A Poem to Help You Embrace the Mystery of Life

Life is a dance between form and space, visible and unseen, the obvious and the mysterious. If you want to be full of wonder today, read this poem. It's about the mystery of life and all the grace that can be found there.
“If you don’t become speechless when looking out into space on a clear night, you are not really looking, not aware of the totality of what is there. You are probably only looking at the objects and perhaps seeking to name them.” – Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
Words can only point to the truth, and to the mystery... but it's still fun to contemplate the questions, even if you don't have the answers. Even if you'll never have the answers.
Let this poem remind you... to hold everything in the open space of your heart. To let go of needing to know, and to feel life breathing *you* instead.
Be still enough inside, enough so you know more than logic or reason could ever know.
"The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you." – Neil deGrasse Tyson
An Ode to the Immeasurable Mystery of Life
To move through the world transparently—
Wouldn’t that just be nice?
To not pin things down
And tie them up,
Wouldn’t it be a relief—
To not have to identify
With everything,
And sometimes even anything?
I’d like to just live in the world,
Just for a glimpse,
Without needing to be
Of the world,
Without a label or a word
For everything.
Are the dead
More alive
Than the living?
I wonder if we should
Stop wondering about everything.
If I think a little less,
Or a little more,
Does it change who I am,
Really, at the core?
What’s underneath
Is underneath,
No matter what I throw
On top of it.
Maybe if I stop describing it,
I can start living it.
Maybe life will start living me.
When I stop trying to close in on
My self,
Trying to nail down the truth,
And open up to the
Incomprehensible mystery,
I can join the truth.
Am I so hypnotized
By what happens
That I’ve forgotten
A vital half, missing?
No.
Not aligned with a greater reality,
Simply needing to look
Through my eyes
Instead of with them.
I feel the guidance to
Hold the truth
That I’m living and dying
All at the same time.
It’s a paradox,
Complexity,
Whole and wondrous
In its own right.
If we look out
Into the vast night,
There’s more than what is seen:
There’s the unseen,
The unheard,
The unfathomable half,
Without which
There would be no path
For the stars to align
Into portraits painted
Across the sky—
Nothing for us to
Place words upon,
And nothing for the eye.
To think that I am only
What I think
Would be a lie.
Even space
Would like to look at itself
Without being called a sky.
“Just look,”
It might whisper,
“Without needing to know,
You will know.”
Perhaps if I looked through my eyes
And not with them,
I’d be looking at myself,
Wherever it is I go.
That’s the paradox,
The complexity,
Of understanding that the soul
Doesn’t need to know,
In order to know.
Only in stillness
Am I present inside
This great mystery.
. . .
Tell me:
Which part of this poem is your favorite?
Tell me in the comments. I read every single one, and I'd love to know!
When you’re in awe, you know you’re in the right place.
With love,
Jen
P.S. Want more wonder and less worry? Go visit my shop for prints of handwritten poems and other words of hope and heart. If you forget what matters or how much of a gift it is to be here at all, you’ll have something to remind you.
Comments on this post (5)
It defines life, without truly giving anything a definition.
If you have ever thought of healing verbally, this is actually the guide to our very existence…
I’m sorry every message up there was a masterpiece broken in pieces here, so I couldn’t quite figure out a most favorite chapter. I’ll keep reading.
— Steven Egwu
Ananka, my full name is Jennifer Williamson and you’ll be able to find anything I’ve ever written and shared on this website :) I’m touched these words resonated with you so much. All love ~
— Jennifer Williamson
My favorite was even space would like to look at itself without being called a sky.
Would you give me your whole name so I can look up other poems by you?
I do TM, transcendental meditation. I feel you have described the goal of meditation and also the state of transcendence or pure being
Thank you, very beautiful
Ananka
— Ananka
Yasha, thank you so much! What a beautiful thing to write to me… I’m touched and honored and will keep writing <3 Jen
— Jennifer Williamson
Hi Jen,
Love your poetry and thoughts. It will be demeaning to say I understand as reading them made me mindful. I didn’t try to look underneath but just soaked in the beauty of these. Thank you. Please keep writing. You have a reader here.
Love,
Yasha
— Yasha