Okay, first: Only read this is you’re in the mood - that is, this is going to get pretty deep. And cheesy. But bear with me, please. This is (in my eyes) a rather important message. The message is inspired by Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese." I would at least give it a quick skim before proceeding.

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

You should be perfect. You should look right, you should stay out of trouble, you should be polite, and you should know the right people. At least, that is what the world is trying to tell you. Unfortunately, no one is perfect. Everyone has done things that they regret, and everyone has that pit in their heart that it is all too easy to sit in, wallowing in your own grief. Mary Oliver writes in her poem “Wild Geese” to “Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine/Meanwhile the world goes on.” It is too easy to shy away from the climb - the climb out of that darkness we have grown accustomed to in the pit in our hearts. And how might you climb the climb? “You have only to let the soft animal of your body/love what it loves.” There is a perfect circle that exists around the outside of the pit. Love breeds happiness, breeds a life that can, eventually, be looked back on with joy. And isn’t that what each one of us desires in the end?

Who cares about you? I mean, who is genuinely interested and concerned about your fate? Do you ever open up to this person or these people? Tell them about your guilt, your troubles, your grief? Oliver describes exactly what that accomplishes in her poem. It is good to let others know of your feelings and Oliver shows sympathy when she writes, “and I will tell you mine.” But, “Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain/are moving across the landscapes... Meanwhile the wild geese... are heading home again.” What does this mean? The geese in Oliver’s poem symbolize the men and women who have let themselves go - who have given their past selves up for the sake of their future.

One must climb out of the hole before one can fly. Your hole can be filled with many things, among them loneliness, guilt, and sadness. Oliver writes, “Whoever you are, no matter how lonely/the world offers itself to your imagination.” It’s not an easy task to overcome yourself, and the very concept of it can be alien and frightening. When Oliver mentions, “prairies and the deep trees/the mountains and the rivers,” she’s not just describing the landscape. She’s describing the ups and downs of life on this dark planet. Everyone experiences the light and the shadow, the moments we cherish fondly, and the moments we cherish because we refuse to let go of them. A very easy task it is to let ourselves get down because of them, but, “You do not have to be good.” It is the first line in the poem and the best news I have ever heard.

The last and greatest point I wish to touch on is this. Your life, your story, your struggle, your theme: It can be heard. It’s up to you to decide what your theme is. As for me, it is love. Remember the line, “You only have to let the soft animal of your body/love what it loves.” Don’t let your fear or your guilt or your self-pity get in the way of what is most important to you. Because the very same thing is most important to someone else, too. Your pit is dark, dark place. When you finally see, when you finally get it and the light clicks on, what a better thing to do than to shine it all around this world full of darkness? The true meaning of love is spreading it around to every lost soul around you. When love breeds love - when light breeds light - when you forget about the pit that is so near to you, then the perfect circle is complete.