger identity than the person who was first hurt, to mature and bring to fruition an identity that can put its arm, not only around the afflicted one within but also around the memories seared within us by the original blow and through a kind of psychological virtuosity, extend our understanding to one who first delivered it. Forgiveness is a skill, a way of preserving clarity, sanity and generosity in an individual life, a beautiful way of shaping the mind to a future we want for ourselves; an admittance that if forgiveness comes through understanding, and if understanding is just a matter of time and application then we might as well begin forgiving right at the beginning of any drama rather than put ourselves through the full cycle of festering, incapacitation, reluctant healing and eventual blessing. To forgive is to put oneself in a larger gravitational field of experience than the one that first seem to hurt us. We re-imagine ourselves in the light of our maturity and we re-imagine the past in the light of our new identity, we allow ourselves to be gifted by a story larger than the story that first hurt us and left us bereft. At the end of life, the wish to be forgiven is ultimately the chief desire of almost every human being. In refusing to wait; in extending forgiveness to others now, we begin the long journey of becoming the person who will be large enough, able enough and generous enough to receive, at the very end, that absolution ourselves. ‘FORGIVENESS’ in “CONSOLATIONS: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.” David Whyte and Many Rivers Press 2015
2 Comments
Leonie
3/5/2015 07:06:40 am
This poem was on David Whyte's Facebook page. He added this comment:
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Cobie
3/5/2015 02:03:05 pm
Beautiful - thank you dear, Leonie. I am so happy I will see you next week at Harmony Hill. <3
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