Inspiration: One Day My Soul Just Opened Up

Evocative words full of emotion and power create new favorites, even upon first readings. This poem by Gemmia Vanzant was one of those. Introduced to me relatively recently, I could feel my heart opening up on its first reading, taking me to a deep place within me, awakening me to my own sense of freedom.


One Day My Soul Just Opened Up
by Gemmia L. Vanzant

One day my soul just opened up
and things started happenin'
things I can't quite explain
I mean
I cried and cried like never before
I cried tears of ten thousand mothers
I couldn't even feel anything because
I cried 'til I was numb.

One day my soul just opened up
I felt this overwhelming pride
what I was proud of
only God knows!
Like the pride of a hundred thousand fathers
basking in the glory of their newborn sons
I was grinnin' from ear to ear!

One day my soul just opened up
I started laughing
and I laughed for what seemed like forever
wasn't nothin' particularly funny goin' on
but I laughed anyhow
I laughed the joy of a million children playin'
in the mud
I laughed 'til my sides ached
Oh God! It felt so good!

One day, my soul just opened up
There were revelations, annihilations, and resolutions
feelings of doubt and betrayal, vengeance and forgive-
ness, memories of things I'd seen and done before
of places I'd been, although I don't know when
there were lives I'd lived
people I'd loved
battles I'd fought
victories I'd won
and wars I'd lost.

One day my soul just opened up
and out poured all the things
I'd been hiding
and denying
and living through
that had just happened moments before.

One day, my soul just opened up
and I decided
I was good and ready!
I was good and ready
to surrender
my life to God.

So, with my soul wide open,
I sat down
wrote Her a note
and told her so.

Photo: "Woohoooo for fall!!!!!!!!," originally uploaded by Eden Keller

Inspiration: My Sweet, Crushed Angel

I took a class on mystics a few years back, the idea being that we all have access to connect with the divine but that a mystic is one who lives in that connection most of the time. I wrote my paper for that class on Hāfez, predominantly because of the way this particularly poem of his moved me. While not as famous as his fellow Sufi poet, Rumi, I've always loved the passion and imagery in Hāfez's words.

My Sweet, Crushed Angel
by Hāfez

You have not danced so badly, my dear,
Trying to hold hands with the Beautiful One.

You have waltzed with great style,
My sweet, crushed angel,
To have ever neared God's heart at all.

Our Partner is notoriously difficult to follow,
And even His best musicians are not always easy
To hear.

So what if the music has stopped for a while.

So what
If the price of admission to the Divine
Is out of reach tonight.

So what, my dear,
If you do not have the ante to gamble for Real Love.

The mind and the body are famous
For holding the heart ransom,

But Hafiz knows the Beloved's eternal habits.

Have patience,

For He will not be able to resist your longing
For Long.

You have not danced so badly, my dear,
Trying to kiss the Beautiful One.

You have actually waltzed with tremendous style,
O my sweet,
O my sweet crushed angel.

Photo: "Angel," originally uploaded by Jessica

Inspiration: Keeping Quiet

One of the joys of sharing some of my favorite inspiration with you this week is that they are truly favorites, comfortable old friends who bring me such joy to revisit them. I've seen several different translations of this simple Neruda poem, each with a slightly different meaning. This one is soft and gentle yet intense and powerful, evocative, I feel, of the message Neruda was trying to convey. All I know is that whenever I hear it, I just want to be still and sink into the quiet and peace that is always present within me.

Keeping Quiet
by Pablo Neruda

And now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth
let’s not speak in any language,
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fisherman in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas,
wars with fire,
victory with no survivors, would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
(Life is what it is about,
I want no truck with death.)

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.

Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I’ll count up to twelve,
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Photo: "Stillness," originally uploaded by Diana Andreea Mărgărit

Inspiration: The Invitation

I remember when Oriah Mountain Dreamer's The Invitation was just an email being forwarded from friend to friend. It was relatively early in the friend-spamming-friend era, but you still got more of those emails than "real" emails and it was tough to pick and choose which ones were worth your time. I know that I usually just skimmed those emails and deleted them, barely absorbing the messages within. This email was different, however. I remember doing my usual skim and then stopping, returning to the first line to read each word and allow it to truly sink in. To this day, I still get "Spirit bumps" when I read her words. I feel my whole body tingle with aliveness and I yearn to "dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of [my] fingers and toes." This is definitely a message about living life to its fullest, celebrating life in all its glory, and learning to fly.

The Invitation
by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon . . .
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shriveled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the center of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Photo: "Big Range Austin Dance Festival," originally uploaded by Andrew Baron

Inspiration: Wild Geese

I am in a place right now where I just want to soak up all the beauty and joy and love that is in the world. And so, with that in mind, this week I'd like to take a break from our regularly scheduled programming to share some truly beautiful and moving words with you, the kind of words that inspire me to want both to write and to spread my wings and fly.

When I got out Risking Everything: 110 Poems of Love and Revelation this afternoon, the book fell open to a poem that brings tears to my eyes almost every time I hear its first line. Mary Oliver's words move me tangibly--I can feel them more than I can hear them even, vibrating within my being. I hope you find them inspirational too.

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Photo: "Wild Geese," originally uploaded by John Wigham

David Elkins quote

Authentic spirituality awakens the soul, reconnects us with the sacred, and fills us with the passion of life. Spiritual development is not about religious rituals and practices; it is about waking up to the wonder of life.

~David N. Elkins