This is the poem I presented at the education conference I attended this weekend. I came away from the conference inspired and energized. The answer, behind all the pedagogical strategies and theories and techniques, is always Love.
And the Third Circle is the Heart
by Beth Weaver-Kreider
“The eye is the first circle, the horizon which it forms is the second: and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
The heart, too, is a circle,
the horizon expanding to infinity
or contracting into a small black hole.
The round bud of the heart
opens, the radius expanding.
The work, you say, is to keep opening,
casting that radius wider
at every turn of the wheel,
to hold everything within its protective arc,
the bright flowers and the white-hot stones.
When I begin to say
that I am you and you are I
then the pain that you wear
must wound me too.
This is the work,
to widen that horizon that lies within
to hold the world, if we must.
This is the burden
we choose
to carry:
To be watchers,
weight-bearers,
to inwardly transmute
these stones we are given to bear
into gems of great value.
To keep soft,
to let the ego
slip down
into a weightless place.
Speak your story.
Let it fall like a stone
into the quiet pool of my heart.
The circles expand out and outward,
not matter but pure energy,
more doors opening.
I see you.
I feel you.
I know you.
I recognize myself in you.
These are the doors we step into.
These are the circles we enter.
Namaste.
Gratitude List:
1. Collegiality
2. Stepping out of my comfort zone
3. Wise mentors
4. Listening
5. Being heard
May we walk in Beauty!
Mockingbird Chronicles 