I’ve found over and over that the practice of spirituality transcends whatever barriers a language difference presents. However, sometimes words are a powerful means of carrying us into the language of the body. The right words become the river that ferries us from this world of intellectualising and analytical thinking, across to the shadowy world of feeling.
A poem is a bridge between the language of the mind and the language of the Soul. These are excerpts from 10 of my favourite poems for spiritual guidance.
Use these words in whatever way moves you. Intuitively pick a number between 1 and 9, to see which poem and single oil or blend is choosing you today:
1. Perfection
Wild Geese by 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.”
Oil blend: Acceptance
2. Movement
We Have Come to Be Danced by Jewel Mathieson
“We have come to be danced,
not the pretty, pick me, pick me dance,
but the claw our way back into the belly
of the sacred, sensual animal dance,
the unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance,
the holding the precious moment in the palms
of our hands and feet dance.”
Oil Blend: Sensation
3. Awareness
The Laughing Heart by Charles Bukowski
“Your life is your life, don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
There is a light somewhere. It may not be much light but
it beats the darkness. The gods will offer you chances.
Know them. Take them. Your life is your life.
Know it while you have it.”
Oil Blend: Awaken
4. Compassion
Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye
“Before you know what kindness really is, you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment, like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.”
Oil Blend: Release
5. Trust
Desiderata by Max Ehrmann
“You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.”
Oil Blend: Sacred Mountain
6. Gratitude
So Many Gifts by Hafiz
“Please forgive Hafiz and the Friend if we break into
sweet laughter when your heart complains of being thirsty,
when ages ago every cell in your Soul capsized
forever into this infinite golden sea.”
Oil Blend: Joy
7. Devotion
The Religion of Love by Ibn Arabi
“My heart holds within it every form,
it contains a pasture for gazelles,
a monastery for Christian monks.
There is a temple for idol-worshippers,
a holy shrine for pilgrims;
There is the table of the Torah,
and the Book of the Koran.
I follow the religion of Love
and go whichever way His camel leads me.
This is the true faith;
This is the true religion.”
Single Oil: Sacred Frankincense
8. Balance
Paradox by Jeff Dickson
“The paradox of our time in history
is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers,
wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.
We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.
We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life.”
Oil Blend: Common Sense
9. Possibility
The Fragile Vial by Rumi
“Be a spot of ground where nothing is growing,
where something might be planted,
a seed, possibly, from the Absolute.”
Oil Blend: Believe
10. Surrender
In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver
“To live in this world, you must be able to do three things:
to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it; and when the time comes,
to let it go.”
Oil blend: Surrender
