your way of knowing

Your way of knowing is a private herb garden.

Enclose it with a hedge of meditation,

and self-discipline, and helpfulness to others.

Then everything you've done before

will be brought as a sacrifice

to the mother goddess.

And each day, as you eat the herbs,

the garden grows more bare and empty.

~ Lalla

translation by Coleman Barks

 from The Soul is here for its own Joy, Sacred Poems from Many Cultures

edited by Robert Bly