Several years ago, when I had muscles and no grey hair (excuse me for the nostalgia), we chalk-arted a sidewalk in a smoky evacuated California town, while road-tripping with our kindergartener (oops, more nostalgia), and the phrase that surfaced for me, to write as an offering to whomever might come by before the prayed-for rain did, was from Mary Oliver: “you do not have to be good.”

Imagine my delight when my beloved yoga teacher, local mama, skier, yoga therapist, business woman and founder of the Vancouver School of Healing Arts, and writer, Rebekka Walker, sent the poem that that phrase comes from, Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese, as her offering up to our Secret Society of Poetry Appreciators circle.

I am deepening my yoga practice with Rebekka right now because she is really incredible and it’s one of the mind-glowingly magic things about this community and this place that it attracts internationally acclaimed people in their field, who sometimes offer their skills right here…. and also because I am trying to find ways to live this poem – to not feel as if my worth is tied to being good or walking on my knees, but inherent. I know this in my mind, this inherent worthiness, I do, I’ve read Brene Brown, I bought in entirely, and I could argue it and make the case for it, and if you ever need me to convince your mind about your inherent worthiness, I will do that for you, just give me a call, but the trouble is I don’t think it’s truly landed in my body, and so, what an adventure quest to embark on, a quest to learn to let the soft animal of my body, be a body, be an animal, be soft, be love, be wisdom, and not be constantly the target of my own inner critic’s nastiest most excoriating voice, attacking and amplifying all its flaws and inadequacies and all the strange disdain we have for softness in this world when it’s what we’re all craving most of all. I am trying to learn ways to connect with my body as something essential, sacred, timeless and playful, rather than something unruly and insufficiently disciplined. I am looking for the grace within the shapes and the ancient wisdom within our bones and for joy and equanimity and curiosity and gratitude for the unfurling unfolding years as they play out in my form.

And so I hope you find Rebekka’s voice, and this poem, as deeply medicinal as I do.

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.