Great Pond Sangha

03/24/2026

https://open.substack.com/pub/writeyourselffree/p/microdosing-beauty-a-poem-for-your?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

REMINDER: "WRITE YOURSELF FREE" CLASS THIS EVENING (3/24/26), ZOOM LINK INCLUDED

12/03/2025

Jane Kenyon, “Otherwise,” from Collected Poems.

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

08/03/2025

We are all struggling; none of us has gone far.
Let your arrogance go, and look around inside.
The blue sky opens out farther and farther,
the daily sense of failure goes away,
the damage I have done to myself fades,
a million suns come forward with light,
when I sit firmly in that world.
I hear bells ringing that no one has shaken,
inside love there is more joy than we know of,
rain pours down, although the sky is clear of clouds,
there are whole rivers of light.
The universe is shot through in all parts
by a single sort of love.

Those who hope to be reasonable about it fail.
(Kabir, translated by Robert Bly)