Lead in Literature

Introduction By Elizabeth O’Brien, Editor-in-Chief, LEAD Action News, President, The LEAD Group Inc I’ve just been watching bonus videos and listening to bonus audio and radio broadcasts from a fabulous online 8-week course called The Happiness Project, and I came across this gem of a poem: Everything is Waiting for You, by David Whyte.

The Happiness Project is put together and mainly presented by Dr Robert Holden and available via Hay House and the bonus radio broadcast which included David Whyte’s poem, was broadcast globally via the Hay House Radio show “Shift happens!” in the episode titled: Love, Healing and Happiness.

I’ve been involved with lead safety for so long, I can’t read the word “weight” without thinking of “lead weight” and that’s how I first connected lead to this poem. But when the line itself goes:

“…Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation…”

I had another thought: I would dearly love to put down the burden of putting together each issue of LEAD Action News almost entirely on my own, and throw the process open to the whole global lead-aware community and to everyone involved with The LEAD Group. So here’s the beginning of the conversation I’m having with LEAD Action News readers: submit your contributions – articles, Q&As (or just Questions), other people’s photos or links to videos (submit your own to Volcano Art Prize of course!), Facebook posts, Tweets, your lead-safety-related product or service reviews/feedback, links to great fact sheets or articles, etc, so LEAD Action News can be better than ever!

Finally, this poem inspired me to ask a Committee Member and wonderfully skilled writer, for his help with the next issue of LEAD Action News. Thanks for the inspiration David Whyte!

EVERYTHING IS WAITING FOR YOU

Printed with permission from Many Rivers Press, www.davidwhyte.com
Author: David Whyte
Title of poem: EVERYTHING IS WAITING FOR YOU
Source book: Everything is Waiting for You
©2003 Many Rivers Press, Langley, WA USA

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.