arriving

When you move to a new place, everything seems different. Hell’s not hot anymore; it’s freezing. A poem of strangeness and wonder. 

Dan Vera is a writer, editor, watercolorist, and literary historian. Vera is the author of two books of poetry: Speaking Wiri Wiri (Red Hen Press 2013) and The Space Between Our Danger and Delight (Beothuk Books 2008). His honors include the Oscar Wilde Award for Poetry (2017) and the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize (2012). 

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

We’re pleased to offer Dan Vera’s poem, and invite you to connect with Poetry Unbound throughout this season.

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We're a culture of people raised to go and get it! To constantly strive, to seek, to yearn, to hope for things. We're workers and dreamers. We're not a culture devoted to the concept — or experience — of arriving.

But, Christmas — and this applies whether you celebrate it or not — is all about the energy of arriving.

We call the birth of a new baby an "arrival".  We celebrate the hell out of it. You and I were once that celebrated arrival ... then we got on the hamster wheel we call life.

So, how to strive & seek and make things happen, while also allowing ourselves to submerge in the powerful energy of arrival? That's what today's conversation is all about.

Merry Christmas 2020!

More about Maia at maiawilde.com.

Note: The point of views of guests on this podcast are not always the view of the podcaster. And the podcaster is only expressing her own opinions. This is the disclaimer portion where we remind listeners to do their own due diligence, and that Maia is not a doctor or therapist and that you are a responsible adult, who is capable of knowing when to stop listening and when to seek professional support and help.

Our lives are naturally flowing along, on the move, in a continual state of change and transformation. On top of this natural process we often impose our own, commonly taking the form of imagining and reaching for a life we want to have, setting our sights beyond and even rejecting where we have been and where we are now. It seems we get so caught up in this project and so impatient with our lives that we stop noticing and even forget entirely that this very process is already underway of itself, with an invitation extended to join with it rather than control or dominate. And a first step for joining in the journey is stopping.

Arrive in the present and use this time to intentionally question all that you know to be true. What you have been told to believe by others may not reflect who you are now or what you have seen through your own experiences and choices. You are encouraged to find your own conclusions.