Threshold Guides with Gifts from the Edge.

The Poetry of Resistance

Photo by Gerald Tan on Unsplash

This gift is from Randolph Proksch who suggests we should add the mystic poets as Threshold Guides. He says “writing as they were, from liminal times, when their religious and governmental institutions were causing collapse, and unable to provide the stability that poetically expressed wisdom offers”.

Randolph gives us this poem from Du Fu (717-770), written as China was transitioning from the horrific collapse of the Tang dynasty … a third died of famine.

Poets give us alternative , imaginative perspectives on reality to guide us. I thought of Rumi and the many poems and quotes we take from him ..such as

“Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to. Don’t try to see through the distances. That’s not for human beings. Move within, But don’t move the way fear makes you move.”

The Country is Broken by Du Fu

The Country is broken

but the mountains and rivers remain;

the city is in spring,

and the grass and trees are deep.

Moved by the times,

I shed tears even at the flowers;

grieving over our separation,

I am startled even by the birds.

The beacon fires have continued for three months;

a letter from home is worth ten thousand pieces of gold.

I scratch my white-haired head,

and it grows even thinner;

it can no longer even hold a hairpin.

Thank you to Randolph and everyone who is contributing to this series of Threshold Gifts. As a lover of Poetry and how necessary it is in my own life this really resonated.

With Love and Solidarity,

Up Coming Conversations :-

Professor Jem Bendell LIVE on BOOK CHAT Sunday 28th at 17.30 UK

I will be on Robin Motzer Wildlands on Wednesday the 8th July 9.am Central and 3pm UK

Margaret Anna Alice in Courageous Conversation on Friday 17th July at 17.30 UK and 09.30 PST

Sarah Wilson is coming on BOOK CHAT 19th July to talk about her stunning new book ‘I Eat The Stars’