You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
Love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile, the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
The mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Therapy services for $15/session or less available from graduate interns. In Portland, contact
William Temple House 503-226-3021
PSU Counseling Clinic 503-725-4620
Lewis & Clark Community Counseling Center 503-768-6320
Call to Safety (Pdx) 24/7: 503-235-5333
Safe Choice (Clark Co.) 24/7: 360-695-0501
National DV Hotline: 1-800-799-7233
Urgent Or Emergency:
1. If you believe you are not able to keep yourself safe right now, it's an emergency. Don't overthink it: Call 911, or go now to the nearest ER.
2. If you are able to keep yourself safe from harm, but need immediate support:
(a) CALL (not text) your safe person/emergency contact.
(b) CALL (not text) 988 (24/7).
(c) Buy yourself some time: Go somewhere (library, Starbucks, popular park) // use a distraction technique // jump in a cold shower. Then, reassess.
(d) Go to a walk-in crisis clinic (check hours). Portland area: Cascadia (SE Pdx)-503-963-2575 / Hawthorn (Hillsboro)-503-846-4555
Everything is Waiting for You, by David Whyte
Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.