Earlier this month, at the end of World Mental Health Week, on a Fit as a Fiddle Friday, I shared a poem I wrote called Sometimes.
Sometimes: Closing out World Mental Health Week on FaaFF
Sometimes, it might NOT seem like this is true, but EVERYBODY deals with challenging issues at some point. Everybody!
My poem made two simple points.
- One, everybody struggles at some point in time. We all go through seasons of pain, grief, sadness, disappointment, or anger.
- Two, when you hit these challenging times, get outside and exercise. Soak up some Vitamin D and move your body through space. You might not feel like doing it, but you will ultimately feel better if you get up and get outside.
Here is a short video I created to read and discuss the poem. Poems are sometimes best when read outloud by the author.
I noticed this morning that acclaimed poet and philosopher David Whyte also has a poem called Sometimes. Whyte is known for his reflections on the human experience in the realms of work, relationships, and self-identity. Born in Yorkshire, England, and of both English and Irish heritage, Whyte’s poetry explores the intersections of vulnerability, courage, and authenticity, challenging readers to engage deeply with their inner lives and the world around them.
SOMETIMES (by David Whyte)
Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest,
breathing
like the ones
in the old stories,
who could cross
a shimmering bed of leaves
without a sound,
you come to a place
whose only task
is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests,
conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.
Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and
to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,
questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,
questions
that have patiently
waited for you,
questions
that have no right
to go away.
This, too, is the role of the forest. It occurs to me as I walk the ferned, mossed woods daily to lose myself and find myself between the trees; to “live the questions,” in Rilke’s lovely phrase — to let the rustling of the leaves beckon forth the stirrings and murmurings on the edge of the psyche, which we so often brush away in order to go on being the smaller version of ourselves we have grown accustomed to being out of the unfaced fear that the grandeur of life, the grandeur of our own untrammeled nature, might require of us more than we are ready to give. Those disquieting, transformative stirrings are what the poet and philosopher David Whyte explores with surefooted subtlety in his poem “Sometimes”.
Listen to Whyte read and explain his poem ‘Sometimes’ here. His reading and his explanation are simply poetic.
Stay whole and maybe find that place where you can ask the questions that have no right to go away!
Complement this post with Tree Leaking Sun on Stay Whole Tuesday.
