Offered by Marie McGuigan

Our beautiful 15th offering Marie has chosen a poem from 'I heard God laughing' I Heard God Laughing – Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky. 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

I Know The Way You Can Get

I know the way you can get
When you have not had a drink of Love:

Your face hardens,
Your sweet muscles cramp.
Children become concerned
About a strange look that appears in your eyes
Which even begins to worry your own mirror
And nose.

Squirrels and birds sense your sadness
And call an important conference in a tall tree.
They decide which secret code to chant
To help your mind and soul.

Even angels fear that brand of madness
That arrays itself against the world
And throws sharp stones and spears into
The innocent
And into one’s self.

O I know the way you can get
If you have not been drinking Love:

You might rip apart
Every sentence your friends and teachers say,
Looking for hidden clauses.

You might weigh every word on a scale
Like a dead fish.

You might pull out a ruler to measure
From every angle in your darkness
The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once
Trusted.

I know the way you can get
If you have not had a drink from Love’s
Hands.

That is why all the Great Ones speak of
The vital need
To keep remembering God,
So you will come to know and see Him
As being so Playful
And Wanting,
Just Wanting to help.

That is why Hafiz says:
Bring your cup near me.

For I am a Sweet Old Vagabond
With an Infinite Leaking Barrel
Of Light and Laughter and Truth
That the Beloved has tied to my back.

Dear one,
Indeed, please bring your heart near me.
For all I care about
Is quenching your thirst for freedom!

All a Sane man can ever care about
Is giving Love!

From: I Heard God Laughing – Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky

Video

Offered by Marie McGuigan

Our beautiful 14th offering comes from a beautiful poet ​Julia Fehrenbacher. Marie has selected the poem Hold Out Your Hand to record and reflect upon. 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

Hold Out Your Hand

Let’s forget the world for a while
fall back and back
into the hush and holy
of now

are you listening? This breath
invites you
to write the first word
of your new story

your new story begins with this:
You matter.
You are needed—empty
and naked
willing to say yes
and yes and yes.

Do you see
the sun shines, day after day
whether you have faith
or not
the sparrows continue
to sing their song
even when you forget to sing
yours

stop asking: Am I good enough?
Ask only: Am I showing up with love?
Life is not a straight line
it’s a downpour of gifts, please—
hold out your hand

by ​Julia Fehrenbacher

Reflection

Transcribed from the reflection on the recording below

So I am just going to rest into my whole felt sense of the whole of the poem and the parts that resonated as I read especially the first

Let’s forget the world for a while
fall back and back
into the hush and holy
of now

I really resonate with the words hush and hold of now, something about that first stanza helps me to settle into the whole of me just now, back and back into the hush and holy of now. Its like what I do or how I be, how I am as I take time to go quite inside and focus, paying that special attention to that whole sense of something inside. And something about nature and

the sun shines day after day
whether you have faith or not, t
he sparrow continue to sing their song
even when you forget to sing
yours

... I'm just going to sit with that....even when you forget to sing yours....and I just notice deeper breaths and a wider sense of space inside connecting me to something I love about the birds...the birds singing....the birds out in my back garden....I love the sound....its like they greet each other in the mornings.. 6am and they say goodnight at night.....something in my body just about the rhythm of the birds and nature...something about even when you forget to sing yours.....something about stepping in closer to my own song and just waiting for my body felt sense of... waiting for my own song......just deeper breaths... more space.....its that curiosity about a word, phrase or an image that might fit my own song...and there is something about the word forget ....forgetting my own song my own rhythm ...my own beauty...and then something about the title of the song and the line am I showing up with love?...Hold out your hand....and the phrase that comes in giving and receiving...reciprocity...those words giving and receiving, holding out my hand waiting to receive...am I showing up with love...giving...a few more deep breaths and my whole felt sense feels something like a whole...yeah.. giving and receiving...Its enjoying the poem, sensing into the poem, receiving the poem...what it gives, what it brings to me and how I show up here just now...into the hush and hold of now...and that feels complete for now....it really resonates with the focusing language

Let’s forget the world for a while
fall back and back
into the hush and holy
of now

