Everything is waiting for you

Sometime ago I heard David Whyte speak at a conference. The room was filled to capacity and yet I felt as I was there by myself and he was speaking directly to me. Not as a poet reciting his prose but as a close friend looking deep inside of me knowing my inner most thoughts and fears.

Perhaps one of the reasons we find it difficult even just to turn the radio off or the television or not look at our gadget is that it might actually undermind exactly what we desire- to be alone. The one radical task set out for us is the letting go into the alone and the deeper discussion with oneself. This is the conversation to have with oneself as looking into the mirror. An invitation to come back to a richer deeper place that doesn't need to corroborate with the outer world.

“Everything is Waiting for You.”

Your great mistake is to act the drama / as if you were alone. As if life / were a progressive and cunning crime / with no witness to the tiny hidden / transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny / the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely, / even you, at times, have felt the grand array; / the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding / out your solo voice. You must note / the way the soap dish enables you, / or the window latch grants you courage. / Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity. Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity. / The stairs are your mentor of things / to come, the doors have always been there / to frighten you and invite you, / and the tiny speaker in the phone / is your dream-ladder to divinity. / The tiny speaker in the phone / is your dream-ladder to divinity. // Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the / conversation. The kettle is singing / even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots / have left their arrogant aloofness and / seen the good in you at last. All the birds / and creatures of the world are unutterably / themselves. Everything, everything, everything is waiting for you.

David Whyte