The Heart of Becoming
Heart of Becoming
We have been ending since the beginning,
Beginning for fear of ending,
And now, we return once more to finish what we started...
I am a child of goodbye
Always just arriving at the point of my departure,
Destined to leave before reaching my destination.
There is a comfort in rooting and uprooting that is unsettling.
I know how to lift off and touch down--to move through air,
To be in contact without connecting and to connect in a heartbeat
Without anchoring my future in futile desire.
Yet, deep beneath the surface, there is a terror of losing the possibility of this moment--
And the moment that transcends time is lost in my vain attempt to hold on--
To contain that which cannot possibly be contained in the smallness of my being.
I have said a hundred goodbyes without knowing,
Bound by fear to relinquish true presence.
We come, we go, and we are left bereft,
Yearning for hellos that rarely heed our desires,
But deep beneath the waves of coming and going,
Rests a vast stillness
Where surrender grants freedom to those who dare to die.
At the heart of becoming is a fear of absence that dissolves upon arrival.
We cannot hold the love that holds us.
In love, we are eternal.
Karen Sella
We have been ending since the beginning,
Beginning for fear of ending,
And now, we return once more to finish what we started...
I am a child of goodbye
Always just arriving at the point of my departure,
Destined to leave before reaching my destination.
There is a comfort in rooting and uprooting that is unsettling.
I know how to lift off and touch down--to move through air,
To be in contact without connecting and to connect in a heartbeat
Without anchoring my future in futile desire.
Yet, deep beneath the surface, there is a terror of losing the possibility of this moment--
And the moment that transcends time is lost in my vain attempt to hold on--
To contain that which cannot possibly be contained in the smallness of my being.
I have said a hundred goodbyes without knowing,
Bound by fear to relinquish true presence.
We come, we go, and we are left bereft,
Yearning for hellos that rarely heed our desires,
But deep beneath the waves of coming and going,
Rests a vast stillness
Where surrender grants freedom to those who dare to die.
At the heart of becoming is a fear of absence that dissolves upon arrival.
We cannot hold the love that holds us.
In love, we are eternal.
Karen Sella
2 Comments:
Karen
It is really nice that you posted this here. It is a testiment to your own journey, and an explanation, and it contains, without reading too far between the lines, lots of loss -- an edge -- and also surrender and equanimity. Maybe you took a risk to put this poem here, maybe not. But whether or not risk is involved, this feels like you are showing up for real and how could that be anything else but a really good thing?
As Mary Oliver says in her wonderful poem, The Summer Day:
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"
Best to you
Dan,
How nice of you to drop by...I've been so absent in the blogosphere of late, I'm surprised to find that folks still visit upon occasion...
I posted this poem on a whim, but as you so intuitively noted, it is a deeply personal poem. In 1993, when this poem was written, I accepted a clarion call of sorts to become "who I am" which continues to reverberate today in this wonderfully wild and precious life...
Thanks for showing up here today...
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