Feels like a really gentle place to finish and complete.
So I invite you to take time to listen to the poem and the recording taking the time to sit, noticing your whole felt sense with whatever resonates for you and how you are in the world right now

Marie McGuigan
May 2025

Video

Poem: You left everything behind
by Paul Daly

Shorty after I had begun to learn Focusing, Trisha, my beautiful wife of 30 years, died. Heartbroken, I wondered if Focusing would be able to help me on my grief journey. I had never realised before how physical grief is. Through Focusing I became aware that my body registered my loss as much as my heart and mind. Focusing gave me clarity about what I was going through. I realised that in a very special and beautiful way my body carried my sense of Trisha, that she was alive in me. But I longed for her to be alive in herself. That is the origin of my poem.

You left everything behind

You left everything behind:
the taste of your kiss,
the gentle squeeze of your hand as it fitted in mine like a warm glove,
the leap in my heart when you looked at me.

My body remembers you, Trisha,
my shoulders ache for one of your hugs
my arms tingle to be wrapped around you,
my ears miss the sound of your sweet voice,
your smell lingers in my nostrils.

You are alive in me, my love.
But I want you alive in you.

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

Video

Reciting Poems to Each Other in a Difficult Time

It might have looked as if we stayed
in our respective squares—
nine separate rooms made of pixels—
but for an hour the poems we shared leaped
through the screen and into our bloodstream
until all our lines were gloriously blurred
and our wounds were gently tended
by the medicine of Berry's dayblind stars
and Wellwood's ferocious dance of no hope,
Hopkins's shining from shook foil
and Roethke's wondering Which I is I?

In another time, there would have been
a fire at the center. Someone would play a drum.
But in this time, I felt it inside me, the fire,
as poems blazed to meet the great cold.
I felt it inside me, the human drum,
that reminds me the heart beats
not for itself, but the world.
For an hour we spooned each other
the honey of poetry. Alone now,
I still taste it, unfiltered and raw,
this astonishing sweetness on my lips,
this salt of lyric communion.

— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

https://ahundredfallingveils.com/2024/11/09/reciting-poems-to-each-other-in-a-difficult-time/

Offered by Therese Ryan

We have an other treat for you in this edition, not only has Therese Ryan recorded herself reciting and beautifully relecting on this beautiful poem, it was also written by another one of our members, the very talented Eibhlín Nic Eochaidh. It is a poem full of hope and renewal.

Give yourself plenty of time to sit back and listen to this wonderful poem and see what resonates and arises within you.

Poem

Aiseírí

Red hair
damp and limp:
first leaves,
crinkled silk,
unfold like wings
on sticks of the one
Japanese Maple
in our garden.
Confined to a pot.
Imprisoned
for its own protection.
Living inside
the shelter where
two walls meet.
Ignored each Winter.
A miracle in Spring.

by Eibhlín Nic Eochaidh

Reflection

This poem was written by my friend Eibhlín nic Eochaidh and I’m delighted to share it with you. Aiseírí is the Irish word for resurrection. The poem brought for me an appreciation of the fragility and beauty of beginnings. Sometimes we need to erect boundaries to protect what’s emerging. This happens within me too. When I’m Focusing and something new comes, I make space for whatever wants to arise. I protect it from the harsh inner critic and shelter it from the outside world. Now that I know Focusing, I welcome the tender shoots which long to bloom. I trust their sense of how to carry life forward. They know how to express themselves fully and beautifully in the world. This is the miracle of Focusing.

Therese Ryan
October 2024

Video

Offered by Carmel Heaney

We were delighted to receive the profound poem “Like a Holy Face” accompanied by a video and a focusing reflection from Carmel Heaney. Carmel is a regular attendee at our bi-monthly sessions and often comments in relation to the unique experience of focusing with a poem.

On reading and listening to Carmel recite this poem the lines “I know you will be here right here, untouched by time” I recall and resonate with a quote from Gene Gendlin
“That great big everything is always there, no matter what else you are dealing with, that’s always there as a resource” sourced from the

InFocus News Feed 17/7/24 “Serendipity, Social Transformation, The Great Big Everything, and giving Gene a Haircut” Eugene Gendlin (to Joan Klagsburn)
Marie Mc Guigan

Poem

Like a Holy Face

Only as a child am I awake
and able to trust
that in every fear and every night
I will behold you again.

