Alterations

After completing THE WISHING YEAR I reached for the next book on top of my nightstand, TEN POEMS TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE.  A lofty title, I thought, but by page two of Roger Housden's introduction my highlighter was racing across the page, my jaw agape.

So this is a book that aims to alert readers to whisperings under their own skin, hunches in their own gut.  It is not for poetry lovers alone, but for everyone who knows there is more to life than they are presently living.  I intend it as a book of inspiration and awakening.

I was certain Roger was speaking directly to me.   I literally felt my heart releasing as I read these lines from Mary Oliver's The Journey

though the voices around you

          keep shouting

          their bad advice --

          though the whole house

          began to tremble

          and you felt the old tug

          at your ankles.

          "Mend my life!"

           each voice cried.

           But you didn't stop.

and Housden's analysis

A journey like this goes against the prevailing current.  It requires you to step out of line, to break with polite society.  Other people will feel the ripples, and they won't like it.  Any authentic movement usually requires a break with the past -- not because the past is bad, but because it is so difficult for a deeper truth to make itself known among the accretions of habit and conformity.

Brilliant!  And this was only the beginning.   I had to force myself to put the book down, pause, take a break and savor this literary work.  In The Time Before Death Kabir writes

If you don't break your ropes while you're alive

          do you think

          ghosts will do it after?

Housden's analysis gave me goosebumps

The ropes that bind you are your beliefs and preconceptions about how life is.  Kabir is urging you to break free of your belief systems and unexamined attitudes.  Whether you are on the brink of welcoming the inner lover, or in the midst of a challenging situation in your daily life, the sky will always grow bigger when you loosen your beliefs about how it is all meant to go.  Nothing can be more life changing than an escape from your own preconception.

NOTHING CAN BE MORE LIFE CHANGING THAN AN ESCAPE FROM YOUR OWN PRECONCEPTION!