One of my favorite sayings is, "It's a lot farther from the head to the heart than from the heart to the head." Knowing isn't feeling. It's hard to do the right thing when you know it but don't feel it. The heart is a hard place to reach from the head, a hard thing to teach. You have to speak its own language, which is a subtle thing of symbols and intuition. If you want to know how it works ...

Read this. Pin it on the wall and label it, "Like This."

Some things cannot be said in straight words, and for that, there's poetry...





There is a road
in the wilderness,
a road that wends its way
through thicket and thornbrake,
a road that tumbles like a rough stone
down the side of the mountain and into
valleys and canyons and dark deep caverns.

It’s a road wrapped in twilight,
sheathed in shadows,
furled in fog –
a road sometimes bounded
by berms and ditches,
other times,
nothing.

It’s a road full of potholes,
washboarded ridges,
treacherous stretches
of gravel,
mud
that lurks in wait
to grab at
axles and ankles.

This is the road
from the head to the heart.
This is the road
between knowing and feeling.

This is the longest road.

And here is the guide
who knows the way;
here is the man with the map;
here is the one
who takes the lost by the hand
and leads them where they must go:

osulkedi, Public Servant,
tender of hidden altars,
who carries the lantern,
the candle,
the fire.

The name of the lantern is Civilization.
The name of the candle is Correction.
The name of the fire that burns and enlightens is
Shame.

Tags: life lessons, poem, science fiction
Current Mood: touched