Wild Geese

This poem has been a long time favourite of mine. I grew up in beautiful Galloway, south west Scotland. My homes have been up long tracks, nestled between hills, far from other houses. The fact that I have lived in people-dense London for more than half of my life is somewhat of a surprise to me, since I have a real sense of belonging in nature and more wild places.

This poem reminds me that, whatever anxiety is taking me off balance, I can always come home to myself, in the vast landscape of my yoga practice. That I can ‘let the soft animal of my body love what it loves’.

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..

Mary Oliver