Encounter With an Intuitive Poet

On Healing
for Teresa

There is a stigma about quitting–
perhaps we were not good enough,
or strong enough, or we gave up.
Perhaps we were scared. But then,
aren’t we always scared? Isn’t it the fear
and our movement through it, that makes
us? We are at our best when we are
just past fear, the moment just after
quitting. There are dams that break
that so closely resemble the shatter
that is something ended. How could the river
ever carve a canyon without the break?
You Teresa, are a river mid release,
can you already see your canyon walls?
The colors they will turn
on their first sunrise?

e.i.reed 08/23/2014

I was at the farmers market, in Bellingham, WA, this weekend. Just on the outskirts of the market there are always some venders who set up tables, but aren’t a part of the official market.

A woman, Erica, was sitting at a small card table with her vintage typewriter, a notebook, paper and a money jar. A sign said something like The Poetry Store:  give me a subject, pay what you like, but phrased better than my memory can recall.

I write poetry. I am one of those super fast poets who writes from stream of consciousness and can produce something decent on the spot, but not super noteworthy. I have never had the patience to really work on a poem for more than a few minutes.

So, with this kind of speed poetry in mind, I put $2 in the jar. She asked me my name, what I had been doing that day, how my life is going. She asked enough to get a sense of me. Then I waited for a bit, but she already had five people before me and people walking by kept starting conversations with her. I quickly realized this was not going to be a two minute, speed poem.

I left for an hour and came back. I waited for a while again and then my poem was ready. She read it to me and that’s when I knew. She’s an intuitive poet, using her lovely gift to give people a message from spirit that they might not be able to hear otherwise. I had never met one before and I am not even sure she would identify herself in this way. But, what a super fun gift:  To sit at a table on a lovely Saturday morning, talk with people who pass by, write intuitive poetry and at the end of the day have some money in a jar. She didn’t need to say she was intuitive, all she needed was to offer poetry and be present. And people receive an incredible gift.

Not only did I receive an incredible personalized poem, perfectly in tune with where I am in my life this very moment, but another gift as well. She held up a reflection of how I would like to be in the world; hanging out on a sidewalk, in a park, at a music festival or spiritual gathering, on the bus, offering up my gifts to whomever arrives in my presence ready for a genuine connection.

Earlier in the week I had been thinking about how to put my gifts out into the world in a way that aligns with my natural flow. I just started paying rent for an office space. It’s my second go with having an office for healing work and I am focused on seeing how it works. But, I can tell there’s a way that it’s not really my style. My style is more to be out in the middle of life. I don’t like to feel like it has to come to me. Part of my gift is being able to immerse myself. Having an office feels more like separation.

But, what I really want to offer you is this:  Do you have times in your life when you walk right past that poet offering a gift? Do you ignore the quiet voice telling you to stop and put a few dollars in the jar? This is a little nudge from me. Stop the next time this happens. How many gifts are yours to receive if you just take the time to allow the universe to place them in your hands?