Skip to main content

MIGRATION by Ruth Calder Murphy

Awhile ago, I wrote a poem about Certainty -mainly other people’s certainty...

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being certain, or feeling certain. Sometimes, it’s what keeps us going. The certainty that we love and are loved, the certainty that there’s hope for the future, that we can “do this” - whatever “this” might be.

I’ve come to realize, though, that certainty is only a good thing for us and everyone around us, if we’re prepared to adjust our certainties honestly, according to our  experiences and to new evidence. To live lightly, as well as deeply. Not to grasp our precious certainties and cling to them, as though they are what define reality, and our place in it, but to hold them as we’d hold an exquisite jewel - observing them from all angles and recognising the places where we’ve understood them wrongly.

I feel as though my journey has been a migration from a grasping, panicking certainty - a place where, if my certainties were proven inaccurate, my life wouldn’t be worth living - to a place where I can look in wonder at my life - at the world, the natural and the supernatural, at science, philosophy, art and humanity - and explore it from a place where I know that my perspective will shift, according to what I find. This, for me, is a more peaceful, more wonderful, more exciting place than Cold Certainty ever was. Far from excluding the marvellous and miraculous, it opens up an infinity of possibility that was never open to me before. 

Perhaps this is migration... Perhaps it’s coming home...
Painting by the author, Ruth Calder Murphy
Migration
by Ruth Calder Murphy

Migrating from the cold security
of certainty
to the heat of wonder,
I wander through market bazaars
selling suggestions
like jewels
and juggling questions
that scatter to pave the streets
with gold.

Travelling from Do As You’re Told
and Don’t Be So Bold,
to Possibility,
and The World’s Your Oyster
- from the safe cloisters of Everything Known
to the expansive horizons
of Striking Out Alone…

Migrating, I see,
where mountains rise and borders meet,
all the worlds spread out
like a cartographer's sheet -
vertigo-inducing,
cascading and spinning,
uncharted there beneath my dusty feet.

The Season's reeling from cold certainty
to High Summer, turning up the heat -
and I’m migrating
over land and sky and sea,
to see what I might see,
my curiosity
and me.

(Find more of Ruth's poetry in our new book! Just click here

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' 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!~ 

Comments

  1. This. Yes. I love this place you describe so well. "...explore it from a place where I know that my perspective will shift, according to what I find."

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IMAGINE A WOMAN by Patricia Lynn Reilly

  This poem invites you to look upon yourself with loving kindness… Gazing at your own true reflection, you will discover that everything you have longed for “out there” is already within you! I invite you to love your creativity fiercely. Faithfully plant seeds, allowing under-the-ground dormant seasons, nurturing your creative garden with love and gratitude. In the fullness of time, the green growing things thrust forth from the ground. It's a faithful, trustworthy process. AND it takes time and patience.  Blessed is the fruit of your creative womb! I invite you to trust your vision of the world and express it. With wonder and delight, paint a picture, create a dance, write a book, and make up a song. To give expression to your creative impulses is as natural as your breathing. Create in your own language, imagery, and movement. Follow no script. Do not be limited by the customary way things have been expressed. Your creative intuition is original. Gather

IMBOLC by Caroline Mellor

The inspiration for this poem came after I watched a magical winter sunset and full moonrise from the top of Firle Beacon in the South Downs... Unusually for me, I wrote the poem quite quickly and changed it very little before publishing it – perhaps the energies were working through my pen! Imbolc is the mid-point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It’s a fire festival which I particularly love because of its associations with Brigid, the Celtic Mother Goddess of arts and crafts, clear sight, healing, inspiration and nurturance of creative talents – something which, through my writing, I am always trying to connect with.  I also love Imbolc because, with so much darkness and negativity in the world today, it is a time for hope, potential, visioning and initiation. With love and blessings as the light returns. Photography by Chanel Baran IMBOLC    by Caroline Mellor I am the dream of awakening. I am the returning of the night.  I am the tough green

WINTER SOLSTICE: A GIFT OF LOVE by Carolyn Riker

I’ve had several days now of alone time… It is unusual and a gift that I couldn’t see until I breathed it. I have been able to watch the sun’s rise through the grey of dawn and smile at the flickers of frost melting on the waving boughs of evergreen. It’s unique to follow daylight as it traverses the tempo of a cat’s soft slumbering purr. Night comes swifter and the glow of candles and the flames of fire comfort me more than the steady stream of always-doing-more. As much as I resisted, I needed this break. I had no idea how much my body was trying to tell me   slow down   until the exhaustion settled in around my joints. My eyes swam in molasses. Heaviness of I-can’t-hold-out-much-long, walked me to the throne of my nest. It’s winter’s gift of self-nurturing and love. It’s been a quiet proclamation of femininity and a need for comfort foods. Lemon crisps and cranberry, white-chocolate shortbread dipped in tea; I felt a hint of being pampered without