Emily Dickinson famously said, “I dwell in
Possibility”…
The first time I encountered Dickinson’s poetry, I
was very young. I loved it immediately, but understanding it has been an
ongoing adventure as I’ve grown older and as my experiences have broadened and
deepened and become more various.
I Dwell in Possibility.
To really understand how glorious it is, to dwell
in possibility, it’s helpful to consider the opposite - being imprisoned by
Impossibility.
Dwelling in Possibility is not about living in the
future, or about obsessing with “maybe”s and “what-if”s; it’s about believing
that “all things are possible”. It’s about not giving up, not allowing oneself
to be crushed - about not letting disappointment drown the remains of hope.
Dwelling in Possibility is the way to keep on going
when things get tough - and the way to avoid being discouraged in the tiny
things that can seem so heavy and so hard. It’s how to live when the
differences we make to the world seem so minute in the face of so much need. It’s
looking at relationships between countries like Israel and Palestine, or at the
inequalities between women and men or between different ethnic groups - or at
any of the many injustices in the world - and not writing them off as a
lost cause. It’s helping one person at a time - beginning, I think with our own
selves - to a better, richer, more fulfilled life.
Almost exactly a century after Emily Dickinson’s
birth, another poet was born. Maya Angelou. Perhaps her most famous title was “I
Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and, by the end of the book, we know too: She
dreams of Freedom. I think these two wonderful women were, essentially, saying
the same thing:
Never give up hope.
Impossibility
Impossibility
is the darkening of hope -
the tightening of the noose
as the rope drops,
the smashing of the infrangible atom;
the devil set loose.
Impossibility
is the inability to see
the possibility
of escape -
or to divine the shape
of freedom.
Impossibility divides,
turning off all the lights,
and hides in the shadows
of self-fulfilling-prophesy'd nights.
Impossibility is the death of hope
- and love and faith;
the wraith of life.
And so I choose to dwell
- to Be -
alive in Possibility;
it’s why the caged bird sings in me:
She’ll dream, and dream eternally,
of Freedom.
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| Free Birds by Laura Kak |
Ruth Calder Murphy is a writer, artist, music teacher, wife and mother living in London, UK. Her life is wonderfully full of creativity and low-level chaos. She is the author of two published novels, The Scream and The Everlasting Monday, several books of poetry and one or two as-yet unpublished novels. More of Ruth's Spiritual poetry can be found in her book, Spirit Song and the soon-to-be-released sequel, "River Song". She is passionate about celebrating the uniqueness of people, questioning the unquestionable and discovering new perspectives on old wonders. She is learning to ride the waves that come along—peaks and troughs—and is waking up to just how wonderful life really is. You can visit Ruth and view more of her art on her website, or on her writer's page on Facebook. All her books are available on Amazon, here.
~If you are interested in seeing your poetry appear in this blog, or submitting a poem by a woman that has inspired you, please click here for submission guidelines. I greatly look forward to hearing from you!~
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