Mary Oliver

Last summer I discovered the work of Mary Oliver. Somehow, even though I say I'm a writer, I manage to stay in my own little box of short fiction, poetry, and novels I like...and sadly I'm seeing that's more out of laziness than anything. Too lazy to read new writers...how weird is that?

So I've been listening to new music (genres and artists), reading new writers, and trying new things and new approaches to old habits and ideas. So I've been getting into anti-folk/urban folk (Regina Spektor, Pablo Das, and Xavier Rudd are favorites right now), new poetry, new art, new philosophies (reading Heidegger's "Poetry, Language and Thought" right now), and so on.

And I've been approaching my days with new awareness, trying to be mindful of my old habits, my old routines, my old conditioning and ways of viewing the world. Stopping and getting in the gap of awareness is so different ow. With my "death " looking over my shoulder and whispering in my ear...everything is more present, more aware, more mindful.


It's very enlightening, especially in light of the Year to Live practice.

Anyway, here is something that Mary Oliver wrote that I thought was really fitting. I copied it out in my journal a couple of weeks ago and just saw it today.

Next Time

Next time what I'd do is look at
the earth before saying anything. I'd stop
just before going into a house
and be an emperor for a minute
and listen better to the wind
or to the air being still.

When anyone talked to me, whether
blame or praise or just passing time,
I'd watch the face, how the mouth
has to work, and see any strain, any
sign of what lifted the voice.

And for all I'd know more--the earth
bracing itself and soaring, the air
finding every leaf and feather over
forest and water, and for every person
the body glowing inside the clothes
like a light.



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This fits so well with where I right now. Which isn't really surprising--Oliver is a long time Buddhist practicioner and is well-known among the Buddhist community.

But there is no next time, is there? Not in the larger sense--i.e., a next life, another chance at the big game--and not in the day to day or moment to moment sense, either. This second, this moment is all there is. We don't get do-overs, we don't get second chances; when this moment is gone, it's gone, and the next one is arising and already falling away. And on, and on, and on. So all we can do, all I can do, is be present in this moment and engage fully, without fear or aversion or clinging or attachment.

Shit, have I bitten off more than I can chew???