Thanks for all the likes on Monday’s newsletter! You’re all awesome, so here’s a mid-week treat. Everyone who comments on this post will get a free, three-card tarot reading from me. I’ll send it to the e-mail you use to subscribe, unless you specify otherwise. You can e-mail me privately if there’s a specific question you want me to focus on (robynryle at gmail dot com) or put it in the comments if you don’t need to be private.
Death card from my new deck, Blooming Cat Tarot. Isn’t death adorable?
Also, here’s the Mary Oliver poem which the phrase “one precious life” is stolen from. She says “your one wild and precious life,” which is better, because she’s a poet.
Poem 133: The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver
From New and Selected Poems, 1992 Beacon Press, Boston, MA
Copyright 1992 by Mary Oliver. All rights reserved.
I hope you are doing amazing things with your one wild and precious life today!
I fear I'm not doing amazing. And I'd be running from a grasshopper before I realized what is was. Who am I kidding? I wouldn't be kneeling in the grass for fear of creepy-crawlies in the first place.
“In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.” - Terry Pratchett
That about sums it up.
I appreciate your postings! Thank you.
Thanks, Eric.
Here's maybe my favorite Mary Oliver poem:
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
I love this! Thanks so much.
These brighten my day. Thanks for sharing.
Oh, that's good to hear. Thanks!
Such a glorious poem! Thank you for sharing it with us. Mary Oliver - such a gift!
Yes! Her poems are food for the soul.
I’ve come to look for your posts.
Thank you.
I hope what I am doing today is amazing.
Thank you so much, Wanda. I have no doubt it is amazing.
I fear I'm not doing amazing. And I'd be running from a grasshopper before I realized what is was. Who am I kidding? I wouldn't be kneeling in the grass for fear of creepy-crawlies in the first place.
We all meet nature in our own ways.
My wild and precious life cleaned the kitchen floor today. 😜
Well, it cant' be wild and precious all the time, I guess! Hope you did something beautiful today, too.
Thank you for sharing this poem…thank you for being part of my world.♥️
Thank you for all your caring and healing!
I've really enjoyed reading your posts. Thanks for sharing this poem, it is very thought provoking.
Robyn, I will like and comment, but please don’t read my cards, that “death card” kinda freaks me out!
🤣🤣🤣
BTW you bring much light and thought provoking commentary into my day!!
I thank you for that