InnerVentures

Author: Inner Ventures

  • Santiago by David Whyte

    I have been meaning to post a poem by David Whyte, whose work I admire and a friend on Facebook just posted this. I loved it, so am pleased to include it in my blog:

    SANTIAGO

    The road seen, then not seen, the hillside hiding
    then revealing the way you should take,
    the road dropping away from you as if leaving you
    to walk on thin air, then catching you, holding you up,
    when you thought you would fall, and the way forward
    always in the end the way that you came,
    the way that you followed, the way that carried
    you into your future, that brought you
    to this place, no matter that it sometimes took
    your promise from you, no matter that it always had to break
    your heart along the way, the sense of having walked
    from far inside yourself out into the revelation,
    to have risked yourself for something that seemed
    to stand both inside you and far beyond you,
    that called you back in the end to the only road
    you could follow, walking as you did, in your
    rags of love and speaking in the voice
    that by night, became a prayer for safe arrival…

    Excerpt from “SANTIAGO”
    From PILGRIM: Poems by David Whyte

  • Willing to experience …….

    I came across this beautiful invocation by John Wellwood and find it speaks to me so clearly, I just had to post it here.

    Willing to experience aloneness
    I discover connection everywhere.
    Turning to face my fear
    I meet the warrior who lives within.
    Opening to my loss
    I gain the embrace of the universe.
    Surrendering into emptiness
    I find fulfillment without end.

    Each condition I flee from pursues me
    Each condition I welcome transforms me
    And becomes itself transformed
    Into its radiant jewel-like essence.
    I bow to the one who has made it so.
    Who has crafted this Master Game.
    To play it is purest delight –
    To honour its form, true devotion.

    John Wellwood

  • Golden Threads

    The following poem I wrote as the result of a process I worked through as explained in his new ebook, Escape to the Homelands of the Heart – Awaken your Inner Poet, by Michael R Dale. A book I can recommend to anyone who writes, or wants to write.

    I ‘dreamed into’ the archetypal lover inside me and met the feeling of grief; my own grief for old loves lost, but more pertinently the grief of my present love, whose daughter is leaving us for Canada, after a wonderful four month stay with us – a healing time for mother and daughter, as well as a renewing of their love for each other.

    GOLDEN THREADS

    Watching grief
    as it floods
    over my beloved
    Leaving her
    awash with tears

    My close presence
    Small comfort now
    Barely bridging
    her chasm
    of despair

    The fear in her eyes
    of losing the jewel
    of their connection
    Now so painfully
    about to break

    And all those
    old losses
    rushing in
    to deepen
    present grief

    She fought hard
    and laid bare
    to win back
    her daughter’s
    melting heart

    Daring to unwind
    their ‘wound cloth’
    they wove truth strands
    of silk, to build
    a new tapestry of love

    Four mending months
    and now the rightful
    time to go
    A mother’s grief
    A cavern I can’t fill

    But a tapestry
    of gold sits
    in both their hearts
    Threads will connect
    across the great divide

    Until reunion is possible again

  • My Mother

    This week I got a little closer to something I have been sidestepping for a long time. My partner tells me how I subtly withhold my self, my thoughts and feelings, my vulnerability, my love – for her and for others. I measure it all out from a distance.

    It has been a feature of our relationship, as she has her own ways of holding back in her love-giving. We have both been hurt in previous relationships and both had parental influences in our childhoods, where our patterns of withholding began. We are kind to each other over this, but we both long for the other to let go so we can drop into deeper connection.

    So we are gradually learning to heal and change these patterns. For me it has been clear for a long time that the root, the tap root at least, stems from the time when I was sent off to boarding school. I coped with the pain of separation from my parents by unconsciously deciding that I would not show them my love. I learned to withhold to protect myself, particularly from my mother. I was probably angry as well as sad and lonely.

    Me with my mother, father, grandparents & great aunt (middle front).
    Me with my mother, father, grandparents & great aunt (middle front).
    My withhold included not telling my mother about my pains and unhappinesses over those years at school, as I grew up. It continued through my adult years, that I didn’t show her my love and I didn’t speak to her about those years and about my awareness, as it became clearer to me. I found myself stuck with this behaviour, unable to change it, except on rare occasions when I managed to offer her a kiss, or a quick hug. I don’t think I really wanted to change this. Maybe I was still holding resentment, even though in my maturity, I could see she had done the best she could as a mother.

    My mother is now 91 and although she is mentally alert, she may not have too much longer to live. Suddenly this week I could see the possibility of speaking frankly to her and trying to heal the lifelong divide that has sat between us, unaddressed.

    A few months ago I found myself speaking to her about a traumatic event that happened in a class at school, which ever since has left me with a fear of speaking in public, afraid of being shamed, as I was back then, and specifically now, unable to learn and speak italian for fear of making a fool of myself.

    My mother was shocked to hear of what happened to me at school and how it has left me with a lifelong scar of fear around performance related things. She has mentioned it several times and I am now feeling a strong urge to speak more openly with her about all of this and to try to close the ‘love gap’ that has kept us distant emotionally since I was eight.

    I won’t be seeing her face-to-face now till september, but when I go, I wonder if we can heal my wound (and hers) so that we can shed some tears, hug and be close in the vulnerability of my truth for the first time. And of course I wonder if the healing will bring benefits in all my other relationships, especially with my partner.

