“Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” —Rumi
In the last podcast, “A Terrible Love of War, A Culture of Peace,” I talked about the need to build a culture and societies that are so satisfying and compelling that we are unwilling to sacrifice them or our precious lives to the destruction and death brought by war.
I imagine the time that we spend together here today with these poems, as an offering to such a culture.
I hope these poems bring you some respite, inspiration, a deeper appreciation for the beauty in your life. Perhaps you’ll find a new poet to investigate on your own.
April is National Poetry month here in the United States. Let’s celebrate.
Transcript with links for “With the night falling we are saying thank you: 10 poems for National Poetry month”
Hello, and welcome to Myth Matters, storytelling and conversation about mythology and why myth matters to your life today. I’m your host and personal mythologist Dr. Catherine Svehla. Wherever you may be in this wide, beautiful, crazy world of ours, you are part of this story circle.
April is National Poetry month here in the United States and I have ten poems for you today, a teeny tiny bit of the real wealth of culture and our existence in imagination. In the last podcast, “A Terrible Love of War, A Culture of Peace,” I talked about the need to build a culture and societies that are so satisfying and compelling that we are unwilling to sacrifice them or our precious lives to the destruction and death brought by war.
The link– expressed in James Hillman’s phrase “a terrible love of war,” is the archetypal coupling of the god of War, known to the Greeks as Ares and the Romans as Mars, and the goddess of Love, known as Aphrodite or Venus. This goddess, lover of the war God, suggests the central role of love, beauty, and the erotic, of relatedness, devotion to the particular, and a poetic sensibility in a culture of peace, a culture that could perhaps contain and subdue the archetypal energy of war.
I imagine the time that we spend together here today with these poems, as an offering to such a culture.
We need Aphrodite, whose values have long been repressed and suppressed in dominant cultures around the world. We need devoted attention, love, for the particular. We need beauty. My reflections on this led me back to a book that I recommend to you: Beauty, The Invisible Embrace by John O’Donohue. I’ll post a link to the book with the transcript for this episode.
I want to borrow a few words from O’Donohue as a loose frame for the poems that I’ve gathered to read to you today. O’Donohue writes:
“When we hear the word ‘beauty,’ we inevitably think that beauty belongs in a special elite realm where only the extraordinary dwells. Yet without realizing it, each day each one of us is visited by beauty. When you actually listen to people, it is surprising how often beauty is mentioned. A world without beauty would be unbearable. Indeed, the subtle touches of beauty are what enables most people to survive. Yet beauty is woven so quietly through our ordinary days that we hardly notice it.” (pg 12)
A bit later O’Donohue notes that the Greek word for beauty is connected to the experience of being called. He writes,
“When we experience beauty, we feel called. The Beautiful stirs passion and urgency in us and calls us forth from aloneness into the warmth and wonder of an eternal embrace. It unites us again with the neglected and forgotten grandeur of life.” (pg 13)
Now, I invite you to relax and listen. I hope these poems bring you some respite, inspiration, a deeper appreciation for the beauty in your life. Perhaps you’ll find a new poet to investigate on your own. I’m going to pause for an extra moment between poems to allow us each the space for a breath or two. I chose this first poem for its note of invitation…
“The Last Word” by Nikki Grimes
(Nikki Grimes at The Poetry Foundation)
“Mouth Slightly Open” by Robert Hass, from his collection Time and Materials
(Robert Hass at The Poetry Foundation)
“Ghost Road Song” by Deborah Miranda (thanks to Josiah for sending me this poem)
“Intention” by Deborah Miranda from her latest poetry collection, Altar For Broken Things
(Deborah Miranda at The Poetry Foundation)
“Another Antipastoral” by Vievee Francis
(Vievee Francis at The Poetry Foundation)
These next two poems are the work of Rags Rosenberg, who is also a songwriter. Thank you for offering some of your work to Myth Matters, Rags!
“A Poet’s Work” by Rags Rosenberg
“Time” by Rags Rosenberg
(Website of poet and songwriter Rags Rosenberg)
“You Can’t Have It All” by Barbara Ras, from Bite Every Sorrow
(Barbara Ras at The Poetry Foundation)
Thank you to Diane for sharing this next poem with me.
“Thanks” by W. S. Merwin
(W.S. Merwin at The Poetry Foundation)
Isn’t this one of the challenges posed by love my friend, to be fully present to the pain of the world and also grateful, deeply grateful, for the gift of being here at all.
I have one last poem for you today, a favorite from Mary Oliver. But first let’s pause to give a big welcome to new email subscribers Kitty, Angela, Paul, Sheila, Adam, Aura, Mar, Gretchen, Halima, Cosimo. Thank you for joining my email list, to receive announcements about Myth Matters and my other programs.
If you’re new to Myth Matters, or you haven’t been to the Mythic Mojo website for awhile, I invite you to stop by and investigate my other offerings. I work with individuals in a variety of ways, and you might find something that calls to you right now.
Heartfelt thanks to the patrons and supporters of Myth Matters. Your monthly financial support is essential to this work. I know that even $5/month isn’t doable for everyone and yet we meet in this space, as this type of sharing is the cornerstone of community.
If you are finding something of value here in Myths Matters, I do hope that you’ll consider joining me on patreon. If a monthly commitment is more than you can manage, maybe drop something in the tip jar or post a positive review on your favorite podcast platform, to share the love. Thank you Anna at yogalife for your generous tip. Much appreciated!
In the next podcast, we’ll continue our celebration of National Poetry month. I’m so grateful to the listeners who emailed wonderful poems to me. I invite you to send me a poem that speaks to you right now. Share your experience of beauty with me, and you might hear your poem in the next podcast!
I realize that in the midst of all that is going on, all of the horror, all of the important work that must be done, spending time with a poem may seem like a small and even trivial thing. And yet it is the tiny acts that comprise a great work, and a life. We cannot build a culture of peace without living moment by moment, as best we can, in the vision that we hold of it.
John O’Donohue writes:
“The tragedy is that what we refuse to attend to cannot reach us. In turning away from beauty, we turn away from all that is wholesome and true, and deliver ourselves into an exile where the vulgar and artificial dull and deaden the human spirit.” (pg4)
And now, one of my favorite poems by a true ambassador of Aphrodite, Mary Oliver.
“Mindful” by Mary Oliver
(Mary Oliver at The Poetry Foundation)
And that’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. Thank you so much for listening. Take good care of yourself, and until next time, happy mythmaking and keep the mystery in your life alive.
