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“Wild Geese”
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination.” — Mary Oliver Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese” touches a tender place in my soul, and I often share it with students in my writing workshops. As a child in Sunday school, I was terrified of disappointing the punitive, restrictive God portrayed in our leather-covered bibles. No matter how “good” I was, or how closely I followed the rules, I still felt judged and unworthy. Today, I follow my moral compass, but I don’t allow fear to constrict my life. As Mary Oliver reminds me, we were all created to shine our own light; to find our purpose in…
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Following your inner compass: “The Journey”
“And there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own.” — Mary Oliver The greatest gift of maturing is finding your own voice and discovering who you are meant to be — not what others think you should be. But the road to authenticity isn’t always easy to find. Mary Oliver’s “The Journey” gives us a new map. It’s still one of my favorite poems, and it brings shivers of recognition each time I read it aloud in my writing workshops. –CL THE JOURNEYBy Mary Oliver One day you finally knewwhat you had to do, and began,though the voices around youkept shoutingtheir bad advice —though the whole…