However often I get lost,
however far my thinking strays,
I know you will be here, right here,
untouched by time.

To me it is as if I were at once
infant, boy, man and more.
I feel that only as it circles
is abundance found.

I thank you, deep power
that works me ever more lightly
in ways I can't make out.
The day's labor grows simple now,
and like a holy face
held in my dark hands.

 by Rainer Maria Rilke

Reflection

This poem was given to me at a time when I was sent pictures of my 5 month old great grand niece in her mothers arms and when I looked at that child's face it was completely confident that everything she wanted was there, no fear, no anxiety, no questions, no doubts, she just knew she would be taken care of

I would find it and do find it very difficult to practice that kind of trust. The day's anxieties and fears and questions are a mountain in the face of me I'm not speaking of big traumatic events but simply, you know the difficult phone call I have to make or will I get to that important appointment on time.

Or should I be making plans for this or that event in the future the holiday or special occasion. These are all mountains in my mind.

And yet there is always, behind all that a force that is leading me on, that is guiding me and it is always there and I must learn to return to it. It is always here right here in every moment.

"To me it is as if I were at once
infant, boy, man and more.

I feel that only as it circles
is abundance found."

This is the sense that I am at the same time living in the present, but also in the past, and in the future and all of the events and happenings and experiences of those times are all still here.
This is the abundance of the present moment.

"I thank you, deep power
that works me ever more lightly

in ways I can't make out.
The day's labor grows simple now,

and like a holy face
held in my dark hands."

When I connect with this power that is behind and beyond everything, everything gets simpler including all those molehills and mountains of anxiety that were in my mind.

And I am full of thankfulness for this which is Like a Holy Face sometimes obscured by my dark hands which are the ego my egoic self.

Carmel Heaney
July 2024

Video

We received this beautiful poem from Paul Daly for our Newsletter.

Amputation

(For Trisha)

I’d love to be able to run things by you still.
I’d love to share with you things that happened.
It’s like as if I have a limb amputated.
There’s this sense of something missing physically from me
That’s just below my awareness all the time
And when I bring my attention to my body
To see what’s going on
It’s not my arms or legs that are missing.
It’s you.
It’s your physical absence
That my body is feeling.
It’s like part of my chest is missing
Or I only have half a heart left.
It’s the strangest sensation.
My body knows you’re not there
It’s telling me again and again.
It’s signalling what my mind is not able to conceive yet:
That you’re gone.

- Paul Daly

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Following one of our Bi-Monthly poetry gatherings Eibhlín wrote this beautiful poem about Focusing.

Focusing

She teeters on an edge of the rim,
pitch blackness, the unknown, confronts;
feels a primal fear of what she
cannot see and does not know.
There is no going back.
Precision in word, guides – pressure,
as after the increased revving of engines,
the pilot, granted permission,
commits to that final thrust forward.
In that instant what lifts is surprise
at the image that arrives – huge bird of prey
swooping down from above. She raises
her arms, grips on to its legs;
wherever it take her, she trusts it.

Eibhlín Nic Eochaidh

Photo by James Padolsey on Unsplash

Offered by Marie McGuigan

Welcome to the next Poetry Corner offering. I have chosen a poem I wrote after listening to a Ukrainian professor share his experiences of the current war in his country. This poem was compiled in July 2023 before the current tragedy happening in the Middle East. It has a deeper resonance for me now.

Poem

Longing
by Marie McGuigan

Longing
Hold onto holy hope in this precious life
Dance in the wild foraging, freely, fully
Love, love into joy and strife

Suffering is ordinary, no one escapes this
Repetitious carnage wars, human on human misery,
Hold onto holy hope in this precious life

All the crosses, International, Red, British, Irish
Lights that shines bright in that vast darkness
Love, love into both joy and strife

Words of wisdom, reality, profound suffering and survival;
Spoken through Ukraine professor who's mum died in Mariupol
Hold onto hope in this precious life

Freedom, being free is not an individual construct,
Borders, belonging, a common humanity,
Love, love into both joys and strife

Reflection

While focusing with the poem the sentence “Suffering is ordinary, no one escapes this. Hold onto holy hope in this precious life” I had a sense of something like a vast emptiness with a shadow of darkness. Then I noticed something in me wanting to bring light into it all. I waited taking time to allow, acknowledge the whole sense of it all.

