I am dense when it comes to poetry. Every now and then, however, a poem finds me and takes root. When the algo first fed me this interview of David Whyte several years ago, I was happy. Usually, the algo is all dogs and Love Island spoilers. I was glad that on this day it deemed me worthy of a morsel of something more unique.
This excerpt, from an interview he gave in 1994, resonates with me because very little else encapsulates so many facets of what I spend a lot of time thinking about.
Not that long ago, on the heels of the pandemic, I felt completely lost. I’d spent a decade working towards a work/life vision. Once achieved, I felt empty and bored. I drew on what helped me push through impasses before: back to basics, change up the kind of work a bit, try a new hobby, etc. This time nothing worked. I knew too that chasing new business milestones wouldn’t do the trick. With each professional milestone I reached, the high of achieving lasted less and less.
I was not fun to be around. My relationships were suffering. I wanted to feel good about work, about myself, and pronto. Eventually I spoke to a mentor, John, who challenged me and said: “none of us are immune to the work.” He was right, as he usually is. I wanted to work around rather than through.
It took me several years to come out the other side. In the process, what emerged were often perspectives that were completely opposite of what had been helpful to me the last time I had been at a crucible. In time I grew aware that I was entering a period of extreme surrender.
I’m still learning to surrender but I do think surrendering is misunderstood. When we picture surrender, we tend to think of a General waving a white flag. We tend to think of surrender as an act of giving up instead of as an act of letting go. Even in our more common applications of the term, though, what you find is that to surrender is the verb required to move away from “I should…”
To surrender in hopes of making room for the new, in hopes of making room for radical innovation as Whyte discusses, is a highly active verb. For example, to love is an act of surrender. You see love in surrender across religions as when Franciscan and Buddhist monks surrender their physical possessions as a step in surrendering further their faith. To surrender requires faith. Faith that in surrendering some of yourself over, one might experience something that would otherwise remain closed to us.
The paradox is that the possibility of accessing that something only exists in so far as there is no expectation of receiving anything in return. You can love someone. You can hope they reciprocate, but they don’t owe you love back. When Wagoner writes “Stand still…the forest knows where you are,” I think he is saying: to surrender to stillness is to abandon expectation of where you should be and only from here can you enter the possibility of accessing the life only you can live. To surrender to stillness is an act of faith in yourself.
What I love about this idea is that it is directly at odds with the way we are taught to think about the trajectory of our own lives- think the Joseph Campbell hero’s journey model. The truth, our path, our adventure, etc., we are told, is out there and we must go seek it. The hero’s journey parts from the basis that you must earn your wisdom and that only through the hard work of getting beat down by trials and tribulations will you become worthy enough to receive truths about yourself, the world.
In Wagoner’s forest, everything is always there, available to you, if you’re willing to surrender.
“Lost” by David Wagoner via On Being
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.