Journal of Sacred Work

Note: David Whyte's poetry, shared by Liz Sorensen Wessel

l

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest

breathing
like the ones
in the old stories

who could cross
a shimmering bed of dry leaves
without a sound,

you come
to a place
whose only task

is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests

conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.

Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and

to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,

questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,

questions
that have patiently
waited for you,

questions
that have no right
to go away.

~ David Whyte ~

Excerpts from 10 Questions That Have No Right To Go Away by David Whyte 

1.  Do I know how to have real conversation? 

 “At last I was really inviting her to tell me was who she had become—not who she had been or who I wanted her to be—but who she was now” David Whyte referring to a conversation with his daughter Charlotte.

2. What can I be wholehearted about?

"The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness. You're so exhausted because you can't be wholehearted at what you're doing…because your real conversation with life is through poetry." 

3.  Am I harvesting from this year's season of life?

"A person must understand the conversation happening around them as early in the process as possible and then stay with it until it bears fruit."

4. Where is the temple of my adult aloneness?

"Gaston Bachelard, a French philosopher, said that one of the beautiful things about a home is that it is a place where you can dream about your future, and that a good home protects your dreams; it is a place where you feel sheltered enough to risk yourself in the world."

 5. Can I be quiet—even inside?

"All of our great traditions, religious, contemplative and artistic, say that you must a learn how to be alone—and have a relationship with silence. It is difficult, but it can start with just the tiniest quiet moment."

6. Am I too inflexible in my relationship to time?

"We are never one thing; we are a conversation—everything we have been, everything we are now and every possibility we could be in the future. "

7. How can I know what I am actually saying?

"Poetry is often the art of overhearing yourself say things you didn't know you knew. We need to overhear the tiny but very consequential things we say that reveal ourselves to ourselves."

8. Can I live a courageous life?

"The word "courage" comes from the old French word coeur meaning "heart." So "courage" is the measure of your heartfelt participation in the world. So it can be a lovely, merciful thing to think, "Actually, there is no path I can take without having my heart broken, so why not get on with it and stop wanting these extra-special circumstances, which stop me from doing something courageous?" 

9. How can I drink from the deep well of things as they are?

"All intimate relationships—close friendships and good marriages—are based on continued and mutual forgiveness. You will always trespass upon your friend's sensibilities at one time or another. The only question is, Will you forgive the other person? And more importantly, Will you forgive yourself?" 

10. Can I be the blessed saint that my future happiness will always remember?

"What could you do now for yourself or others that your future self would look back on and congratulate you for—something it could view with real thankfulness because the decision you made opened up the life for which, it is now eternally grateful? "

Is there a question in particular that catches your breath? Perhaps touches your heart? How might reflecting upon these questions inform your life? 

Butterfly photos taken by ~liz 3/2017 

To read David Whyte's complete responses: http://www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/poet-david-whytes-questions-that-have-no-right-to-go-away_1#ixzz4c7MduKnR