  • Our Inner Poet

    From an Ebook entitled ESCAPE TO THE HOMELANDS OF THE HEART

    written by Michael R. Dale

    … Now what of the poet archetype? Where does the Inner Poet fit in?

    The poet archetype is so important, because it is in a poetic frame of mind and spirit. Through it, we are able to interpret all the other archetypes most effectively. Remember archetypes are the soul’s way of communicating the unconscious and poetry is the language of the soul.

    The energy of the poet archetype is one of metaphor, interpretation, connection and translation. Just as when meditating we cultivate the witness – a detached, watchful eye that spectates without judgment on the ephemeral nature of existence – the poet is the observer and the interpreter of the internal world – the feminine kingdom of the soul.

    Just as skill acquisition is a meta-skill, the poet archetype is a meta-archetype – the observer and interpreter of all the other archetypes within us. The Inner Poet is the alchemist to whom the soul alone will bear its deepest secrets – the trusted emissary of her otherwise indecipherable love letters to the king, who reigns over the conscious ego mind.

    For further testimony to this assertion I must again turn to Robert A Johnson and his words on the alchemists of old, “Alchemy – that treasure house of psychological insight that is so often mistaken for early attempts at chemistry – traces out the steps of synthesis in poetic language.”

    Inner-work is the work of connecting with observing and interpreting the wonderful and terrifying world of within – the work of creating new meaning, awareness and healing where pain and confusion and suffering presided previously. The work of lovingly embracing every facet of our being – is alchemy – and alchemy is inner-work. The metaphor of turning lead into gold is exactly that, a metaphor.

    Alchemy is turning problems into opportunities, turning pain into wisdom, turning hatred into compassion. Poetry is alchemy, when you take for instance burning rage, death, uncontrollable desire or even something mundane like boredom and put that into words on a page, you create something raw, intense and alive, something beautiful; a window into your heart that leads you to a deeper understanding of who you really are. You create an avenue for your ego and your soul to approach each other as equals and unite in the homelands of your heart.
    This chapter ends with a poem called: Every poet is an alchemist

    Every poet is an alchemist.

    Her poetry is the gold

    She wrings From the lead

    Of life experience.

    The poet thanks life

    For the pain.

    Without it

    There would be

    No love.

    To learn more of this work: http://mrmichaelDale.com
    or on facebook: Escape to the Homelands of the Heart

  • Souldiers of a Higher Order…

    The polarities are changing with respect to gender. Soon it won’t be men vs. women. It will be the awakening vs. the asleep, the heartfelt vs. the heartless.

    Men will rise up and stand beside women in opposition to those men who imprison all of us. The kind of men who ordered the gang rape in India, the kind of men who manipulate economic systems solely for their own benefit, will be met with a gender inclusive force of benevolent souls, who will no longer tolerate the raping of this planet or the women who mother it.

    I appreciate the good intentions of those who believe that we are ready to move away from opposition as a construct altogether, but I feel they are putting the heart before the force. It’s premature. We still need to fight for our right to the light, and we need to do it together. Not as two polarized genders, but as souldiers of a higher order united by love.

    From Jeff Brown’s SOULSHAPING facebook group 22nd July 2014

  • Wild One – Record of a dream, written on a train, given to a stranger

    I know I am alive, but
    forget to remember and rejoice.
    So now, awake, I celebrate,
    Defying the numbness of my normal life.

    In my dream I glow
    And move with a singing vibrancy.
    I flow, with the current of life
    Volting through my veins.

    And now I see myself flesh-bare,
    Dancing the celebration of my sex.
    In my power, I stand
    Proud at last of my priapic energy.

    Not hunter, nor hunted, yet
    Grasping the emblems of my strength,
    Bow and spear, tight bound and spliced,
    Thonged, beaded, and bedecked.

    I feel my centre low;
    Steel in my guts and feet rooted to the earth,
    I am connected to all beings now
    And dance the universal dance.

    I reach back in time, to
    Primitive man whose leathered feet
    Trod the very earth I now tread.
    These sacred rocks support our fragile soles.

    We are of one spirit, he and I.
    Just for now I too am free
    from the yoke of my civilisation,
    Open to forces my mind cannot grasp.

    The wild calls me, and
    I respond as if to a lover
    For whom I yearn without and within.
    A wisdom only now revealed.
    native american

  • Come To The River – Rumi

    Come! Take a pick-axe
    And break apart
    Your stony self.
    The heart’s matrix
    is glutted with rubies.
    Springs of laughter
    are buried in your breast.
    Unstop the wine jar
    Batter down the door
    to the treasury
    of nonexistence.
    The water in your jug
    is brackish and low.
    Smash the jug
    and come to the river!

    Rumi

  • Sometimes

    mymandalasmall‘Mandala of life’ by Paul Swatridge

    Sometimes, when a bird cries out,
    Or the wind sweeps through a tree,
    Or a dog howls in a far off farm,
    I hold still and listen a long time.

    My soul turns and goes back to the place
    Where, a thousand forgotten years ago,
    The bird and the blowing wind
    Were like me, and were my brothers.

    My soul turns into a tree,
    And an animal, and a cloud bank.
    Then changed and odd it comes home
    And asks me questions. What should I reply?

    —Hermann Hesse