The poem plus reflection by the poet himself, David Whyte, found here on the Waking Up app. If you do not have access, get a year’s subscription for free, no questions asked, by filling out this form within the minute.
I won’t add too much reflection about the poet’s reflection of his own poem, but I have a couple of personal points I would like to share.
The timing of this poem seems felt perfect, when I listened to it back in the beginning of June. A lot of change was happening, and I certainly was not aware of the person I was becoming.
The biggest takeaway for me was the message that we are becoming new entities evolving into new lives, before we are aware that such changes are taking place. When we think we’ve “arrived” based on achieving a goal or hitting a milestone that we’ve set, David Whyte articulates so effectively how arbitrary all of this is.
When we are not trying to change and therefore are not consciously aware of it taking place, sometimes these are the moments where we are shedding our snakeskin. But because we cannot quantify the evidence in the moment of change truly taking place since our socially constructed measures of personal growth are inadequate for this, the inches gained go unnoticed in the time of, until much after the fact when finally we have tangible proof in front of us in the form of accolades or recognition.
Lastly, I want to highlight the underlying call within the poem to stop what we are doing right now and instead let our immediate reality tell us what it’s been wanting to tell us all along, through questions and request in a variety of shapes and sizes. Life is to be listened to–it has made the first move and now it’s on us to be humble enough to listen to it, to acknowledge it by moving carefully through the forest, whatever the forest may look like in the moment.
