Poems can be a doorway into another world. Each one, a simple arrangement of otherwise ordinary words, that together evoke presence, wonder, possibility. So here is an invitation to pause, let the words wash over you and glimpse the world they offer you…
It’s a growing collection, and we’d love to hear which ones resonate with you and why, and find out about your favourites. Here is an index of our Words of Wonder.
Enter the wild with care, my love And speak the things you see Let new names take and root and thrive and grow And even as you travel far from heather, crag and river May you like the little fisher, set the stream alight with glitter May you enter now as otter without falter into…
It’s okay if you’re scared when you’re opening. The seed, she was scared too. Do you think the coal wanted to become a diamond? Ha! She was scared out of her wits of change! It took her 10,000 years to even be able to pray for it. And what about our favourite cliché, that caterpillar?…
Come with me now, along the beckoning path, silvered in mist toward the glimmering lake, bring every grief you have not said and every tear you have not shed and every sorrow you’ve carried alone. ‘There is a door beneath everything we’ll walk right by if we don’t stop to look with our troubled hearts…
I am making a home inside myself. A shelter of kindness where everything is forgiven, everything allowed—a quiet patch of sunlight to stretch out without hurry, where all that has been banished and buried is welcomed, spoken, listened to—released. A fiercely friendly place I can claim as my very own. I am throwing arms open…
Ch’ui the draftsman Could draw more perfect circles freehand Than with a compass. His fingers brought forth Spontaneous forms from nowhere. His mind Was meanwhile free and without concern With what he was doing. No application was needed His mind was perfectly simple And knew no obstacle. So, when the shoe fits The foot is…
Felt really quite excited as I headed to Samye Ling for the Mindfulness Association reunion weekend. Even the jarring potholes didn’t dampen my spirits!But I struggled…Unable to get into the practices. The inner critic was on full volume. By the Saturday morning coffee break I was ready to give up and go home. So I…
Awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence. Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses. Receive encouragement when new frontiers beckon. Respond to the call of your gift and the courage to follow its path. Let the flame of anger free you of all…
Remember who you are. Not the shape others have put on you, not the story they handed you, not the lies or needs that were pressed into your psyche. Not even your own imagined ideas of what you should be. But the real you, the wild innate you that is breathing under all those should…
Among deep mountains the heart’s moon shines pure and I see within that mirror the whole world enlightened Saigyō, translated form Japanese by Meredith McKinney This is a Tanka poem by Japanese hermit Saigyō Hōshi who lived in the 12th Century. Saigyō is very widely known and much loved for his poetry of renunciation…