Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
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.
(emphasis mine)
We adopted a cat five weeks ago. Her name is Mimi and we affectionately call her Memes. She celebrated her 1st birthday this week.
I wonder about her life. About her past as a stray on the street. About what she really thinks of this apartment and these two humans that are now her loving companions.
Mimi is vicious when pouncing on a bee soft toy; tender when snuggling to be brushed. She closes her eyes and nudges her head towards the window to smell the outside air. She perches on a shelf and watches us go about our busyness. I bow to her while blinking slowly, doing my best to communicate love and safety.
Since Mimi has come into our lives, I’m moved by her softness and the raw animal of her being. I’m touched by the divine aliveness that fills her graceful movements.
I’m humbled by this creature that depends on me to survive. I come across a reddit thread asking what to do in their cat’s last days. I know it’s likely I’ll outlive Mimi and be witness to her death. The sadness I feel is poignant and clarifying: I choose to move closer and to love her more even though it risks greater pain.
I sit quietly and consider this imaginally. Mimi offers herself to my imagination. The image of self, other, and world has shifted to include her. The threads of my life are now interweaving with Mimi’s. A new meaningfulness unfolds, felt but not named.
Where there is love there is image. When we open to something and find this sense of love, we can recognise that the imaginal is working away in the background, concocting a sense of things, finding our place in the world.
This is a different move from reducing suffering or letting go of clinging. Sometimes it also opens us to grief and pain — there is always that risk. What it promises in return is deep meaningfulness, found in the particulars: softly breathing curled up in a ball, meowing in excited greeting, yawning after a long nap.
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The meditation workshop on Imaginal Practice I’m leading is coming up next week. If you feel the world offering itself to your imagination, come explore with me.