Sometimes people refuse to accept the gifts they have been given. And some even fight the gifts or deny them. We need to embrace our gifts and accept the responsibility that goes with the gift. Be happy to work with what you have been given. Celebrate your creative powers.
Here is Mary Oliver reading 2 of her poems as well as being interview by Coleman Barks.
"Poetry can startle you, awaken you, make you fall in love, take your breath away. When those words sink in, you'll never look at your life or your journey the same way again."
When you find the right poem, it can open up new worlds and change the way you look at life. And so can a painting, a novel or even a play. That is the power of art. Planted within each story, painting or poem are the seeds of awareness that when they sprout in the heart of the reader or observer will change his or her life.
Unfortunately, in the American society, poets and poetry get the short end of the stick. Fewer and fewer people read it while the number who claim to write it continues to grow. I am amazed by people claim to write poetry but have never picked up a book and read any.
One of Maria Shriver's favorite poets is Mary Oliver. Maria's interview of Mary appears in the April 2011 edition of the Oprah Magazine. If you haven't read it, you should. Here is a poem by Mary Oliver that Shriver keeps on her desk. Very inspiring.
The Journey
by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice-- though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do-- determined to save the only life you could save.
"One must work with the creative powers — for not to work with is to work against; in art as in spiritual life, there is no neutral place."
