Patience
by Mary Oliver
What is the good life now? Why,
look here, consider
the moon’s white crescent
rounding, slowly, over
the half month to still another
perfect circle –
the shining eye
that lightens the hills,
that lays down the shadows
of the branches of the trees,
the summons the flowers
to open their sleepy faces and look up
into the heavens.
I used to hurry everywhere,
and leaped over the running creeks.
There wasn’t
time enough for all the wonderful things
I could think of to do
in a single day. Patience
comes to the bones
before it takes root in the heart
as another good idea.
I say this
as I stand in the woods
and study the patterns
of the moon shadows,
or stroll down into the waters
that now, late summer, have also
caught the fever, and hardly move
from one eternity to another.
This is one of the most beautiful poems I know about midlife. This poem honours something that I have witnessed again and again in our womanly lives and stories: age deepens us. At midlife we can begin to connect ever more profoundly with the natural cycles in which we are embedded – the cycles of time and seasons, the moon and the sea and the trees and the blossoms and the very stars above us. Do you remember the wonder of stargazing in your childhood and youth? Do you remember the awe and the questions and the romance and the mystery? All of this can be ours again at midlife, so I believe. I believe our awe and our deep sense of connection and belonging in the world can be renewed.
This week at Vivid we are going to explore that awe, that sense of connection to and belonging in the universe that we experience when we gaze at the stars. Sure, the drama of the lunar eclipse is over. But the drama of the night sky is ever with us. So pack a thermos, put on your warm sweaters, roll out a blanket on the lawn or on the roof, and lie down and gaze at the stars awhile. Join us here all week as we explore the depths of our beings and the heights of the bright stars.
xo
Bronwyn
