White-Eyes—Seeing The Divine In Everything

Today, I want share one of my favorite winter poems, White-Eyes by Mary Oliver. 

First of all, if you haven’t already, ‘tis the season to sign up for my 31-Day Meditation Challenge. It starts January 1 and lasts all through the month. The challenge is simply to meditate any way you wish for 15 minutes a day, every day for the entire month. I’ll be supporting you every step of the way with daily emails, live group meditations sessions, and plenty of recordings, poetry, links, and stories to make the experience very rich. 

Give the world a gift by practicing drawing inward, getting quiet in heart and mind, so you can present a YOU that is more mindful, less reactive, and rooted in compassion. 

It costs only $31 and you can get your tuition back if you complete the challenge. Make a meditation posse and sign up!

Onto the poem!


Mary Oliver


What I love so much about Mary Oliver's poetry is that so often in her poetry she is speaking to the eternal, the Everything, God, or the Universe by simply reflecting what she sees in nature.

And like in her poem “Bone” I love how she willingly admits that she doesn't fully know what God is but is "playing at the edges of knowing" and that perhaps it’s not about knowing at all, but rather it’s about “seeing, touching, and loving.”

It’s about being present with senses and heart.

Through her poetry, Mary Oliver helps us all to create a touchpoint to the Divine that is present both in our outer and inner worlds and opens us to seeing, touching, and loving as she steers us away from trying to make it all make sense. 

Her poem White-Eyes is about seeing the Divine in something as simple yet complex as the wind dancing through the tree tops and the snow silently drifting down from the heavens. It’s an exposé about how with the “right eyes” or with attuned sight, we might be able to see the loving Divine present in all things.

I hope you enjoy it. 


White-Eyes

white-eyes mary oliver

BY MARY OLIVER


In winter

all the singing is in

         the tops of the trees

          where the wind-bird


with its white eyes

shoves and pushes

         among the branches.

          Like any of us

he wants to go to sleep,

but he's restless—

         he has an idea,

          and slowly it unfolds

best yoga nidra teacher training

from under his beating wings

as long as he stays awake.

         But his big, round music, after all,

          is too breathy to last.


So, it's over.

In the pine-crown

         he makes his nest,

          he's done all he can.

I don't know the name of this bird,

I only imagine his glittering beak

         tucked in a white wing

          while the clouds—


which he has summoned

from the north—

         which he has taught

          to be mild, and silent—


thicken, and begin to fall

into the world below

         like stars, or the feathers

               of some unimaginable bird


that loves us,

that is asleep now, and silent—

         that has turned itself

          into snow.



I’d love to hear your thoughts on what this poem says to you.

Drop me a line, I read every email I get. 

May we all be our best by remember those essential phrases:

  • I love you.

  • I’m sorry.

  • How can I help?


Live Classes, In-person and Online:

new years yoga salt lake city

Yoga Retreats 2024

Why I Wake Early

yogasaltlakecity1

I wake today and sit enjoying the silence of a the morning. Even as I sit, I'm watching the bright morning sun dance its procession around my front room. It is playing with the crystal hung in my eastern window and splattering rainbow prisms across each wall. Even as I look, the color changes and fades, showing me that the earth is revolving around this sun. Things are changing. As I look out the window the sun is celebrating these autumn trees with its light, making the yellow leaves explode with color against a cloudless and pale-blue sky. I see a small bird sitting in a shadow who decides to leap up higher and rest in the bright sun's warmth. And then it begins to sing.

Aren't we all like this bird, eager for the creature comforts of warmth on our skin, eager to leave the shadows for the sun and the opportunity to feel life pulsing through our veins, eager to feel how we may reflect that same brightness and joy through our song?
 
And perhaps this is why in yoga we practice celebrating the sun with Surya Namaskar, or sun salutations. Surya means "sun" and Namaskar means "a deep honoring." You might notice the same root word Namas as the base of the word Namaste, another Sanskrit word meaning to honor the True Nature or heart of hearts, the most sacred element and potential of another. Surya Namaskar is like offering a Namaste to our source, the sun, as it brings life to us and everything on this planet and we're dependent on it for all aspects of our well-being. Sun salutations are also a physical practice, a ritual, for acknowledging and honoring anything else you feel is your source (God, Creation, the Universe, Buddha nature, or whatever). But just as important, this practice reveals that we are part of that source and reflect a bit of that same light within ourselves. By acknowledging this similarity between ourselves and our source we empower ourselves with the memory of our True Nature. We are not dark creatures in a dark world, and where there is shadow, we can choose to leave it for the sun or shine light into it. We are beings of light, filled with life and love. And we are here to celebrate that, to learn from it, and to shine our light everywhere.

Mary Oliver says in her poem:

Why I Wake Early
 
Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety -
 
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light -
good morning, good morning, good morning.
 
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.
 
Please join me this week as we practice Surya Namaskar and other poses to remind ourselves of this bigger picture. We show gratitude, rekindle our fire, and celebrate our own light.