There’s a reason this man was an actor and voice artist. If you’ve ever laid in savasana at Village Yoga, in a sound bath, with Kerry Dorey’s voice washing over you, you’ll understand why he was one of the first people I asked to be part of the Secret Poetry Appreciation Society project. We’ve been exchanging poems by email, in lieu of “get well” cards, and this one was one of the first to pass between us, and it is a beauty.

I’m so grateful that Kerry accepted this invitation, and THEN, sent me the voice recording with a “is this kind of what you’re thinking?” before I’d even activated on my big idea myself, and of course, this was so much MORE than what I was thinking, because, who else has a suite of gongs and singing bowls in their house, to craft the perfect opening. Ahhh.

Listen to the poem here.

Here is a little bit about why he offers this poem, Let this Darkness Be a Bell Tower, by Rainer Maria Rilke

I chose this poem as it gave me contemplation, comfort and perspective at a challenging time and it still does. 

Back on February 1st of this year, I found myself admitted to VGH with a surprising and sudden diagnosis of AML./ Acute Myeloid Leukaemia  ….. 

Our friend Lisa used a turn of phrase at the time to describe this, that I quite liked, I think she called it ‘a definite ‘plot twist’.   

I was in and out of care and treatment for the better part of 8 months.  I received a bone marrow transplant on the 2nd of June and was released from ‘daycare’ in September. 

I am now home in Pemberton …. and  will continued to be monitored for quite some time.

This is a poem that showed up for me some time over those initial months 

and one that I have thought a great deal and it continues to resonate deeply. 

In many spiritual traditions, pain and suffering are a part of our journey that cannot be ignored or pushed aside, and are… in fact an aid on our way to greater understanding and or … to use a big term, ‘Enlightenment’. I struggle with this idea … but as the Buddha said, we all suffer and our source of unhappiness or ‘Dukka’ is wanting to reject anything that causes us pain and we cling to desire and  pleasure and often want things to stay the same. 

Kerry Dorey

Friends, your voices and fave poems, (or even newly discovered and not even that sure I like it poems) are most welcome, as we continue to move deeper into November. (Blah.) Drop me a note at lisarichardsonbylines@gmail.com, with questions, or voice recordings. (Do it! Just jump right in.)