I’ve been enjoying David Whyte’s latest audio: What to remember when waking.

I’ve read David’s stuff before. David’s a poet who speaks to a business audience. Why would they want to listen to a poet? This is partly answered by one of his previous books: The Heart Aroused, Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul.

Something I had understood before but not as clearly as I do now is how poetry can speak to the transcendent. I write on my other blog http://hero-myth.com about my experience of Dr. Joseph Riggio’s MythoSelf process and what that has meant for me. The MythSelf is a psycho-spiritual process based partly on the work of world-renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell. About taking the transcendent into the everyday world grounding it in reality.

Here’s the Spanish poet Antonio Machado that David quotes in his audio program with Last night as I was sleeping:

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night as I slept,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.

Translated by Robert Bly

Anonymous submission.

Antonio Machado

From: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/last-night-as-i-was-sleeping/