In the third verse “All the crosses.......” the word lights resonated inside. A deep breath came with a sense of space, connecting into something else in me. What emerged was the strength of holding onto holy hope. Like a holy hope in all those working courageously to help our worlds suffering people’s.

Marie Mc Guigan
December 2023

Video

Offered by Marie McGuigan

Poem

Sacred Sanctuary

Step off the beaten track
To enter the Sacred Sequoia circle.
Shake the world off your feet
As you find silence in the presence
Of the Ancient ones.
Feel yourself encircled by the Mother's wisdom.
Heed her whispers inviting growth.
Drop deep roots to rise upwards
As you soak in rich red tones.
Take time to find a seat in the soft undergrowth,
Feeling their strength behind you.
Release and let go, into the earth,
All that shackles you and holds you back.
Experience reverence and awe
As you nestle into their support -
Embraced and protected.
Allow them to lift you to the highest realms,
Enabling you to see your part
In the grand scheme of life.
Feel yourself renewed and revived
By your visits there.
Invite your fellow sisters to gather
Within this Sacred Sanctuary -
To join hands and be as one
As true power lies in our connectedness,
Rooted in pure love and reaching steadily
Towards the Light.

 by Maggie Mc Carney

Reflection

“Sacred Sanctuary” from Luminosity by  Maggie Mc Carney

The lines that resonated for me while focusing with this poem were:

“Shake the world off your feet

As you find silence in the presence

Of the ancient ones……

Release and let go, into the earth

All that shackles you and holds you back

Experience reverence and awe as you nestle into their support

Embraced and protected”

I found myself physically shaking my feet moving to release and let go.

Actual physical body movements arose for me while focusing with this poem which is a new experience.

For example while sitting with the words “silence in the presence of the ancient ones” my head lowered like a bow. While connecting to a felt sense of the words “reverence and awe… embraced and protected” I raised my head upward akin to looking towards the sky. I felt a sense of space inside with a few deep internal sighs which felt something like a whole connection.

This is a rich nourishing poem with many aspects of lineage and the natural world/environment to focus with.

Many thanks to Maggie for giving permission to use this poem on the IFN Poetry Corner

Marie McGuigan
March 2024

Video

Offered by Marie McGuigan

Poem

The Breeze at Dawn
 Rumi
Translated by Coleman Barks

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

Reflection

The repetition of lines “Don’t go back to sleep” resonated. The phrases stay awake and stay aware came. My felt sense was not quite like braced more like a “waiting” something. “Where two worlds touch” resonated inside like that feeling of being on the cusp of something in that moment of moving from sleeping to wakening. I then felt a whole body sense of gratitude for this moment at this phase in my life, not having to get up immediately to move into urgency of the day. In closing the word “must” in line three felt like something needing to be done and the phrase this life is not a rehearsal came. I had a felt sense of something different more gentle inside now.

Marie Mc Guigan
August 2023

Video

Offered by Marie McGuigan

Poem

The Guest House
Jalaluddin Rumi
Translated by Coleman Barks

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Reflection

The phrase that resonates for me was “Who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture….”. This brings up memories of grief and loss and the word ”empty” now resonates like something like the emptiness of grief with a felt sense of sadness. A deep sigh arises. The words “welcome” and “be grateful now fit my felt sense of it all and a further few sighs come with an easy smile. I am reminded of the wisdom of the body and being with whatever is there in a focusing way.

"Do not feel lonely
The entire universe is inside you” from Rumi

Marie McGuigan
June 2023

Video

Offered by Mary Jennings

I have chosen Clearing by Martha Postlewaite and have read it many times, used in mindfulness sessions, especially for very busy people in the caring professions who tend to care for others , sometimes to the neglect of their own well-being. Even the title has an invitation – creating a clearing: small sigh comes with that, yes, clearing. I let my body relax, just saying the word first - clearing and that brings me to read the poem in a different way - I have already slowed down.

