This is the True Ride……..

Art by Anne-Marie Silberstein after Klimt.

This is the True Ride……..

In this moment, as we witness our planet’s many cries for help, watching as wild fires rage out of control in Southern Europe, as drought in the Andes dissolves the snow on the summit, as floods and torrents sweep away previously safe communities, as leaders become more authoritarian, as truth becomes a commodity, as mountains of plastic choke the earth and the oceans, as all our old ploys ,games, tricks, distractions and evasions no longer shield us from the stark reality of the Law of Impermanence and the unintended consequences of our past choices, this poem by Jennifer Welwood is a wakeup call to grow up .....

The Dakini Speaks

“ My friends, let's grow up.

Let's stop pretending we don't know the deal here.

Or if we truly haven't noticed, let's wake up and notice.

Look: everything that can be lost, will be lost.

It's simple—how could we have missed it for so long?

Let's grieve our losses fully, like ripe human beings,

But please, let's not be so shocked by them.

Let's not act so betrayed,

As though life had broken her secret promise to us.

Impermanence is life's only promise to us,

And she keeps it with ruthless impeccability.

To a child she seems cruel, but she is only wild,

And her compassion is exquisitely precise:

Brilliantly penetrating, luminous with truth,

She strips away the unreal to show us the real.

This is the true ride—let’s give ourselves to it!

Let's stop making deals for a safe passage:

There isn't one anyway, and the cost is too high.

We are not children any more.

The true human adult gives everything for what cannot be lost.

Let's dance the wild dance of no hope!”