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lyrics

When All Feels Lost

The map is not the territory
—Alfred Korzybski

All the old signposts have fallen,
wood cracked and rotted,
atlases crumble, a pile of maps
flutter and dart like hummingbird
wings, the GPS signal is out of range.

Her compass slips from her hand,
the only thing she knows is that
she walks in circles now,
the trees ahead familiar
but really nothing is the same.
She wanders for hours, days,
weeks, loses track of the nights
as one tumbles into another.

Finally, she stops, builds
a bonfire from all the old maps
still in her pack, invites others
who wander by to gather,
each of them savors warmth
from flame and kindness,
laughs while they tell stories
of how they once knew the way.

Her eyes meet another,
hand outstretched, together
their breath rises in white spirals
into cold air and they
stay still long enough
to learn to love the quiet ache,
the old longing to be sure,
to see the country of certainty
as a memory receding
like an evening horizon until
there is only the black bowl of sky.

They begin to hear the whisper
of breezes, the secrets of birds,
follow the underground stream
that runs through each of them,
and they no longer ask
which way to go,
but sit and savor this
together, under night sky
illumined by fire and stars.

*By Christine Valters Paintner from the collection "Love Holds You: Poems and Devotions for Times of Uncertainty" published by Paraclete Press.

credits

from Sound and Stillness II: An audio collection of poems by Christine Valters Paintner, released December 14, 2022
By Christine Valters Paintner from the collection "Love Holds You: Poems and Devotions for Times of Uncertainty" published by Paraclete Press.

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Abbey of the Arts Galway, Ireland

Abbey of the Arts, in partnership with The Dancing Word, produces albums to inspire soulful connection to ancient monks and mystics, to Celtic practice and tradition, to the sacred feminine, and to Earth and her creatures.

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