The time will come when with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door,
In your own mirror,
And each will smile at the other's welcome and say,
Sit here,
Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine,
Give bread,
Give back your heart to itself,
To the stranger who has loved you all your life,
Whom you ignored for another,
Who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
The photographs,
The desperate notes.
Peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit.
Feast on your life.
Love After Love by Derek Walcott,
A Nobel Prize winner for literature,
Usually writes long poems.
But this poem,
Love After Love,
Is different.
It speaks of feasting and celebration,
And the joy of two selves,
Long parted,
Reuniting,
Evoking in the reader his or her own particular experiences of separation and belonging.
There's something profoundly affirming and validating that may be recognized in its lines.
We may puzzle who is this person whom we are to greet again,
This stranger for whom we have been parted for so long.
As individuals born into the modern world,
We aspire to create the life we want for ourselves.
We strive to make something of ourselves in the world.
And ancient psychological traditions would say that the pattern of who we truly are lies dormant within us from the beginning,
Ready to unfold,
Just as the oak tree is already there in the acorn,
Suggesting that one's task in life is to discern the pattern,
Listen for it,
And make room for it to emerge instead of trying to make ourselves happen.
It may take some time,
Perhaps most of a lifetime,
Before we realize that a quiet,
Strange voice is whispering beneath our outward efforting and labors,
Speaking from a different current,
Which may want to go one way even while we push to go another.
Until that time,
The conscious self assumes the role of sole champion of our destiny and purpose.
However,
As we soften with experience,
The conscious self comes to embrace the other one whom you also are.
Walcott's poem touches a deep current of human experience,
Of exile and homecoming.
It is as if you've known all your life that home is as near to you as your jugular vein,
Yet still distant somehow.
Coming home,
Then,
Is a joyous communion with yourself,
A celebration and festival of life,
The time for which,
The poet says,
Is now.
I invite you to close your eyes.
Take a long,
Slow and deep breath in.
Long,
Slow and deep out-breath.
Again,
Full breath in.
Fill yourself.
A full breath out,
Empty,
Empty,
Empty.
Allow yourself to soften into this moment,
To trust that stillness is all that is required.
Allow yourself to unfold,
To bask in this moment,
To commune with yourself.
Shift your awareness to the beat of your heart.
And sit.
Allow yourself to be serenaded by its rhythm.
Breathing in,
Breathing out.
Allowing yourself to be home.
Home with yourself.
Embracing this aspect of you that you may not be familiar with.
It's calm,
Quiet,
Basking in the rhythm of your heart.
Allow yourself to trust in this moment.
In this very moment,
You are enough.
No need to strive or grasp.
Let go.
Surrender.
Allow yourself to rest here,
Home with yourself.
Take as much time as you need.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
And may you find peace amongst all the effort in life.
Thank you for taking time out with me.
I wish you well.