Poem

Clearing
by Martha Postlethwaite

Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself to this world
so worthy of rescue.

Reflection

I have always liked the central image of this poem ‘create/a clearing/ in the dense forest/ of your life’. I can see it right away, right here again. There’s a sense of movement and then of stillness. A gentle kind of clearing, not a harsh hacking down of the forest, like it just appears, smoothly that clearing, where, as the poem says, I can wait patiently for the song or resonance of a life-like waiting for a felt sense to unfold.

What struck me when I first read the poem and strikes me here again right now, the power and depth of what Gendlin calls Clearing a Space: this poem captures that beautifully. Can I –just for now– put aside all the plans, the trials and tribulations, the sense of small-self - yes, there is a clearing. Who knows what song we might hear here? I like the idea of listening for the music of what might happen, what might I hear in this clearing something that comes in some sense not from myself but from elsewhere. Again, that sense of movement in the sound and of stillness.

And I will rest here awhile, just waiting…..perhaps for some life forward movement, returning refreshed ready to give myself to this world as in the poem, reading it now again.

Mary Jennings

March 2023

Video

Winter Changes

Tom has delighted us with this beautiful poem for winter. Enjoy taking some focusing time with Winter Changes savouring this gentle seasonal offering.

Winter Changes

A cold winter’s day;
The weak heat and faint light
Of a watery sun,
Fail to loosen
The hold of last night’s freeze
On the exposed land.
In dense clusters
Collages of ice-limned leaves
Crackle underfoot.
Then, into the quiet;
Shifting sounds all around -
Surfaces soften.
With quickening warmth,
Something inside responds;
My heart too, lightens.

by Tom Larkin

Poem choosen by Marie McGuigan

Welcome to our fifth poetry offering. This poem was chosen by Marie McGuigan. Watch the video below to hear Marie recite the poem and offer some guidance along with it. "For Beauty" a poem/blessing from John O'Donohue, Author, Celtic Mystic, Poet and Philosopher.

For Beauty

As stillness in stone to silence is wed,
May solitude foster your truth in word

As a river flows in ideal sequence,
May your soul reveal where time is presence.

As the moon absolves the dark of distance,
May your style of thought bridge the difference.

As the breath of light awakens colour,
May the dawn anoint your eyes with wonder.

As spring rain softens the earth with surprise,
May your winter places be kissed by light.

As the ocean dreams to the joy of dance,
May the grace of change bring you elegance.

As clay anchors a tree in light and wind,
May your outer life grow from peace within.

As twilight pervades the belief of night,
May beauty sleep lightly within your heart.

Focusing Reflection

I noticed a felt sense emerging like something settling with space inside.

An image came of myself standing with my feet together swaying with the wind. On sitting with the image and felt sense the image changed as I moved my feet slightly apart and the words that came were "balance and rootedness" I am aware these images resonate with aspects of my life that are familiar and this focusing experience opens up for me that embodied contact with it all.

I hope you enjoy this offering and your own focusing time with the poem/blessing. You are most welcome to come along to our Bi-monthly poetry gatherings (8th December at 7.30-9pm) or/and to submit a poem of your choice using the same format as presented on the IFN website. For further information you can contact Elaine or myself at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

I am grateful to Ann Cahill Director of John O'Donahues literary estate for granting the IFN permission to use this lovely poem on the website.

Marie Mc Guigan

Audio Recording

Focusing in Dublin

Following the International Focusing Institute's Advanced and Certification Weeklong in Tallaght Dublin, Marie McGuigan composed this beautiful poem encapuslating her experience and, I can safely say, the experience of many others. It was truly a special place to be and it is wonderfully captured in Marie's poem.

Focusing in Dublin

A tender loving caring experience - How needed is that in our world just now?

Sensate, wholesome fullness, international connections,

Cross lingual, cross generational, cross ethnicity, cross cultural

Into a listening that precedes language, experiencing without words

That power of listening, attuning, giving and receiving

Joy in the new and the familiar focusing fellows - global focusing

Guided morning yoga merging body, mind and spirit

Soul nourishment inside and out

Home groups where home felt both transformative and healing

Walking in the beauty of the resting, riveting, red sea of leaves

The Walled Garden, The Labyrinth and The Walnut Tree

Surrounded in indigenous earth culture, a forever home for all.

