How to Intentionally live an Authentic Life Part #5 – Consciousness changes everything

5th May 2025

(‘Here we are’, Oliver Jeffers)

Greetings fellow travellers I hope this finds you well!

“Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you

Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,

I have made this place around you.

If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,

You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows

Where you are. You must let it find you.”

Lost

by David Wagoner (1999)

I love this poem – it came it me via a friend who sent me a link to David Whyte discussing it on You Tube (which I recommend) – the poem evolved from an American Indian story in which an Elder is asked by a child what to do if they get lost in the forest.

I love it because it addresses the feeling of being lost – I remember as a child visiting the Zoo in Sydney a…