Are you longing for a life which feels truer, deeper and better ‘fits’ who you are, now?
When I took a vow to live a love-led life, (what others might term, a soul-led life), this poem was a touchstone.
It spoke to all the ways we can set out in life making 'vows' (which are often actually conditions/ agreements/bargains we make with ourselves and others and life), to live a certain way,
a certain way which, in many respects, was/is sensible and sound:
it has kept us safe and got us where we are today,
but at some point,
for some people,
the vows made in childhood and the beginning of adulthood stop feeling they fit the way they once did,
and when we take ourselves to ‘the lake in the wood’ (or just a quiet moment in the park or in the evening light at the top of the lane);
when we stop, and really listen inside to the emotions churning beneath the carefully undisturbed still-waters on the surface,
we discover a longing for something more, something truer; something which fits with the shape of us, now.
If you’re a woman entering mid life and you feel called to deepen into yourself and deepen into life: the ‘lake’ awaits.
Sacred Life is my current 1-1 offering.
The depths the women in this crucible go to are profound and life-altering, sometimes in big external ways, but most often, in the tender, intimate way that will always matter most to deep-feeling women: they - and life - *feel* different.
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All the true vows
are secret vows
the ones we speak out loud
are the ones we break.
There is only one life
you can call your own
and a thousand others
you can call by any name you want.
Hold to the truth you make
every day with your own body,
don't turn your face away.
Hold to your own truth
at the center of the image
you were born with.
Those who do not understand
their destiny will never understand
the friends they have made
nor the work they have chosen
nor the one life that waits
beyond all the others.
By the lake in the wood
in the shadows
you can
whisper that truth
to the quiet reflection
you see in the water.
Whatever you hear from
the water, remember,
it wants you to carry
the sound of its truth on your lips.
Remember,
in this place
no one can hear you
and out of the silence
you can make a promise
it will kill you to break,
that way you'll find
what is real and what is not.
I know what I am saying.
Time almost forsook me
and I looked again.
Seeing my reflection
I broke a promise
and spoke
for the first time
after all these years
in my own voice,
before it was too late
to turn my face again.
"All the True Vows" from The House of Belonging by David Whyte.