Send Love, It Matters by Carrie Newcomer

Somewhere someone needs help.

Send love.

It matters.

If you can’t get there yourself,

then take a deep breath.

Breathe in the weight of their troubles.

Breathe out and send all those burdens

into the Light

where sorrows can be held

with the most tender and infinite grace.

Breathe in what you can do.

Breathe out what you can’t change.

Spool out a thread of connection,

send courage and calm.

For the nights can be long

and filled with shadows,

and sometimes terrible

unexpected waters will rise.

Somewhere someone needs help.

Send love.

It matters.

Send Love, It Matters

With the heartbreaking news of the invasion of Ukraine continuing to unfold, it has been difficult to think of much else. As always, I turn to poetry to ground myself and find comfort, a reminder that love and beauty continue to exist, despite all odds. You may already know Carrie Newcomer as a singer/songwriter/poet, and I encourage you to explore her rich offerings through the link above.

There is no question that Somewhere someone needs help, always there are those who are suffering. This poet suggests we inhale the weight of all their troubles, exhaling those burdens into the Light, whatever that might mean to you. A place where such sorrows are held with the most tender and infinite grace – does your heart not soften just reading those words?

Do what you can do, let go of what you cannot change – enduring wisdom we need to hear over and over. Send out a thread of connection, a link to our common humanity; send courage and calm. There are long shadowed nights and sometimes terrible unexpected waters will rise, as they have. Her message is to remember love and kindness and compassion even, especially, in the face of war.

What if we were all to send love? Because it really does matter, never more so than now.

One more succinct poem today on the theme of the necessity of love from Deena Metzger with a recording of Kim Rosen speaking it here.

Song

There are those who are trying to set fire to the world,
We are in danger.
There is time only to work slowly,
There is no time not to love.