Massaging the Soul

There is a poet out there whose words are as strong and corrective as the hands of a masseuse. His name is David Whyte, and if you do not know him you must. Here is his poem "Pilgrim."

PILGRIM

I bow to the lark and its tiny lifted silhouette fluttering before infinity. I promise myself to the mountain and to the foundation from which my future comes. I make my vow to the stream flowing beneath, and to the water falling toward all thirst, and I pledge myself to the sea to which it goes and to the mercy of my disappearance, and though I may be left alone or abandoned by the unyielding present or orphaned in some far unspoken place, i will speak with a voice of loyalty and faith to the far shore where everything turns to arrival, if only in the sound of falling waves and I will listen with sincere and attentive eyes and ears for a final invitation, so that I can be that note half-heard in the flying lark song, or that tint on a far mountain brushed with the subtle grey of dawn, even a river gone by still looking as if it hasn't, or an ocean heard only as the sound of waves falling and falling, and falling, my eyes closing with them into some undeserved nothing even as they give up their strength on the sand.

- David Whyte from Pilgrim ©2012 Many Rivers Press

David spoke at a conference I attended this past weekend. He was accompanied by the Celtic musical duo Owen and Moley, and together they created a thin place experience unlike any I have ever had except in the thinnest place in all the world, Ireland.

OWEN AND MOLEY Ó SÚILLEABHÁIN

Brothers from Western Ireland who harmonize a cappella ancient canticles and Gaelic sean nostraditional folk hymns.