My friend and colleague Patrick Turner and I spend lots of time discussing ideas about starting anew. No matter where or in what circumstances, people seem to have an inherent knowledge about what is really important to them. They just don’t trust it enough to take action on it because new beginnings don’t start out in physical form. Most people need proof to trust an idea. Humans are not easily persuaded by ideas taken on faith.
In one of our recent idea sessions about having faith in new beginnings, Pat shared this poem with me, and I want to pass it on to you because it beautifully frames up this idea that there is a seed of knowledge within all of us about what really matters that awaits our conscious arrival. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
For a New Beginning
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
- John O’Donohue -
What are you waiting for?
