meaning of life

Just Once ~ A Poem by Anne Sexton

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Just Once: When Life Briefly Reveals Its Meaning

What if life’s meaning reveals itself only once—but that single moment is enough?

Just Once

Anne Sexton

Just once I knew what life was for.
In Boston, quite suddenly, I understood;
walked there along the Charles River,
watched the lights copying themselves,
all neoned and strobe-hearted, opening
their mouths as wide as opera singers;
counted the stars, my little campaigners,
my scar daisies, and knew that I walked my love
on the night green side of it and cried
my heart to the eastbound cars and cried
my heart to the westbound cars and took
my truth across a small humped bridge
and hurried my truth, the charm of it, home
and hoarded these constants into morning
only to find them gone.

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Reflection

In Just Once, Anne Sexton captures a fleeting moment when life briefly reveals its meaning—then quietly withdraws it. The poem reminds us that clarity often arrives unannounced, luminous and temporary, like city lights mirrored on dark water. Sexton shows how truth can be felt deeply yet refuse to stay, how meaning can be carried home in the heart only to vanish by morning. Still, the experience matters. Even when gone, such moments leave behind a quiet confidence: that meaning is possible, that it has touched us once—and may again.

As you read this poem, ask yourself:

Have you ever experienced a brief moment when life felt perfectly clear—and how did it change you afterward?

Light for the Journey: The Power of Belief: Why Life Becomes What You Expect

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What if the simple act of believing life is worth living could transform the very shape of your days?

“Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.” ― William James (Note: This quote comes from the book, “The Will to Believe and Other Essays” by William James. It is available free to download at gutenberg.org).

Reflection

William James reminds us that reality often bends toward the strength of our belief. When we choose to believe life is worth living, we open doors that fear tries to keep closed. This belief doesn’t deny hardship; it transforms how we face it. A hopeful mind rises from setbacks, notices beauty others miss, and moves through the world with quiet courage. Life becomes richer, deeper, and more meaningful because we expect it to be. James urges us to become co-creators of our own lives — architects of hope, not victims of circumstance.

What belief has shaped your life for the better?

Rediscover What Truly Matters: Lessons from Confucius on Wealth, Fame, and the Heart

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We chase what glitters—money, status, recognition—but when life narrows to its essence, only love, family, and health remain.

What’s really important to you? Everyone has a different view of what’s important. What is important to us changes with the weather. Importance is a transient thing . If we dive a lot deeper we’ll get to the bedrock of what is important in a human life. We’ discover that health and family jump to the top of the list. When my wife was dying she didn’t talk about our 401K accounts, she wanted my daughters and me around her. Confucius offered us this wisdom, “Of course you want to be rich and famous. It’s natural. Wealth and fame are what every man desires. The question is: What are you willing to trade for it?” It’s fine to go for th ephemeral stuff but never neglect what is critically important.

When you strip away the noise and distractions, what remains at the core of what truly matters in your life?

Life is Great ~ A Poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Life is Great: Emerson’s Vision of the Soul Beyond Time

Emerson reminds us that while we are small, the soul partakes in something vast, eternal, and divine—an insight that reframes how we see our days.

Life is Great

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life is great
Men are small
Were it not for the Power
To which each testifies
We could not suppress a titter.
The Soul is in eternity.
As a man stands in the landscape
He is very small,
But he is apprised that the other is large
And being so apprized
Partakes of its scope.
When once he has believed
And become doubly alive
Threescore & ten orbits of the sun
To him short term appears
And he finds it not unworthy
To live long only for a few lessons
Assured he shall pass through a million forms
And in each acquire the appropriate facts
So that one day he will emerge
Armed at all points a god,
A demigod, a chrystal soul
Sphered & concentred to the whole.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Life is Great reminds us of our smallness when set against the vast scope of eternity. Yet this smallness does not diminish us—it expands us. Emerson shows that by recognizing the “Power to which each testifies,” we become part of the eternal rhythm of life. Our life span under the sun seem brief, but in the context of eternity, each lesson we learn is part of a much larger unfolding. Life becomes not just survival or striving but participation in the infinite. Emerson suggests that through faith and awareness, the soul emerges not fragile but fully formed, “a crystal soul” concentric with the whole. His vision calls us to lift our eyes from the temporary and rest them on the eternal, to see our lives as precious fragments of something vast and divine.

How does Emerson’s view of the soul’s eternal journey shape the way you see your own life today?

Homage to Life ~ A Poem by Jules Supervielle

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What does it mean to truly live? Jules Supervielle’s quiet masterpiece whispers answers to those who pause long enough to hear them.

Homage to Life

Jules Supervielle

It’s good to have chosen
A living home
And housed time
In a ceaseless heart
And seen my hands
Alight on the world,
As on an apple
In a little garden,
To have loved the earth,
The moon and the sun
Like old friends
Who have no equals,
And to have committed
The world to memory
Like a bright horseman
To his black steed,
To have given a face
To these words — woman, children,
And to have been a shore
For the wandering continents
And to have come upon the soul
With tiny strokes of the oars,
For it is scared away
By a brusque approach.
It is beautiful to have known
The shade under the leaves,
And to have felt age
Creep over the naked body,
And have accompanied pain
Of black blood in our veins,
And gilded its silence
With the star, Patience,
And to have all these words
Moving around in the head,
To choose the least beautiful of them
And let them have a ball,
To have felt life,
Hurried and ill loved,
And locked it up
In this poetry.

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Reflection:

Jules Supervielle’s Homage to Life reads like a soft-spoken farewell kissed with wonder. It’s the gratitude of someone who lived not only through time but with it—touching the world gently, storing its beauty with reverence. From the “ceaseless heart” to the tender encounter with the soul, the poem is a reminder that to live fully is to observe quietly, to love deeply, and to remember faithfully. Even pain, age, and silence are given their due—gilded not with denial, but with Patience, the poem’s shining star. In a rush-hungry world, this is a quiet trumpet call to presence, to poetry, and to the poetry of presence.

❓ Dive-Deeper Questions:

  1. Which image in the poem—“apple in a garden,” “wandering continents,” “tiny strokes of the oars”—spoke to you most, and why?
  2. How does the poem invite us to approach life differently, especially in how we engage with time and memory?
  3. What does the poem suggest about how to treat the soul—and by extension, each other?

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