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For the Unknown
Self
Self
So much of what delights and
troubles you
Happens on a surface
You take for ground.
Your mind thinks
your life alone,
Your eyes consider air your nearest neighbor,
Yet it
seems that a little below your heart
There houses in you an unknown
self
Who prefers the patterns of the dark
And is not persuaded by the
eye's affection
Or caught by the flash of thought.
troubles you
Happens on a surface
You take for ground.
Your mind thinks
your life alone,
Your eyes consider air your nearest neighbor,
Yet it
seems that a little below your heart
There houses in you an unknown
self
Who prefers the patterns of the dark
And is not persuaded by the
eye's affection
Or caught by the flash of thought.
It is a self that enjoys
contemplative patience
With all your unfolding expression,
Is never drawn
to break into light
Though you entangle yourself in unworthiness
And
misjudge what you do and who you are.
contemplative patience
With all your unfolding expression,
Is never drawn
to break into light
Though you entangle yourself in unworthiness
And
misjudge what you do and who you are.
It presides within like an
evening freedom
That will often see you enchanted by twilight
Without ever
recognizing the falling night,
It resembles the under-earth of your visible
life:
All you do and say and think is fostered
Deep in its opaque and
prevenient clay.
evening freedom
That will often see you enchanted by twilight
Without ever
recognizing the falling night,
It resembles the under-earth of your visible
life:
All you do and say and think is fostered
Deep in its opaque and
prevenient clay.
It dwells in a strange, yet
rhythmic ease
That is not ruffled by disappointment;
It presides in a
deeper current of time
Free from the force of cause and sequence
That
otherwise shapes your life.
rhythmic ease
That is not ruffled by disappointment;
It presides in a
deeper current of time
Free from the force of cause and sequence
That
otherwise shapes your life.
Were it to break forth into
day,
Its dark light might quench your mind,
For it knows how your primeval
heart
Sisters every cell of your life
To all your known mind would
avoid,
day,
Its dark light might quench your mind,
For it knows how your primeval
heart
Sisters every cell of your life
To all your known mind would
avoid,
Thus it knows to dwell in
you gently,
Offering you only discrete glimpses
Of how you construct your
life.
you gently,
Offering you only discrete glimpses
Of how you construct your
life.
At times, it will lead you
strangely,
Magnetized by some resonance
That ambushes your
vigilance.
strangely,
Magnetized by some resonance
That ambushes your
vigilance.
It works most resolutely at
night
As the poet who draws your dreams,
Creating for you many secret
doors,
Decorated with pictures of your hunger;
night
As the poet who draws your dreams,
Creating for you many secret
doors,
Decorated with pictures of your hunger;
It has the dignity of the
angelic
That knows you to your roots,
Always awaiting your deeper
befriending
To take you beyond the threshold of want,
Where all your
diverse strainings
Can come to wholesome ease.
angelic
That knows you to your roots,
Always awaiting your deeper
befriending
To take you beyond the threshold of want,
Where all your
diverse strainings
Can come to wholesome ease.
~ John O'Donohue
~
~
(To Bless the Space Between
Us)
Us)