To love whole-heartedly is to acknowledge old wounds.

A friend just sent me this poem. ;)Thank you. I think it is a beautiful poem, describing what many people might call "the dark night of the soul," the journey which acknowledges the painful experiences in one's life as they seek to grow spiritually.

It is difficult to believe that their is such a thing as a "perfect" life. I remember at Esalen, Dorothy Charles, described depression as stemming from "an accumulation of ungrieved losses." While I think it's important to focus on the light, I also think it is equally important to acknowledge the darkness, the pain, the sadness. It is a process unraveling. A process necessary if one wishes to heal their old wound and love whole-heartedly.

Alone
(1830)
by Edgar Allan Poe
(1809-1849)

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were - I have not seen
As others saw - I could not bring
My passions from a common spring -
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow - I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone -
And all I loved - I loved alone -
Then - in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life - was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still -
From the torrent, or the fountain -
From the red cliff of the mountain -
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold -
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass'd me flying by -
From the thunder and the storm -
And the cloud that took the form
When the rest of Heaven was blue
Of a demon in my view. -