Your weekly poem: THE RETURN

🌿 A poem a day keeps the blues away… 

THE RETURN

or our awakening to what truly matters…

🌻 The deed took all my heart.
I did not think of you,
Not till the thing was done.
I put my sword away
And then no more the cold
And perfect fury ran
Along my narrow bones
And then no more the black
And dripping corridors
Hold anywhere the shape
That I had come to slay.
Then for the first time,
I saw in the cave’s belly
The dark and clotted webs,
The green and sucking pools,
The rank and crumbling walls,
The maze of passages.

And I thought then
Of the far earth,
Of the spring sun
And the slow wind,
And a young girl,
And I looked then
At the white thread.

Hunting the minotaur
I was no common man
And had no need of love.
I trailed the shining thread
Behind me, for a vow,
And did not think of you.
It lay there, like a sign,
Coiled on the bull’s great hoof.
And back into the world,
Half blind with weariness
I touched the thread and wept.
O, it was frail as air.

And I turned then
With the white spool
Through the cold rocks,
Through the black rocks,
Through the long webs,
And the mist fell,
And the webs clung,
And the rocks tumbled,
And the earth shook.

And the thread held. 🌻

— Mary Oliver, from New and Selected Poems Vol. 1, 1992

🪴  In her poem “The Return”, Oliver references the Greek myth of Theseus who enters the labyrinth to kill the Minotaur, and is given by Ariadne, a Cretan princess who loves him, a ball of white thread to mark his path so he can find his way out again.

Oliver writes from Theseus’s perspective and takes us through four emotional stages:

1) The Killing

The deed took all my heart.
I did not think of you,
Not till the thing was done.

🌱  Oliver never describes the actual killing of the Minotaur. Her poem starts right after the deed was done. At this point, Theseus realises how his goal had consumed him entirely—eaten him up—and made him forget all that he once cared about… The deed took all my heart.

2) The Awakening

I put my sword away
And then no more the cold
And perfect fury ran
Along my narrow bones

🌱  Only once he put his sword away did the cold and “perfect fury” drain from his bones, and with it gone, he becomes human again. It’s like his whole body comes back to life, and he wakes up to his surroundings and sees the labyrinth for what it is: cold, dark, with clotted webs and crumbling walls.

Then for the first time,
I saw

🌱  I love this line so much! So simple, and yet so powerful. Made me think of the hymn Amazing Grace: “was blind and now I see”.

As he wakes up from his trance, he not only sees his surroundings for the first time, he also remembers all the important things outside the cave: the earth, the sun, the wind, the young woman—his love.

I think this line also resonated with me because, as a Gestalt coach, awareness is everything. My only goal is to find ways to expand my client’s sense of awareness, exactly for that reason! Because once we become fully aware of what is, we start seeing possibilities we never thought existed. We start recognising choices, that were always there, but outside our angle of sight. Then for the first time, I saw…

And I looked then
At the white thread.

🌱  As he regains his awareness, he also regains sight of his “salvation”—his way out: the white thread his love had given him to find his way back. Consumed by his goal, his narrow focus closed him off from everything else.

But now that the deed was done, and the sword put away, he can see more clearly.

3) The Confession

Hunting the minotaur
I was no common man
And had no need of love.

🌱  Theseus admits to himself and to his love that while he was consumed by his mission, love had no place in his life. It’s as though his mission temporarily stripped him of his own humanity…

And then comes his most vulnerable confession:

I trailed the shining thread
Behind me, for a vow,
And did not think of you.

🌱  For a moment, all the thread was to him was a tool, a means to an end. In Martin Buber’s words, his relationship to Ariadne had become a purely utilitarian one: an I/It relationship for he “did not think of (her)”.

4) The Return

And back into the world,
Half blind with weariness
I touched the thread and wept.
O, it was frail as air.

🌱 Half blind with exhaustion, he touches the thread and weeps. He realises how this thread is his lifeline. This thin thread, as “frail as air”: how easily it could have broken; how little he had valued it while he was consumed by his goal; how wrong it could all have gone… And yet here it is, the thread, as faithful to its vow as the person who gave it to him—ready to lead him out of the darkness back into the world.

And I turned then

🌱  Fully aware and conscious, Theseus makes a clear, decisive choice: he turns.

He turns around and follows the thread, on what looks like a long journey out, through the rocks and the webs and the chaos…

And the thread held.

🌱  Frail as air as it was, it held.

It fulfilled its vow and promise to see him through, back into the light; back to his loved one; back to life.

So…

📌  How often do we too, like Theseus, find ourselves consumed by our goals—so much so—that we lose track of ourselves, of the ones we love, and of the things that truly matter?

📌  What sword are you and I holding today? What fight are we pursuing? What would happen if we, too, laid our sword down? What might come back to life that lain dormant all this time we’ve been blindly pursuing that goal?

📌  What thread, what lifeline, have you and I been given? What is it attached to? What does it want to lead us in or out of? When will we, too, touch it, and weep, and allow it to lead the way?

🦋 Happy weekend everyone! 🦋

With love,
Dina 🫶🏽

Image of me at Sohoplace theatre, attending the wonderful play “Every Brilliant Thing”—a play about a seven-year-old who starts a list of everything worth living for, to help his mum find her way back to life: his own gift of white thread to the one he loves most…

Resources:

• You can read last week’s poem “The Way It is” by William Stafford here. 

• This week’s song is AMAZING GRACE, performed by the Soweto Gospel Choir