Hold to your own truth...

All the true vows
are secret vows
the ones we speak out loud
are the ones we break.

There is only one life
you can call your own
and a thousand others
you can call by any name you want.

Hold to the truth you make
every day with your own body,
don't turn your face away.

Hold to your own truth
at the center of the image
you were born with......

....By the lake in the wood
in the shadows
you can
whisper that truth
to the quiet reflection
you see in the water.

Whatever you hear from
the water, remember,
it wants you to carry
the sound of its truth on your lips.


David Whyte
my favourite poet whose work has profoundly impacted me.....
And connected me to myself

Sometimes the words are too many, 
or too deep....

But here they touch the deepest part 

"Hold to your own truth
at the center of the image
you were born with"

Perhaps, there is no ONE truth, 
or perhaps there is....

As long as I stay true to the longing and not turn my face away from it...

Living with zest..whereever that happens

Turning forty has meant, 

turning introspective....

Somehow turning twenty or thirty was not like this.....
......there was an aggression 
about life
about future ...
for self and others!
Goals to be achieved, 
Imaginary battles to be fought before the Mt. Everest was conquered!

Today there's a need to give others, and myself, the space.

There is also an urge to give back what I have got.

Mellowed down, I definitely have!

Yet, if I were to reflect on myself and life, 
I have been a maverick: 
sometimes rebelliously so
at others , meekly !

and the oft repeated, oft quoted Robert Frost's lines seem written JUST for me!

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference


So am I living life to fit in or stand out ?

Neither.... 

its living life with zest

wherever that happens!