The Invitation to Vulnerability

Keeping in line with my recommendation for slower, smaller, meaningful goals for 2024, I’m thinking of these two phrases from some of my favorite poets. From Unconditional by David Whyte: “The invitation is made to us every day, whether we desire it or not, to enter a deeply human world of robust vulnerability.”

And from Mary Oliver’s Red Bird:

Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

Those first two instructions, paying attention and being astonished, are the easy steps; they rely on our individual experience of the world. It’s the last step, telling about what we experience, that invites us into the experience of sharing vulnerability with others. That’s what I’m aiming to explore in 2024.