Just Beyond Yourself by David Whyte

Blue (M.A. Reilly, August 2021, Redemption Bay, Seward, Alaska)

I love the idea of self-forgetting and all of the possibilities that get folded into it such a state. It's what I experience when I am involved in something intense, like making images, painting, teaching, or deep learning.  This poem by David Whyte reminds me of the importance of movement. All things living move. Some mornings I wake and wonder, what road beckons?  What path just beyond myself--be it made of dirt, asphalt or water--do I now need to know? 

Moving beyond myself--the often too-comfortable place--is in fact where I most need to be. 

JUST BEYOND YOURSELF

     -- by David Whyte

Just beyond

yourself.

It’s where

you need

to be.

Half a step

into

self-forgetting

and the rest

restored

by what

you’ll meet.

There is a road

always

beckoning.

When you see

the two sides

of it

closing together

at that far horizon

and deep in

the foundations

of your own

heart

at exactly

the same

time,

that’s how

you know

it's where

you

have

to go.

That’s how

you know

it’s the road

you

have

to follow.

That’s

how you know.

It’s just beyond

yourself,

it’s

where you

need to be.

…

PoetryBreak: Easter Morning in Wales

 

Wales (M.A.Reilly, May, 2014)

EASTER MORNING IN WALES 

              — by David Whyte

A garden inside me, unknown, secret,

neglected for years,

the layers of its soil deep and thick,

trees in the corners with branching arms

and the tangled briars like broken nets.

Sunrise through the misted orchard,

morning sun turns silver on the pointed twigs,

I have woken from the sleep of ages and I am not sure

if I am really seeing, or dreaming,

or simply astonished

walking towards sunrise

to have stumbled into the garden

where the stone was rolled from the tomb of longing.

…

EASTER MORNING IN WALES

From RIVER FLOW: New and Selected Poems

© David Whyte and Many Rivers PressFrom ‘Time Left Alone’ 

In ‘River Flow: New and Selected Poems’

© David Whyte and Many Rivers Press

https://davidwhyte.com/collections/books-cards-and-audio/products/river-flow-new-selected-poems

#PoetryBreak: Sometimes David Whyte

David Whyte: “Sometimes” from This Human Moment on Vimeo.

#PoetryBreak: Everything is Waiting for You

And Full of Sleep (M.A. Reilly)

Everything is Waiting for You

         -  David Whyte

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

https://www.facebook.com/PoetDavidWhyte/videos/355462062025568/?vh=e

#PoetryBreak: The Well of Grief

The Well of Grief

     - David Whyte (2019)

Those who will not slip beneath
     the still surface on the well of grief,

turning down through its black water,
     to the place we cannot breathe,

will never know the source from which we drink,
     the secret water cold and clear,

nor find in the darkness glimmering,
    the small round coins,
          thrown by those who wished for something else.