"Pathways" by Mark Nepo

CATEGORIES

• Awakening 2
• Awareness 2
• Being Human 1
• Bible 2
• Buddhism 8
• Christianity 4
• Compassion 1
• Consciousness 5
• Ecumenicalism 1
• Egotism 1
• Enlightenment 2
• Fear 3
• God 7
• Grace 1
• Heart 1
• Heaven 1
• Keith Basar 2
• Koans 1
• Listening 1
• Love 10
• Meaning of Life 1
• Mysticism 5
• Native American 1
• Parables 1
• Philosophy 2
• Poetry 62
• Relationships 1
• Religion 3
• Spiritual Teacher 13
• Spirituality 16
• Suffering 2
• Taoism 26
• Theology 3
• Truth 1
• Wisdom 3
• Wisdom Stories 80
• Wisdom Story 31
• Zen 29

I don’t know why I was born

with this belief in something

deeper and larger than we can

see. 

But it’s always called. 

Even as a boy, 

I knew that trees and light and sky 

all point to some timeless center out of view. 

I have spent my life 

listening to that center 

and filtering it through my heart. 

This listening

and filtering 

is the music of my soul,

of all souls. 

After sixty years, 

I’ve run

out of ways to name this. 

Even now, my heart won’t stand still. 

In a moment of seeing, 

it takes the shape of my eye. 

In a moment of speaking, 

the shape of my tongue. 

In a moment of silence, 

it slips back into the lake of center. 

When you kiss me, 

it takes the shape of your lip. 

When our dog sleeps with us, 

it takes the shape of her curl. 

When the hummingbird feeds her baby, 

it takes the shape of her beak 

carefully dropping food into our throats.

SOURCE: Marknepo.com