So, one morning, not long ago, I scrolled briefly on my instagram and was brought to a pause by this face.

There was something about her eyes that made me want to listen to this episode of the podcast that had posted it, so I cued it up on my way to a karma yoga class with the wonderful Brenda Bakker at Village Yoga.

The podcast hosts are Australian, so it gives me a kick to hear their unsoftened accents and turns of phrase I have forgotten how to use… and they shared that that particular episode had been inspired by finding this poem, written by the woman in the photograph, a poet and curandera, María Sabina Magdalena García. The host had found the poem being shared out through her social feeds and wanted to verify the origin of it, before she shared it at the top of the podcast. That dropped her into a research rabbithole, that informed the episode… Go check it out if you’re intrigued, (and sidebar, their opening land acknowledgement has me drafting an entire different post in my head, because the “Australian” convention for acknowledging the country you’re on is so different and kind of attractive to me, especially with its repetition of respect, respect, respect)… but this post is about the poem itself.

Here it is.

Cure yourself with the light of the sun and the rays of the moon.
With the sound of the river and the waterfall.
With the swaying of the sea and the fluttering of birds.
Heal yourself with mint, with neem and eucalyptus.
Sweeten yourself with lavender, rosemary, and chamomile.
Hug yourself with the cocoa bean and a touch of cinnamon.
Put love in tea instead of sugar, and take it looking at the stars.
Heal yourself with the kisses that the wind gives you and the hugs of the rain.
Get strong with bare feet on the ground and with everything that is born from it.
Get smarter every day by listening to your intuition, looking at the world with the eye of your forehead.
Jump, dance, sing, so that you live happier.
Heal yourself, with beautiful love, and always remember: you are the medicine.

María Sabina Magdalena García

Remember the other day, the last poem I shared, I said, we don’t have to understand a poem for it to work its magic on us. We don’t have to even know exactly what it’s saying. We can just let one phrase or image or word land, like a feather, or a leaf, or a seed that blows out of the sky and falls into our laps…

What does for you, in this poem? Anything?

I love, “get smarter every day by listening to your intuition, looking at the world with the eye of your forehead.”

That just feels like something else.

Anyway, in the little bit of chitchat before the yoga class started, with this poem freshly read out my car radio via an Australian podcast, we said something about our intuition and trusting our own wisdom and our own sense of being the authority in our own lives… and it made Brenda reach for her phone and start scrolling through screenshots. “That makes me think of a poem I was going to read to you today.”

I was like, “if you read the poem I just heard on the podcast I listened to on my way, I’m going to freak out.”

But, I didn’t, because I kind of knew what she was going to say before she said, “oh, here it is. Cure yourself with the light of the sun and the rays of the moon…”

So. It seems the Universe (my husband pinned it on Siri) was conspiring to ensure that I paid attention to this poem, and it can’t just be for me.

“Heal yourself with the kisses that the wind gives you and the hugs of the rain. Get strong with bare feet on the ground and with everything that is born from it. Always remember: you are the medicine.”

What is the gift you carry, within you, that is an offering to the world? What medicine are you bringing as you make your way through this life? It probably has to do with your most tender spots and your own wounds, so don’t be afraid to honour them. And I’ll keep working to honour mine and letting that inform the medicine I carry into the world, and together, all of us, will heal this beautiful broken world. We just have to be brave enough to be radically tender, together.

And the soundtrack that is playing right now as I type it: you can listen at https://trevorhallmusic.bandcamp.com/track/you-cant-rush-your-healing