Have you ever had times when the mind becomes too crowded a place to inhabit, dank and eaten away by self-criticism? A few weeks ago, I found myself lost in that labyrinth, haunted by the weight of two mistakes I had made at work, a speck in the world’s eye, perhaps, but to me, they thundered. Of course, I turned them over again and again like stones in my hand.

How swiftly we turn against ourselves…

In that dark space, I sought a balm. I found it, serendipitously, in poetry.

Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese came first, like cool water. “You do not have to be good…” she says, lifting the weight of self-condemnation.

Then, John O’Donohue’s For One Who Is Exhausted, A Blessing met me in the quiet place where breath tightens. His verses did not pretend that pain wasn’t real; they simply laid a hand upon it.

And then came a verse from the ancient Tamil text Thirukkural, translated by Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma. Kural 653, a line that shimmers in its simplicity:

“Steer clear of all deeds that dim light—you
Who would keep becoming.”

When spoken out loud, the verse unfurls upon the tongue like silk. The original and the translation share a single breath, a single rhythm. The music here is not loud, but subtle, like a hush, a murmur, harking you back to that space between knowing and being.

And just like that I was reminded: I am not a finished thing. I am in the strange act of becoming.