Inner work frameworks, practices, and questions – all in a five-minute read. Delivered to your inbox every Wednesday morning before you even wake up. Written and curated by Andrew Lang.
Mary Oliver's One Wild and Precious Life: The Wednesday 1-2-3
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Happy Wednesday Reader! Here's 1 teaching, 2 questions, and 3 resources to explore this week: 1. TeachingIn her poem “The Summer Day,” Mary Oliver wrote perhaps her most famous line: Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
If you’ve ever heard this quoted by someone before, I invite you to think back to the context of that moment. For me, I've mostly heard this quote used by others to be inspirational – something akin to Robin Williams’ carpe diem monologue from Dead Poets Society. And this is great: when used at the right moment, it can be extremely hopeful and lead us to envision the future we want for ourselves. It can embolden us to “seize the day." But it's worth noting Mary Oliver's own answer to this question wasn’t to "seize the day" – at least in the way we usually think of. It wasn't to achieve more, produce more, take control, or create some big and elaborate strategic plan for fixing the world. Her answer to what she would do with her one wild and precious life was, as Jessica Kantrowitz says, to “stroll idly through the fields noticing things.” Here's Mary Oliver's famous quote in fuller context: I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
2. Questions
3. Resources
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The Wednesday 1-2-3
Inner work frameworks, practices, and questions – all in a five-minute read. Delivered to your inbox every Wednesday morning before you even wake up. Written and curated by Andrew Lang.
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