Poet in Profile: John O’Donohue

Yet we can attend to such wounds. We can learn to hold space for the presence of shadow and sorrow. Learning how to live with the pain of my mother’s illness and her subsequent absence has informed my life’s work with both the living and the dying. If I am wise and capable enough to skillfully integrate the painful emotions stirred by her loss, I c

Hold Yourself Together and Pull Yourself Apart In a time of desolation do not make a life-changing decision and do not go back on a decision made during a time of consolation. Remember the times of consolation. —Ignatius of Loyola Remember that this has passed before and that there will be more days of plenty … eventually. Pay attention to your fee

One of the most important discoveries I made in the process of being ill is that solitary striving, my American habit of self-focus, was in some fundamental way a degradation of the most powerful aspects of our lives, which now seem to me to be our interconnectedness and need of others.