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In November, Sounds True will publish a new, expanded edition of Inside the Miracle: Enduring Suffering, Approaching Wholeness, which gathers twenty-eight years of my writing and teaching about suffering, healing, and wholeness, including thirty-nine new poems and prose pieces not yet published. One of the great transforming passages in my life was having cancer in my mid-thirties. This experience unraveled the way I see the world and made me a student of all spiritual paths. With a steadfast belief in our aliveness, I hope what’s in this book will help you meet the transformation that waits in however you’re being forged. The following piece is an excerpt from the book.
Willfulness
(for Nur)
To inhale
enough of the world
when you’re told
you have cancer
so the dark fruit
never seems larger
than your orbit.
To do what you
have never done
to stay in the
current of life.
To fly 1000 miles
to meet someone
you dreamt
might help.
To pray in tongues
you’ve dismissed.
To think in ways
others distrust.
To use money
like a shovel
to dig
for time.
To cross
the grasslands
between us with
a tongue like
a machete
cleanly
sweeping
a path.
To weep
when the pain
won’t stop.
To breathe slowly
when the weeping
won’t stop.
To insist
that friends
don’t pamper you
or look at you
as sentenced
or contagious.
To slap the thought
from their eyes
with your heart.
To climb the days
like mountains
for moments
like summits
where the light
spreads your face
and the constant
wind makes you forget
the pains in
getting there.
To stand as tall
as the weight
you are bearing
will allow.
To rely
on your spirit
which waits within
like a thoroughbred
for the heel
of your will
in its ribs.
To feel
the vastness
of night
and know
you still
have love
to fill it.
To accept
you can snuff
in a gust, but
to stay devoted
to the art
of flicker.
A Question to Walk With: In conversation with a loved one or friend, describe someone you know who is both gentle and strong.