remembering our heart's song

Donna

Jul 23, 20232 min read

I go among the trees and sit still.

All my stirring becomes quiet

around me like circles on water.

My tasks lie in their places

where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes

and lives a while in my sight.

What it fears in me leaves me,

and the fear of me leaves it.

It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.

I live for a while in its sight.

What I fear in it leaves it,

and the fear of it leaves me.

It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,

mute in consternations,

I hear my song at last,

and I sing it. As we sing,

the day turns, the trees move.

(Wendell Berry)

I recently returned from a retreat at Mercy by the Sea in Madison Connecticut. It was a much-welcomed blessing of rest and silence. After a day or two, my initial inner chatter and squirminess quieted, and I felt tenderly held in profound stillness: like the hand of a very loving Spirit resting on my head; like a gentle mother soothing a fidgety child. "Be still... "

Just before leaving for my retreat, I had been surprised to receive a locket with a message tucked inside: "May you listen to the brave song inside of you." This blessing seemed a perfect complement to a poem I had already packed inside my retreat bag:

"May what I do flow from me like a river,

no forcing and no holding back...

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,

these deepening tides moving out, returning,

I will sing you as no one ever has,

streaming through widening channels into the open sea."

(Rainer Maria Rilke)

Not surprisingly, I had many encounters with my heart song throughout my retreat. These Divine synchronicities reveal to me that I am held within Something far beyond my own limited attempts to plan and control.

Wendell Berry encourages us to come away to be still and present... to give time for our fears to be seen, transformed, and released... and, in that more free and open space, to hear our own inner song that's been waiting within us.

And so, this can be a sacred gift of retreat: a growing freedom to move in harmony with our unique rhythms, and remember our heart's truest song. May you create time this summer to go among the trees, or a quiet corner of your home - or to a retreat - to enter the stillness, rest, and listen. And then sing!