Empowered Learning by Design, LLC

A friend of mine shared this beautiful poem by David Whyte the other day. A perfect solstice poem. "you can belong to everything by simply listening".

The Winter of Listening

No one but me by the fire,
my hands burning
red in the palms while
the night wind carries
everything away outside.

All this petty worry
while the great cloak
of the sky grows dark
and intense
round every living thing.

What is precious
inside us does not
care to be known
by the mind
in ways that diminish
its presence.

What we strive for
in perfection
is not what turns us
into the lit angel
we desire,

what disturbs
and then nourishes
has everything
we need.

What we hate
in ourselves
is what we cannot know
in ourselves but
what is true to the pattern
does not need
to be explained.

Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born.

Even with the summer
so far off
I feel it grown in me
now and ready
to arrive in the world.

All those years
listening to those
who had
nothing to say.

All those years
forgetting
how everything
has its own voice
to make
itself heard.

All those years
forgetting
how easily
you can belong
to everything
simply by listening.

And the slow
difficulty
of remembering
how everything
is born from
an opposite
and miraculous
otherness.
Silence and winter
has led me to that
otherness.

So let this winter
of listening
be enough
for the new life
I must call my own.

~ David Whyte ~

Like anything, cultivating appreciation is a practice - the more we do it, the better we get! I wrote about a 2 minute practice that I do that helps me better appreciate - well - everything around me. Would love to hear your experiences with the practice.

Also - links to Viastrengths survey as well as an amazing Youtube video of a Crystal Glass player! What does that have to do with anything? Click below to find out!

New Blog Post up on the Website: empoweredlearningbydesign.com/blog

Join me for a Monthly Somatic Sangha - a 45 minute meditation and mindfulness session, Fridays at Noon, free of charge. First Session will be September 23rd.

Register here:

Empowered Learning by Design — Somatic Sangha Somatic Sangha* is a monthly gathering where we practice body-based mindfulness and meditation. This is an opportunity to "tune in" to the body and hear what the body has to say. Noticing and observing what is happening within us, we can open up space to breathe, to notice, to bring awareness and to...