℘ No One Told Me
Poem by David Whyte
No one told me
it would lead to this.
No one said
there would be secrets
I would not want to know.
No one told me about seeing,
seeing brought me
loss and a darkness I could not hold.
No one told me about writing
or speaking.
Speaking and writing poetry
I unsheathed the sharp edge
of experience that led me here.
No one told me
it could not be put away.
I was told once, only,
in a whisper,
“The blade is so sharp—
It cuts things together
—not apart.”
This is no comfort.
My future is full of blood,
from being blindfold,
hands outstretched,
feeling a way along its firm edge.
Shared by Jim Marsden a email back and forth after Meeting - November 4, 2024 at 12.55 pm (and previous sessions).
Explanation from Jim:
The Sword here was used intentionally to call out a tool and force for expression that is not to be thought of our "held" too lightly. It's an important move to actually "claim" ones gifts. In this sense, there's responsibility and a solidity, a weighty-ness, of choosing to pick up a sword with an intention to use it with an integrity. It's not at all about fighting, or killing, or being aggressive, etc. It's more about coming into one's expression, claiming one's voice as one is expressing it, claiming what one actually stands for. There are real implications for this! Just as picking up and using a sword has implications.
And there is a poem I had in mind when I put this in the diagram, it's David Whyte's "No One Told Me" There's a line below which is "The blade is so sharp - it cuts things together - not apart." For me there's something here about paradox, clarity, and decisiveness. About finally seeing how things actually are - pieces coming together to make a whole.
There's also the line before which in some ways is more powerful and sets up the blade line: "No one told me about writing or speaking. Speaking and writing poetry I unsheathed the sharp edge of experience that led me here." In unsheathing the blade, he's crossing a threshold. He's coming to see how everything has brought him to this point and he's now committing to using his "blade" - writing and speaking - and expressing what is there for him to express. It's that way of seeing what can't ever be unseen again. There's no going back, but it's also an important choice and energetic commitment to go forward with one's gift, expression, sword/blade.