In God Makes the Rivers to Flow; An Anthology of the World’s Sacred Poetry & Prose, Eknath Easwaran includes a selection from Solomon Ibn Gabirol entitled “The Living God.”  I’ve written the following poem-like reflections inspired by this selection.

O My Soul

As long as you live, you are akin to the living God:

just as He is invisible, so are you.

Since your Creator is pure and flawless,

know that you too are pure and perfect.

—Solomon Ibn Gabirol

O my soul, you are everything

that I think I’m not,

you’re the divine within me,

perfect in every way.

You are infinite, my body is finite,

and I think I’m my body,

and I think you’re something

other than me.

When I get on the scale in the morning,

and look at the number that makes me ache,

I think I’m my body,

I think of my body’s imperfections,

and I think I’m flawed.

When I turn off my alarm in the morning,

and lie awake in bed for hours,

unwilling to face the day,

unwilling to face myself,

I think how flawed I am, how weak.

When I’m lonely with no one to call,

and have dreams I can’t share,

when I’m afraid to speak my truth,

I think how unworthy I am, how poor,

how empty, how alone.

When I eat foods I know I shouldn’t eat,

when I eat too much,

I blame myself, I shame myself.

When I remember how many times

I said the wrong thing to a child,

failed as an aunt, failed as a sister,

failed as a daughter.

When I consider the illness

that led me to believe so many lies,

to drive across country till I ran out of gas,

to live in the woods without food or water,

to walk a day and a night, dehydrated,

incontinent, speaking to the souls in heaven,

and pleading with a man I admired

to accept, forgive, and respect me.

I identify with my past, with my body,

with the false self. I see myself as broken,

failed, flawed, unattractive.

I see myself as the sinner

I was raised to believe in.

O my soul, how easily I forget you!

How easily I forget how glorious

and perfect you are!

How easily I forget you are the truth, the light!

How easily I forget that you are

what I am in essence—you are my origin,

you are all that’s real.

How many times have I been told

this life I think is real is just an illusion?

This body I think is real is just an illusion?

My past is nothing?

If I could truly comprehend you as me,

me as you, us as one with all that is,

then I would know

there is no sin,

there is nothing to forgive,

and all is love and being and bliss.

If only I could.