Ar scáth a cheile a mhaireann na daoine

Scáth means both shelter and shadow - It is in each other's shelter/shadow  that the people live

Warmest love and blessings to all from the amazing weeklong and all at the Irish Focusing Network

Marie Mc Guigan

Breath - by Rainer Maria Rilke - Offering No. 3

Offered by Marie Mc Guigan

Poem offering number three is by the twentieth century poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Rilke's reflections on the divine and our place in the world are disarmingly profound with a timeless relevance.
I have taken this from the book “ A Year with Rilke “ translated and edited by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows. Joanna is an environmental activist, author and scholar of Buddhism and Deep Ecology. Anita is a psychologist, poet and autism specialist.

I choose this poem “Breath” because of its relatedness to life itself, the mindful part of focusing and the references to the elements air, wind, seas and oceans.
“Breath” resonated in me that whole interconnectedness of it all.

Poem

Breath
by Rainer Maria Rilke

Breath, you invisible poem!
Pure, continuous exchange
with all that is, flow and counterflow
where rhythmically I come to be.

Each time a wave that occurs just once
in a sea I discover I am.
You, innnermost of oceans,
you, infinitude of space.

How many far places were once
within me. Some winds
are like my own child.

When I breathe them now, do they know me again?
Air, you silken surround,
completion and seed of my word.

Reflection

Take a minute of silence and pause, just to take notice.... in a focusing way what has come and what resonates...

And what comes for me.... there are quite a few lines and words resonating... the one I chose is "Each time a wave that occurs just once in a sea, I discover I am. You, innermost of oceans, you, infinitude of space."

I notice something like, that connection to the earth, .... I notice a felt sense and an image of a huge ocean wave and then 'I discover I am'.... something is coming about that connection to, that interconnection... and you know what come for me is thinking about Gendlin's philosophy of the implicit where we use focusing to connect with ourself first, interaction first with other..... self other and the environment, and it's that environment sense of something ... and then the two words... I AM .... I notice a breath a deep breath coming as I say it out loud.... just taking some time to be with and nurture the image of an ocean wave...connectedness to the earth and that I AM.
And that just brings me the sense of flow and another breath.

So I will just read the poem one more time.....

And as I read the poem again, I notice "flow and counterflow, where rhythmically I come to be" and that breath, the wonder of our breath and our body in Focusing.
And in focusing with poetry each time one reads a poem more comes.... and I have to say I really enjoyed that poem Breath and I invite you now to take time to notice how you feel...what has come, resonated, any felt sense, maybe take a note of what has come and I invite you if you so wish to read the poem again, use the meditation, reflection and read of the poem again...
and I close with warmest wishes from the Irish Focusing Network

Marie Mc Guigan

April 2022

Video

On Dragonfly Wings by Maggie Mc Carney - Offering No. 2

Offered by Marie Mc Guigan

Maggie Mc Carney is a friend and former colleague of mine who has recently published her first book of poetry reflections called "Luminosity, Words of Reflection".

In the introduction Maggie describes herself as "one of life's reflectors" drawing on her deep love of Ireland and its natural landscapes. There are beautiful images in the book by Tiernach Mc Dermott with thought provoking questions to ponder. I would suggest one could focus with the questions posed.  

Maggie has drawn from her own experiences during the recent pandemic "when the world came to a standstill". She states "It appears the time for change has arrived and these reflections are an invitation to embrace the challenge, so we humans and our beautiful planet can recover". Such poignant words that I can identify with.

I have many favourites from this collection for example "Inner Gaze" and "Depth". I have chose to draw on the focusing process reciting "On Dragonfly Wings" experiencing some shifts and changes in relation to my own lived experiences over the past eighteen months. The words and illustrations prompted me to be still, be present and to reflect deeply on life during this global pandemic.

I want to thank Maggie for giving permission to focus with one of her poems for the Irish Focusing Network website. I shall share a focusing reflection below.

Poem

On Dragonfly Wings

Maggie Mc Carney

I awakened in the dawn hours,
In a space between
Dreams and conscious awareness,
To witness two of these winged beauties
Casting shadows on the ceiling above

Their presence extending
An invitation to find patience and peace,
To withdraw, nymph-like, from the world.

