You Do Not Have To Be Good By Melissa Greben 

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things

What happens inside you when you hear this poem by Mary Oliver? What is it like to let the lines wash over you? Perhaps you feel some relief like a cool breeze on a sweltering hot Brisbane day. Or perhaps it brings tension, some tightening in the stomach. Your mind might stop you at the first line and say something like “What is she talking about? Of course I need to be good”. 

What would it be like to welcome your response, whatever it is, with gentle curiosity? In this way, this poem can be approached as something like a “probe”, a Hakomi psychotherapy word for an experimental statement that’s offered to a person to give them the opportunity to mindfully study what happens inside for them when they hear it. There’s no right or wrong here. Any response - whether pleasant, unpleasant or neither - is welcome in this potentially playful space of exploring your inner landscape. 

You can hear Mary Oliver herself reading Wild Geese here

References

Weiss, H., Johanson, G., & Monda, L. (Eds.) (2015).Hakomi mindfulness-centred somatic psychotherapy: A comprehensive guide to theory and practice.New York: W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.