Tides of Your Life by Judith Gass was read to a yoga class I attended at Kripalu Yoga Center in Massachusetts. My son had gifted me a weekend at this famous yoga center and we were each attending a class of our choice before meeting for dinner. The words to this poem impacted me deeply ~ beautiful and harsh. What was I waiting for? And yes, I was waiting for the world to come soliciting…to invite, in some imagined way, me to be all that I am, to live boldly and to follow my calling. Is life itself not enough of an invitation? I knew, as the lines of the poem were read aloud, that I must begin today, now, to live my life ~ and that putting off fully living, as if today is a rehearsal, is wasting beautiful moments and priceless opportunities.

“Why are you waiting to begin your life
Do you think the world must care and come soliciting?
Listen to the knocking at the door of your own heart
It is faint because you have not answered
You have fooled yourself with preparations
Time left laughing while you considered possibilities
Wake up you have slept long enough
Wake up tomorrow may be too late
When you finally dare open the door
Your life will begin arriving
Cautiously at first unbelieving that the gate
So long locked against the tide has finally been opened
Then with swells of neglected dreams
Then with waves of joyful revelation the sea will follow
You will be swept by the full and magnificent tides of
your own longing
That no one else can give you
That no one else can claim.”

It was years ago ~ yet this poem guides my life today. And each time I share it with a friend, client or colleague, they, too, are impacted. How could we not be? Don’t we each find ourselves “waiting” at times? And is the invitation to wake up not a powerful one? It is always time to listen to the knocking on the door of our own heart ~ and begin to come alive. What are you waiting for?