Your Heart's Desire

What is your heart’s desire? Why are you here? What is your purpose in life?

We get so busy doing that sometimes we forget why we’re doing what we do. Do our busy activities make our lives healthier or happier? Are they creating more happiness or blessings for others?

The new year is a good time to look at our activities and ask ourselves these and other questions. It’s a time to go off “automatic pilot” and maybe do some re-setting.

Here’s a lovely poem by David Whyte, sent by my teacher Mary Paffard, that has helped me think about what needs to be re-set – and stopped, and started – in my life.

START CLOSE IN

Start close in,

don't take the second step

or the third,

start with the first

thing

close in,

the step you don't want to take.

Start with

the ground

you know,

the pale ground

beneath your feet,

your own

way of starting

the conversation.

Start with your own

question,

give up on other

people's questions,

don't let them

smother something

simple.

To find

another's voice

follow

your own voice,

wait until

that voice

becomes a

private ear

listening

to another.

Start right now

take a small step

you can call your own

don't follow

someone else's

heroics, be humble

and focused,

start close in,

don't mistake

that other

for your own.

Start close in,

don't take the second step

or the third,

start with the first

thing

close in,

the step you don't want to take.

David Whyte