Whats Poetry Got To Do With It? 🌿 Thrive With Kerry McKay

Whats Poetry Got To Do With It?

Slow Growth is Sacred

I read poetry every day. Well, I read haiku every day. Ok, to be specific, I read Japanese haiku master Bashō every day.

I have been appreciating (…worshipping?) this form of poetry for around 22 years! The more I read, the more ungraspable it seems & the further away I feel from truly ‘getting’ this subtle form of expression. The more I read haiku, the more reverence I have for it, the more I am touched & the more it embeds into my life.

My own haiku poems, I think, I hope, are growing slowly better. The improvement, if there is one, is infinitesimal, like beads of dew running off a leaf into a pond, swelling the surface tension drop by drop.

…like beads of dew running off a leaf into a pond, swelling the surface tension drop by drop

I let go of wanting change to be faster. The journey is fun & detaching from outcomes is freeing. It feels like a giant permission slip, for everything to be ok, to have its own time.

Radical personal growth & deep healing have their own time too. Doing the work every day allows our protective layers to slide away to reveal more of who we always were. Some of us experience ‘fireworks’ along the way (yes that’s me) but sustainable change usually has a slowness. It is created through small repeated steps of caring for your self differently. Through changing pathways drop by drop, 2 minute meditation by 2 minute meditation.

At this time of year, I observe how members of my Thrive coaching course have evolved over the 12 months & it always makes me cry. As when I am reading haiku, I keep my focus wide & soft to feel the essence of the group. I see softer faces, warmer cheeks, brighter eyes & unclenched jaws. They assume less, listen more, experiment better & spend more time in curiosity.

I see softer faces, warmer cheeks, brighter eyes & unclenched jaws

Connections evolve, trust blossoms, shadows are felt. I guide people towards creating so much safety & gentleness within themselves that the wounding beneath the behavioural patterns can surface & shift. Towards respecting the gifts of emotions & pain so that they can be more whole. It takes time to re-embody, to re-integrate the parts of ourselves that we have pushed away & to re-attune to our senses.