Amy’s Note: When considering what I wanted to write about in this newsletter, I was thinking about the word clearing. It hit me as such an exciting and instructive word…and then I realized that a few months ago, I wrote something about the word clearing and even shared a poem by Martha Postlethwaite entitled “Clearing.” (hmm, so much for an original new idea!)
I like what I wrote in this piece, so I’m sharing it again tonight with a few edits and new thoughts. I found a wonderful blessing by John O’Donohue that I invite you to pair with this poem, to see how they might offer you grace and freshness in the clearnings of your own life.
Until next week..”don’t do anything gradious, instead, create…”
Clearing
by Martha Postlethwaite
Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there patiently,
until the song
that is yours alone to sing
falls into your open cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to the world
so worthy of rescue.
Poetry offers a beautiful respite when the world feels confusing, and the voices of conflict seem so loud. I’m drawn to poetry because, more and more, I believe it is the essence of what I understand smaller and deeper to be.
It is smaller because profound and subtle truths become clear in just a few words. Most often in new, gentle, and provocative way.
Poetry is deeper for the same reason; what is most mundane and ordinary is laid bare and open in unexpected juxtapositions. Profound invitations artfully hidden in gentle words and observations offer us a new lens to see the quotidian.
“Clearing,” the poem by the poet Martha Postlethwaite, caught my attention this week. I’m sharing the lines that sparkled with invitations to consider life in new ways. I hope you’ll pause with this poem and share what is speaking to you in the comments.
“Create a clearing in the dense forest of your life and wait there patiently.”
Create is an action infused with vitality, grace, color, and newness. The act of creating is to make something new. Creating is purposeful, unconstrained, joyful energy. “Do not try to save the whole world or do anything grandiose. Instead, create…” The contrast of these lines is so meaningful; the longing or impulse to “save the world” is familiar to our human nature, but she suggests we first create.
Clearing, too, feels different from words like make space or pause, which could have been chosen to convey a similar message. Clearing implies the area is crowded. I don’t clear an empty table or counter; I clear a table with dishes, silverware, food, and napkins.
Clearing acknowledges the complexities and fullness that are a realistic part of life. The invitation to pause is lovely and needed, but pausing means stopping in the forest, while clearing is an active preparation that results in a spaciousness that wasn’t there before. I know I need both, pausing in the midst and clearing away what is excess, finished, or even no longer relevant or needed.
Once creating and the clearing has happened, the poet instructs us to “wait there patiently.” That is easier said than done. Waiting patiently is not waiting passively. It’s an act of courage and focus to wait patiently. Waiting asks us to trust and believe that a message, growth, transformation, purpose, or a new calling will come. Waiting is often the most challenging part.
I use poetry often in spiritual direction. It’s a key that opens up new truths and new ways to view the questions and trials that are our constant companions.
Each time I read a poem, a new place, word, or idea sparkles. These are the words that sparkled today for me. But tomorrow, or later today even, a new word might wave and say, “What about me? I have something for you too.”
A Blessing for Clearing
In the densest parts of your life, in the place of confusion, darkness, or paradox, may you sense an invitation to create, with vitality, colorfulness, and freshness, a clearing. In the clearing that you create, may you actively wait, with courage, expectation, and grace, for the gift that is for you.
Read the poem slowly, and notice if a word or phrase stands out to you.
Define those words with your heart and soul, not with a dictionary. What do they mean to you at your core?
How does that word or phrase talk with the events, people, and questions in your everyday, ordinary, walking-around life?
If you want, share in the comments what sparkles and the invitations you find.
Consider how this piece, a part of For One Who Is Exhausted-A Blessing by John O’Donohue, “talks” with the poem “Clearing.”
Does one line from each poem “sparkle” for you?
What happens when you put them both together?
How do they speak to your soul and the realities in your life?
“You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.
Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.
Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.”
― John O'DonohueFor One Who Is Exhausted-A Blessing (read the entire blessing here)
What a beautiful pairing! Both poem and blessing are perfect.