I will not die an unlived life,
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid, more accessible;
To loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
Goes on as fruit.
Dawna Markova, I Will Not Die an Unlived Life
Now read this poem out loud. Savor the journey. Share it with a friend or colleague.
Dawna is a wise woman who captures the core promise most of us want to make to every day. The promise to live our life fully before we die.
Take a look at the book. I Will Not Die an Unlived Life: Reclaiming Purpose and Passion, published by Conari Press, chronicles Dawna’s journey to this place of powerfully claiming her life.
This book invites me to discover – how do I live? When am I most alive? When do I claim my life, fire it up, put myself into it completely? These are great questions that take me to the times I want to track, to take note of, to acknowledge and appreciate.
Starting there, I give myself a wonderful gift of this holiday season – the gift of love. When I appreciate what I accomplished, I position myself to act on things that matter the most to me. When I celebrate my authentic conversations, I build an internal circuitry that says I’m good at expressing my heart and listening to the heart of another.
Dawna’s feminine wisdom expressed in this poem and the questions in the book inspire me. After reading this poem in our women’s retreats, we all feel stronger and more courageous.
On page 29 she speaks about her journey through cancer and says, “…cancer is a teacher that I can not impress with any answer. It takes me to a bridge where there are only questions that pry my heart open….The [questions] take us on the journey from emptiness to openness to wonder to imagination to wisdom.”
What questions in this book inspire you?
Karen