{"id":10105,"date":"2020-03-22T08:31:04","date_gmt":"2020-03-22T15:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/?p=10105"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:13:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:13:17","slug":"the-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2020\/03\/22\/the-family\/","title":{"rendered":"The Family"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Mom,<\/p>\n<p>You shared with me the two poems you would like read at your services. I have always hoped that I would also be able to read this poem for you. With you, there was always forgiveness. Nourishment of the body and soul. Acknowledgement of despair and pain, balanced with appreciation for small treasures and moments of beauty. All of this was connected, part of the family of things. This poem is for you.<\/p>\n<p>Love,<br \/>\nWesa<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Wild Geese<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You do not have to be good.<br \/>\nYou do not have to walk on your knees<br \/>\nfor a hundred miles through the desert repenting.<br \/>\nYou only have to let the soft animal of your body<br \/>\nlove what it loves.<br \/>\nTell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.<br \/>\nMeanwhile the world goes on.<br \/>\nMeanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain<br \/>\nare moving across the landscapes,<br \/>\nover the prairies and the deep trees,<br \/>\nthe mountains and the rivers.<br \/>\nMeanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,<br \/>\nare heading home again.<br \/>\nWhoever you are, no matter how lonely,<br \/>\nthe world offers itself to your imagination,<br \/>\ncalls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting &#8211;<br \/>\nover and over announcing your place<br \/>\nin the family of things.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Mary Oliver<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"photopost\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/mindfulone\/49359027697\/in\/datetaken\/\" title=\"PSX_20191011_184233\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/49359027697_a9c3b72b42_w.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"303\" alt=\"PSX_20191011_184233\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Mom, You shared with me the two poems you would like read at your services. I have always hoped that I would also be able to read this poem for you. With you, there was always forgiveness. Nourishment of the body and soul. Acknowledgement of despair and pain, balanced with appreciation for small treasures [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,16,215,30,219],"tags":[241,61,141,221,229],"class_list":["post-10105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motherhood","category-nature","category-poetry","category-quotes","category-spirit","tag-healing","tag-life","tag-mother","tag-nature","tag-poetry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10105"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10109,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10105\/revisions\/10109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}