The Only Dream Worth Having

Last night I had dinner with one of my oldest friends, Margaret Wheatley. Oldest as in, we go back many years now. Oldest as in, we’ve been through a lot of life together. A lot of cups of tea to share our respective journeys. The joys, the “I wonder ifs,” the tears of a few challenges, and the laughter of realizing how our human brains can so easily cling to a story.

Last night was all of that, this time, a beautiful summer night, up near Sundance, Utah.

Meg shared a poem with me by East Indian writer and activist, Arundhati Roy. It is one that I love and find myself wanting to sit with. It has a stilling and animating quality to it. Meg is using it in her remaining work of “warriorship,” to take people on very deep journeys into serving in the complexities of this world with deep commitment to inner state change.

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The only dream worth having

is to dream that you will live while you are alive,
and die only when you are dead.
To love, to be loved.
To never forget your own insignificance.
To never get used to the unspeakable violence
and vulgar disparity of the life around you.
To seek join the saddest places.
To pursue the beauty to its lair.
To never simplify what is complicated or
complicate what is simple.
To respect strength, never power.
Above all to watch.
To try and understand.
To never look away.
And never, never to forget.

Arundhati Roy

 

 

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