A Poem: Overcoming

The one who has already overcome
sends us messages from the homeland.

In little scraps of leaf, decaying.
In the sun’s endless rising,
in the quiet of the woodland
before the world’s dawn.

When I am alone
I see myself already overcome,
fast forwarded,

or rather stepped into the eternity
I also live within.

My re-entry to the world and its demands
is like a role given,
but never as true
as the vocation to draw apart.

Each of us has that thing,
the way the divine enters in
to remind us who we are,
drawing us into the cosmos to dance.

Never let that go.
Never forget you are both eternal
and deeply present in the flow of life,
a river without beginning or end.

That we can step out from ourselves
is the gift we are given,
the very means of our overcoming
amidst the day’s obligations.

Every now and then live
for love of yourself
in relationship with life.
It is a refueler,

this reminder why we are born.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
January 2022

‘I am the fiery life of the essence of God; I am the flame above the beauty in the fields; I shine in the waters; I burn in the sun, the moon, and the stars. And with the airy wind, I quicken all things vitally by an unseen, all-sustaining life.’
~ Hildegard of Bingen

‘There is no force in the world but love, and when you carry it with you, if you simply have it, even if you remain baffled as to how to use it, it will work its radiant effects and help you out of and beyond yourself: one must never lose this belief.’
~ Rilke

‘True love is like some infinite way of being that we become part of: a flowing energy of willingness, an eternal yes resounding with every heartbeat.’
~ Gerald G. May

‘We do not need to go out and find love; rather, we need to be still and let love discover us. In love, you grow and come home to yourself.’
~ John O’Donohue, ‘Anam Cara’.

‘It is in God that we live, and move, and have our being.’
~ Apostle Paul, Acts 17:38

‘The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw–and knew I saw–all things in God, and God in all things.’
~ Mechtild of Magdeburg

‘My grandma told me that the Universe is singing in the snowflakes, the raindrops, in the trees, the water, and all Creation. Physicists call this holistic holographic universe. Lakotas call it Taku Wakan Skan Skan/Mitakuye Oyasin, which means everything is connected and related in divine rhythm, vibration. Remember the Lakotas know that the song sings the singer. The Spirit sings the song.’
~ Basil Braveheart