wild geese: 2023 winter solstice

Each year my family makes a Winter Solstice dinner and we eat together in the dark, by only candle light, in addition to other traditions. Each year I select a poem or reading to kick off our dinner. We don’t do much in the way of formal rituals or religion in our home, but this one is sacred. I picked another Mary Oliver piece for my poem this year. Happy yule! 🌲🌀 🌚

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
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.

Mary Oliver
Wild Geese