Hold Nothing Back (after John O’Donohue’s, ‘For a New Beginning’)

1. Hold nothing back
Let your words run free on the page;
unfettered, unchained, unedited

2. Hold nothing back
You know that once you let loose, and speak true,
some kind of holy healing happens

3. You can trust the promise of this opening
These cells rearranging, networks rewiring;
a new rhythm homing in

4. What does this creature want? Need? Feel? Love?

5. The destination is not yet clear
But the path is strewn with music and song,
poems and story

6. You can trust the promise of this opening
Stilling and stunning. Like the brown deer’s
sudden burst through the bank of nettles, and 

scramble up the path in front of you at camp.
She stood for a few seconds, in the grass-circle

clearing ahead, before soft-bounding up the
steep stone-stepped trail. Quiet. Fleet. Magical.

You stood, breath-held, heart pounding, slaked 
by this wild mother medicine you didn’t know
you were thirsty for

7. Hold nothing back
Let your voice be free!
[You know that secret-keeping
will slowly, slowly, kill you]
Hold nothing back

~ by Angela, The Modern House Witch

(original poet’s lines in bold):
meet the poet
Deer card from The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Deck:
meet the maker