The energies of the eclipse and the Solstice have been intense for many people. I have seen and felt ghosts of my own past rise within me, and I feel grateful that I possess the tools I need to remain mostly balanced when confronted with these reminders of my former self. I have friends who are engaged in a deeper struggle, and it is for them I feel a familiar knowingness, understanding and deep compassion. It is for these friends, and for you too, if you also struggle this week in releasing what binds you from your past, that I share this beautiful poem by Derek Walcott.

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here, Eat.
you will love again the stranger who was your self.
give wine. give bread. give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

In my semi-distant past, holding up a mirror to Self and inviting knowingness of the stranger inside me was horribly frightening. I was afraid of what I might find. Who was inside me? Was she anything like what I saw in the eyes of those who looked at me? I spent years trying to bury her and keep anyone -- everyone, especially me -- from seeing her, knowing her, touching her.

How I went from there to where I stand today is probably the secret to happiness. I hold my hand out to you, that you might also find the courage to walk that path turned deeply inside and find love for the wholeness of who you are. Because I surely love you. As I love me.

Sit. Feast on your life.