What if Maslow never meant for us to climb a pyramid… but to live a life that grows and unfolds every single day? In this episode, we explore the real Maslow — the one who believed you’re always becoming, always reaching, always capable of more strength, more meaning, and more joy than you realize. And with help from a beautiful poem by Mary Webb, we’ll discover why safety, love, purpose, and creativity matter more today than ever
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Sleepless with sorrow? You’re not alone. In this moving episode of Journey from Grief to Healing, Ray reads Robert Herrick’s timeless poem, “Sweet Spirit, comfort me,” offering companionship for those haunted by late-night grief. Through poetry and reflection, this episode brings hope to the darkest hours—when you don’t need answers, just presence. Whether you’re lying awake or walking through sorrow, this episode gently reminds you: comfort is closer than you think.
Points to Ponder
Each pebble in this world keeps
its own counsel.
Certain words–these, for instance–
may be keeping a pronoun hidden.
Perhaps the lover’s you
or the solipsist’s I.
Perhaps the philosopher’s willowy it.
The concealment plainly delights.
Even a desk will gather
its clutch of secret, half-crumpled papers,
eased slowly, over years,
behind the backs of drawers.
Olives adrift in the altering brine-bath
etch onto their innermost pits
a few furrowed salts that will never be found by the tongue.
Yet even with so much withheld,
so much unspoken,
potatoes are cooked with butter and parsley,
and buttons affixed to their sweater.
Invited guests arrive, then dutifully leave.
And this poem, afterward, washes its breasts
with soap and trembling hands, disguising nothing.
❓ Reflective Questions for Readers:
💔 Poignant Reflection:
Some truths are too tender to unfold. Hirshfield’s poem doesn’t spill its sorrow—it contains it, shapes it, and dares us to look closer. In a world obsessed with noise and disclosure, this poem reminds us: real strength sometimes lies in the restraint, in the soft, trembling hand that holds pain—not to hide it, but to honor its weight.
Among the hills a meteorite
Lies huge; and moss has overgrown,
And wind and rain with touches light
Made soft, the contours of the stone.
Thus easily can Earth digest
A cinder of sidereal fire,
And make her translunary guest
The native of an English shire.
Nor is it strange these wanderers
Find in her lap their fitting place,
For every particle that’s hers
Came at the first from outer space.
All that is Earth has once been sky;
Down from the sun of old she came,
Or from some star that travelled by
Too close to his entangling flame.
Hence, if belated drops yet fall
From heaven, on these her plastic power
Still works as once it worked on all
The glad rush of the golden shower.
Max Ehrmann
Let me do my work each day; and if the darkened hours of despair overcome me, may I not forget the strength that comforted me in the desolation of other times.
May I still remember the bright hours that found me walking over the silent hills of my childhood, or dreaming on the margin of a quiet river, when a light glowed within me, and I promised my early God to have courage amid the tempests of the changing years.
Spare me from bitterness and from the sharp passions of unguarded moments. May I not forget that poverty and riches are of the spirit.
Though the world knows me not, may my thoughts and actions be such as shall keep me friendly with myself.
Lift up my eyes from the earth, and let me not forget the uses of the stars. Forbid that I should judge others lest I condemn myself.
Let me not follow the clamor of the world, but walk calmly in my path.
Give me a few friends who will love me for what I am; and keep ever burning before my vagrant steps the kindly light of hope.
And though age and infirmity overtake me, and I come not within sight of the castle of my dreams, teach me still to be thankful for life, and for time’s olden memories that are good and sweet; and may the evening’s twilight find me gentle still.
George Traki
In the dark many bird voices call,
The trees and the springs murmur noisily,
In the clouds a rose-colored glow sounds
Like early love’s distress. The night blues away –
With shy hands the twilight softly polishes
The love lair, feverishly stirred up,
And lets the drunkenness of languished kisses end
In dreams, smiling and felt half-awake.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
He wanders, like a day-appearing dream,
Through the dim wildernesses of the mind;
Through desert woods and tracts, which seem
Like ocean, homeless, boundless, unconfined.
Eberhard Arnold
See how the bee-people swarm together –
what perfect oneness they display!
They build and serve and work as one.
With “mine” and “thine” they do away.
When they return to nurse their young,
then, too, they are completely one.
They share the harvest of each blossom,
and none lives for himself alone.
Bees know the impulse of true oneness –
a wondrous sign of community.
A people of love, they toil as one,
and none is left out of their unity.
e. e. cummings
here’s to opening and upward, to leaf and to sap
and to your(in my arms flowering so new)
self whose eyes smell of the sound of rain
and here’s to silent certainly mountains;and to
a disappearing poet of always,snow
and to morning;and to morning’s beautiful friend
twilight(and a first dream called ocean)and
let must or if be damned with whomever’s afraid
down with ought with because with every brain
which thinks it thinks,nor dares to feel(but up
with joy;and up with laughing and drunkenness)
here’s to one undiscoverable guess
of whose mad skill each world of blood is made
(whose fatal songs are moving in the moon
Ralph Chaplin
Out on the “lookout” in the wind and sleet,
Out in the woods of fir and spruce and pine,
Down in the hot slopes of the dripping mine
We dreamed of you and Oh, the dream was sweet!
And now you bless the felon food we eat
And make each iron cell a sacred shrine;
For when your love thrills in the blood like wine,
The very stones grow holy to our feet.
We shall be faithful though we march with Death
And singing storm the barricades of Wrong,
For life is such a little thing to give.
We shall fight on as long as we have breath–
Love in our hearts and on our lips a song–
Without you it were better not to live!
