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Read-Around is Thursday, April 27, 2023 at 5:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

In our troubled world of filtered facts and cornered truths, it is hard to find a reliable compass. It is easy to draw a line and let a label blind us to who we are and what is before us. With lines and labels, it is no longer me and you, it’s us and them and there is a whole world of hurt in the gap. Mark Nepo’s poem, The Heart Is Still Our Teacher, points out the folly of divisive labels our DIY mindset with the metaphor that we can’t fly with one wing. We need each other, both in our singular and our collective lives, for us to thrive.  This realization often comes through adveristy when we drop below the names and labels. We then drop the walls we’ve built in our minds and our lives to keep the the world at bay. We free ourselves to offer and receive needed help because we finally accept our kinship. The poem is a reminder that the truth of our kinship is not conditioned on adversity. Our entire lives are predicated on the efforts of others: hands that laid the roads and built the buildings, that brought the food to our table and all the other efforts at work in the rush of life that we forget when mired in the thick of it. The trick is not to add more suffering, but to work, instead, with what we are given and let the blessings of everyday life awaken us to each other. Then we can be like the one candle that lights many.

  1. Read the poem 

  2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

  3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

  4. Use the selection of prompts in the column on the right

  5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

  6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

The Heart Is Still Our Teacher

The old world is gone and still,
one candle can light many, if we
work with what we’re given, and
resist the suffering in not suffering.

The daily work is to remember
that you can’t fly with one wing.

During adversity, we finally accept
that our kinship is to meet below
all names.

No matter how we stray, we are
taught by the rush of life that,
in the thick of it, we are always
moving toward a greater sense
of living.

It is the blessing of the ordinary
that awakens us to everything.

—Mark Nepo
https://marknepo.com/

Prompt Ideas

  1. Journal or write a poem about the teachings of the heart. You can use the prompt: From the teachings of the heart, I learned… Or describe how the heart served as a compass for you in life.

  2. Nepo uses the plural pronoun, our, in the title: In what way is the heart our teacher? How does the heart teach us collectively?

  3. Journal or write a poem about what it means to “work with what we are given.”

  4. What does it mean to you to “resist the suffering in not suffering?” Consider how we create unnecessary suffering (worries, fears, road rage etc.) and journal or write a poem about it.

  5. Nepo offers the daily work of remembering our interdependence with the metaphor “that you can’t fly with one wing.” What helps you to accept your interdependence with others and with life?

  6. Journal or write a poem about a “greater sense of living” that you are moving toward.

  7. Journal or write a poem about an instance when one candle lit many.

  8. As usual, write about anything else in the poem or in life that inspires you.