Your Other Name
If your life doesn’t often make you feel
like a cauldron of swirling light –
If you are not often enough a woman standing above a mysterious fire,
lifting her head to the sky –
You are doing too much, and listening too little.
Read poems. Walk in the woods. Make slow art.
Tie a rope around your heart, be led by it off the plank,
happy prisoner.
You are no animal. You are galaxy with skin.
Home to blue and yellow lightshots,
making speed-of-light curves and racecar turns,
bouncing in ricochet -
Don’t slow down the light and turn it into matter
with feeble preoccupations.
Don’t forget your true name:
Presiding one. Home for the gleaming. Strong cauldron for the feast of light.
Strong cauldron for the feast of light:
I am speaking to you.
I beg you not to forget.
–Tara Sophia Mohr
Tara Sophia Mohr is a writer and personal growth teacher. Click here to sign up for her Goals Guide, Turning Your Goals Upside Down, and Inside Out (To Get What You Really Want). Click here to learn about her new women’s leadership program, Playing Big.
This is so perfect. Just what I needed to hear right now, today. Thank you.
Tara, you are a bundle of beautiful light yourself, and you are spreading it all around you now. This beautiful poem reached me all the way in India, with the rays of the early morning sun..
You made my day..Thank you so much..
Beautiful! ” Read poems. Walk in the woods. Make slow art … Tie a rope around your heart … bouncing in ricochet-”
I love it. Enough said.
Tara- stunning, as always.
The word ‘cauldron’ always make me think of Macbeth. I think Lady Macbeth could have done with a dose of your poetry!
Oh, and reading this also reminded me of this lovely poem by Bruce Williamson:
Walk in the rain,
smell flowers,
stop along the way,
build sandcastles,
go on field trips,
find out how things work,
tell stories,
say the magic words,
trust the Universe.-
Bruce Williamson
How I needed this today! I have rarely felt less like a strong cauldron for the feast of light–or more desperately needed to. Thank you!
Absolutely positively gorgeous … storing this in my folder of things to read when I feel stuck. Thank you for posting this, and just in the right moment for me, too.
I can barely breathe. Stunning.
Thank you. I really needed to hear this right now.
I love this. Love. Beautiful!
Beautiful & incredibly inspiring! Thank you so much, Tara!
This poem is inspiring. It gives goosebumps to the skin of this part of the galaxy! I am grateful for the reminder of the miracle and preciousness of this life.
Love the message and the magic in this poem. Especially the line “You are doing too much, and listening too little.” Often the war cry of the wounded woman. A reminder to return to our inner song is always music to sing to! I am enjoying your shares, as a woman who has traveled a long way. Stepping into my brilliance feels so delicious.
“You are galaxy with skin” – I love that! Thank you for powerful and vibrant words.
Found your poems through a tweet from Elena Brower and love them! I am a mother of one and another on the way and haven’t slowed down in a few years. Thank you for reminding me.
I would like to share my art with you, as it reminds me of this poem. http://paigebradley.com/sculpture/expansion.html
wow…
That “tug” is stronger these days for me, my children are basically grown, in college. I want/need for me but I haven’t a clue anymore as to what. My inner critic tells me I am to old for it to matter. I am older, I waited later to have children.
Turned me into a puddle of tears. Truly sublime.