what we need is here...

"horseback on a sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. in time's maze
over the fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. we open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. abandon
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. and we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. what we need is here."

wendell berry

this poem has been on my mind alot...i have repeated the last line like a mantra..."what we need is here"...

as i begin my sabbatical month of august...a month of traveling and of reflection...i find my self struggling against the fears of new things...the fears of the unknown...the fears of losing all that is dear to me...but it is the loss of those things that has driven me to take this time...a time to search out home...

i told a friend that it hit me that i was officially homeless...and i let the heaviness and emotion of that pour over me...and then i thought that i've really been in search of a home all along...even while paying rent and calling many places my "own"...

i feel like i have had moments of happiness, pregnant with promise that have fallen apart or been torn from my hands, from my heart, just as i was getting used to the idea that this might be the time i get to just rest in the happiness of something and breathe...and i've grown weary of beating my head against a wall...of having doors slammed in my face...of being abandoned and rejected...and i don't want to try anymore and i don't want to hope and take chances...my heart...my soul...have had enough...

so i decided to put all my stuff in storage and take the month of august to travel and try to find answers...to try to find healing...to try to find home...

but as i prepare for this time and struggle through the goodbyes i've said...the one's i wish i could say and the one's i haven't gotten to say...i am trying to center myself in the moment...i don't want to miss anything because i am too long looking back or too much looking forward...i want to be fully present in every moment of this month...

and wendell berry reminds me that everything i need at this moment is here with me...even the seeds of things that i will need and want in my future...it's all here...right now...and i don't have to find the tree...just water the seeds that are here...

and so i pray to see my way clear...to remember what i need is here...and to find my way out of the deep sadness and weariness of soul and to somehow find my way home...