Not knowing where to turn, I look to poetry for wisdom

I am heartbroken with Juliet's  news. I am also hopeful because I have to be.I call on every saint, light all of my candles and burn sage. I ring bells in mediation, scream out to the pines, to the birds and the wolves for strength, for justice and healing. Juliet, you are in my heart, always will be. I am at your side. I love you dearly, friend.


In Blackwater Woods
By Mary Oliver

Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment, the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders of the ponds, and every pond, no matter what its name is, is nameless now. Every year everything I have ever learned in my lifetime leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss whose other side is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.