{"id":8506,"date":"2024-12-07T10:41:48","date_gmt":"2024-12-07T17:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/?p=8506"},"modified":"2024-12-07T11:07:06","modified_gmt":"2024-12-07T18:07:06","slug":"john-odonohue-for-a-new-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/07\/john-odonohue-for-a-new-beginning\/","title":{"rendered":"John O’Donohue – For a New Beginning"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a New Beginning
\nby John O\u2019Donohue<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
\nWhere your thoughts never think to wander,
\nThis beginning has been quietly forming,
\nWaiting until you were ready to emerge.<\/p>\n

For a long time it has watched your desire,
\nFeeling the emptiness growing inside you,
\nNoticing how you willed yourself on,
\nStill unable to leave what you had outgrown.<\/p>\n

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
\nAnd the gray promises that sameness whispered,
\nHeard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
\nWondered would you always live like this.<\/p>\n

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
\nAnd out you stepped onto new ground,
\nYour eyes young again with energy and dream,
\nA path of plenitude opening before you.<\/p>\n

Though your destination is not yet clear
\nYou can trust the promise of this opening;
\nUnfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
\nThat is at one with your life\u2019s desire.<\/p>\n

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
\nHold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
\nSoon you will be home in a new rhythm,
\nFor your soul senses the world that awaits you.<\/p>\n

johnodonohue.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n


\/ Image by Shermeee<\/a> \/<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

A poem for a new beginning\u2013<\/p>\n

Though your destination is not yet clear
\nYou can trust the promise of this opening<\/i><\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t this a wonderful reminder of hope and new pathways?<\/p>\n

For a long time it has watched your desire,
\nFeeling the emptiness growing inside you,<\/i><\/p>\n

We might read these lines as poetically phrased wish fulfillment, but there is a deeper insight here. This is the underlying technique, consciously or unconsciously, mostly unconsciously, that we bring anything into existence. We feel an emptiness or a void or a yearning. It be energetically charged until it magnetically draws to itself its own fulfillment. The more we can befriend that aching space in ourselves and our lives, the more we can nurture it and enliven it, until it magically flips from emptiness to fullness and manifestation.<\/p>\n

Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
\nThat is at one with your life\u2019s desire.<\/i><\/p>\n

I like that this poem is kind to the phases of our lives when we feel stuck or reluctant to change and explore. Yet, at the same time, it recognizes that the safety of familiar routine can be a seductive illusion. <\/p>\n

When I was young I actively undermined any routines I found in myself, convinced that they led to a sort of psychic numbness and lack of deep fulfillment. I think there was truth in that perspective, but there was also self-cruelty in that approach and it led to instability. Once I came to see that, I worked very hard, sometimes painfully, at the cultivation of routine, and began to find unexpected life nourishment there. The crucial element, I think, is that those routines should be consciously selected rather than imposed on us by societal expectation or unexamined habit.<\/p>\n

And we can\u2019t fall into the seductive idea that we are those routines or happiness depends on them. Routine creates essential structure, but endless stasis is death. Life and growth require change. Regular encounters with the new and the unknown reinvigorate the soul.<\/p>\n

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
\nHold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk<\/i><\/p>\n

New avenues can sometimes be frightening, occasionally bringing genuine peril, so one shouldn\u2019t be brash or blind to the situation. But a certain boldness is natural to our nature when we come to know ourselves. We need awareness, dynamism, creativity, a diversity of life skills \u2014 all wrapped in a vital joy. Then even the perils themselves serve to accentuate the magic and wonder of each stage of the journey.<\/p>\n

Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
\nFor your soul senses the world that awaits you.<\/i><\/p>\n

Sending love, courage, and new rhythms\u2026<\/p>\n


\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Recommended Books: John O\u2019Donohue<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nEchoes of Memory<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nEternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nBeauty: The Invisible Embrace<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nWisdom of the Celtic World (Audio CD)<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
More Books >><\/a><\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center>
\n<\/p>\n\n\n
\n\"John<\/a>\n<\/td>\n\nJohn O\u2019Donohue<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Ireland (1956 \u2013 2008) Timeline<\/a>
\nChristian<\/a> : Catholic<\/a>
\nSecular or Eclectic<\/a><\/a><\/em>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n

John O\u2019Donohue is an inspiring Irish philosopher, poet, mystic who passed away unexpectedly in early 2008.<\/p>\n

John O\u2019Donohe had degrees in philosophy and literature. His writings, though grounded in academic philosophy and theology, are immediate, personal, very human. He was as much a mystic and a poet as a contributor to philosophical dialog.<\/p>\n

Much of his writing and poetry drew deeply from Irish Celtic perspectives, both in Christian and pre-Christian wisdom, while speaking to a widely diverse, modern audience.<\/p>\n

More poetry by John O\u2019Donohue<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a New Beginning by John O\u2019Donohue In out-of-the-way places of the heart, Where your thoughts never think to wander, This beginning has been quietly forming, Waiting until you were ready to emerge. For a long time it has watched your desire, Feeling the emptiness growing inside you, Noticing how you willed yourself on, Still […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2062,1340,2577,81,2574,2575,2576],"class_list":["post-8506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-beginning","tag-change","tag-courage","tag-john-odonohue","tag-safety","tag-security","tag-stability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8506"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8508,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8506\/revisions\/8508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}