Offered by Marie McGuigan
Our beautiful 13th offering comes from a beautiful poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. Marie has selected the poem Inviting Spaciousness to record and reflect upon. This is a wonderful poem to drop into our inside spaces and allow it to connect what it with whatever wants to be heard. You can read the poem here or you can listen to the YouTube clip below.
Give yourself plenty of time to sit back and read or listen.
Poem
Inviting Spaciousness
Today when the heart is a small, tight knot,
I do not try to untangle it. I don’t tug on the strings
in a desperate attempt to unravel it.
I don’t even wonder at how it got so snarled.
Instead, I imagine cradling it, cupping it
with my hands like something precious,
something wounded, a bird with a broken wing.
I cradle my heart like the frightened thing it is.
I imagine all the other frightened hearts
and imagine them all being held in love.
And I breathe. I breathe and feel
how the breathing invites a spaciousness.
I breathe and let myself be moved by the breathing
as I open and soften. Open and soften.
And nothing changes. And everything changes.
The heart, still a knot, remembers
it knows how to love. It knows it is not alone.
by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Reflection
Transcribed from the reflection on the recording below
Resonating with the line and I breathe,
'I breathe and feel how the breathing invites a spaciousness.
I breathe and let myself be moved by the breathing
as I open and soften. Open and soften.
And nothing changes. And everything changes.
The heart, still a knot, remembers
it knows how to love. It knows it is not alone.'
And I just take a deep breath and I feel my breath deepening as I repeat those favourite lines
Something in this poem resonates for me about the breath, just that wonderful physiology of the breath, and the word 'moved by the breathing' really connects me into the wonder of my body the miracle of my body and the inner workings of my body, something about that comes alive and those words 'moved by the breathing' something about very life itself the essence of very life itself. And the word connectedness comes something about all that connectedness inside and those systems heart, liver, lungs, kidneys... amazing... and that brings more spaciousness and opening and sooth sense inside. And there was something else about a connectedness to all the other frighten hearts and imagine them all being held in love...and there is another deep breath that comes as I read those words before and now, is the sense of fear in the whole world at the minute, so many frightened hearts, so many wounds and in this poem cupping it with my hands like something precious, ya that seems some kind of connectedness of how I can be in the world and be with all that's real, cupping it with my hands like something precious something wounded, a bird with a broken wing. And there's another deep breath, and just taking some time now, to check inside, is that ok and complete for now with this beautiful poem. And what comes is that word remembers, just that word, as I closed my eyes and went inside, that word came from the poem. Just remembering 'the heart knows how to love it knows that its not alone'. Now just taking time to thank my body...for helping me listen in this way with my whole self to how the words of the most beautiful of poems connects and resonates for me today.
Marie McGuigan
December 2024
