Ep. 18: On Creativity and Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese"

Listen to this episode on Spotify here, or Apple Podcasts here.

"And when we allow ourselves to be consumed by time, by light, by darkness, by the persistent force of our own aching lives, we stop suffering because we stop thinking that we are somehow separate from the pain and separate from the joy and separate from the love that we are seeking.

When you become the goodness, when you become the love, there is nothing more to do and so everything is simply done, done in you and through you. Trying to be good is denying your true nature, and the more you deny it, the more difficult it is to embrace the goodness you already are."

Wild Geese | Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Would love to hear your thoughts below, and any poetry suggestions for another reading :)