Cocooning into an internal space
And await a time when it is safe
To rise with wings outstretched
With joy and light -

An opportunity to delve into the depths
Of long-held emotions,
To gain clarity and insight,
Releasing all illusion.

Accessing fragility....and out of this,
Finding strength and agility.

The luminosity of their wings
Spoke of a brighter, more colourful world,
One evolving and emerging
When this isolation is complete.

Will the distancing - now occurring -
In time, bring a closeness and joy
We have all yearned for?

Beautiful totems of transformation,
Carry us on your wings
To our highest potential.

So that we may live
In this beautiful world
As the true loving spirits
That we are.

Reflection

As I engaged with the focusing process after reading the poem aloud, two phrases resonated for me.

"Accessing fragility....and out of this

Finding strength and agility."

I could sense into my own sense of fragilty and the words that came for me were "vulnerability, with times of a new found strength" as well as the phrase "two sides of the same coin". The meaning for me comes as something like alongside that vulnerabilty there is a something new emerging, like a new found strength I didn't have before.

The second phrase is "in time, bring the closeness and joy we have all yearned for....an invitation to find patience and peace". I can sense something like a "fuller feeling" in the whole middle area of my torso. I connect with not taking for granted the little things in life - and I am aware there is much more in my focusing process to return too at another time.
John O'Donahue says "beauty is so quietly woven through our ordinary days we hardly notice it". Focusing help us to notice.

Marie Mc Guigan

15th October 2021

Video

"On Dragonfly Wings"  taken from "Luminosity, Words of Reflection" with permission of author Maggie Mc Carney. 

Focusing in this time of pandemic has helped me to stay connected with other people while coping with the frequent sense of fear, loneliness and isolation. It has been a pure gift to join the Irish Focusing Network on zoom weekly in giving and receiving, helping me to connect deeply with how I am carrying it all at this time.

I also made myself a promise to read a poem daily to nourish myself with language, connecting me to my unique felt sense of the meaning entwined in the poet’s words. David Clarke, professor of psychology at Oxford University said "poetry, songs and music can give shape to something hidden inside". 

I am delighted to share this experience with you, inviting you to focus with a poem written by myself Marie McGuigan, "Deeply, Deeply, Deeply".  I was invited to write a poem as part of an inter-generational cross community project in Belfast.

This involved primary school children and residents from the local Fold Housing group. We met weekly for six weeks to create and sew onto individual linen squares. They were then integrated as part of a huge quilt which has since been displayed at Belfast City Hall.

Guidance

I invite you now to pause, take three deep breaths and go quiet inside...

Take your time to let your awareness come to your body - Maybe first being aware of the outer area of your body, like your arms, and your hands.....

Being aware also of your legs and your feet.....

Being aware of your body's contact with what you are sitting on....

And noticing the support that's there.....resting into that support....

And letting your awareness come inward, into the whole area of your body, the area that includes your throat.... your chest.... your stomach and belly area... 

Give yourself a gentle invitation in there to hold this inner space in awareness, holding the words of the poem lightly as you listen, while allowing the poem to hold you.

After I read the poem we will sit in silence for a minute. I invite you to ask yourself, What comes? What do you notice? Where do you feel it in your body? 

Poem read slowly,

Deeply, Deeply, Deeply
That we will deeply love all of our children,
That we will deeply honour and respect those not so young,
That we will deeply listen to one another with an open, kind, courageous heart
To reach out,
To get involved,
To discover something new,
Where love and courage live,
In that place we call home, wherever that happens to be,
Standing on the holy ground of this amazing earth place,
Where we have each been fearfully and wonderfully made.
"Ar Scath a cheile a mhaireas na daoine"
It is in the shelter of each other that the people live"

Marie Mc Guigan
March 2019

1 minute silence - You might take some time to sit with whatever came for you, taking time to note down whatever came in your Focusing journal.

I will share my own felt sense of this poem with you.

Sending you all much love and peace, 

from Marie Mc Guigan

Irish Focusing Network

Listen and Watch

Listen to Marie recite the poem on YouTube: