Tiny Specks In A Universe Of Love

Dreaming of Chuang Tzu & John O'Donohue

Tiny Specks in a Universe of Love: A Poem?

Today I shall seek the stillness wisdom of the trees
and ancient stones.
Perhaps they will show me the proper way to stand
or possibly how to accept my place in the world
or better still, breathe compassionately
no matter what happens there.

Be it many things or no thing
I will dive deep
into the chasm of my thought
remaining ever faithful
to my flesh & bones
& joy & sorrow & grief.

I will water my hungry heart
with tears
and meditation
and kindness.

From there
I will whisper welcomes
to all the ancestors
knowing the sacred circle
of my soft soul
is never broken.

I am a curious, crooked, wounded,
ecstatic wanderer.
I stand now in awe and amazement
without bewilderment
imagining an elegant,
supple, dignified
kind of death.

I call it great gratitude
for my next breath
and a still beating heart.

Pausing now, breathing attentively,
and looking carefully inward
I see
that all my wounds
are tiny specks
in a universe of love.

I wrote “Tiny Specks In A Universe of Love”  while sitting under the full moon. I scribbled it on a crumpled piece of paper. When I got home, I typed it out exactly as I had scribbled it. 

Four weeks later, during the next full moon, I woke up from a lucid dream. I wrote and “completed” the dream in my dream journal. Here is the dream, as I recall it.

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Dreaming of Chuang Tzu & John O'Donohue

I am sitting alone in an empty field by Biscayne Bay. The full moon casts a river of light onto the placid water. I am entranced watching a one-winged butterfly taking flight in the wind. Despite the calm waters, a steady, brisk wind rustles the fronds of the bent palm tree above my head.

In the distance, I see an old man in a Chinese robe walking towards me. As he nears, I realize it is Chuang Tzu. He is laughing wildly and throwing stones in my direction.

From the water, I hear a warm, earthy, Irish voice. I see John O’Donohue rowing towards me in a small boat.

He climbs out and joins Chuang Tzu in a do-si-do.

They both begin to laugh wildly and say, in unison: “So, my lad, what’s with the poem?”

Me: I’m not sure. Sometimes I lose my Way, and the trees and stones show me theirs. I didn’t expect it to become a poem. I’m not certain it is a poem, anyway.

Chuang Tzu (laughing loudly): Ah, so you are being useless again! Way to go. Look here. This twisted and bent palm tree didn’t get knocked down. It has stood for a long time. I hear you asked the stones how to stand, but you already know. You sat still enough to listen. Nothing to fix, no need to strive. Just be with the breathing of Biscayne Bay. Flow with the cosmic breath of the wind moving through the palm tree. Love the Tao as it moves through you.

John O’Donohue (nodding deeply): Danny, I hear in your words a sacred kind of belonging. Not to society or any of the roles you play. Not even to yourself, however, you define self. But to the mystery. We Celts have a term, anam ċara, the soul friend. I know you know that. But do you know this, you were befriending your own soul in that poem. I enjoyed your welcoming grief, joy, and even death as your sacred guests. There’s a wounded beauty in your words. Remember, to be holy is to live in the natural rhythm of your soul.

Me(with a tear running down my cheek): I’m humbled, John. You have deeply inspired me and brought me great joy. I do write to remember that I am not broken. Maybe I should be honest and say, I write to recognize that my brokenness isn’t something to be ashamed of. I want to bow deeply to my crookedness and my pain without becoming it.

Chuang Tzu (grinning): Pain, joy—just names. Clouds passing. You can’t catch this wind in your hands. The more you grasp, the more you suffer. But when you let yourself be, then you become part of the dream. Not the dream of life, but the dream that is life.

John O’Donohue (softly): What a blessing it is to be crooked. To walk the earth, curved, scarred, but still writing poems. The soul does not grow in straight lines of perfection. It grows in cycles. Each cycle is a spiraling return to the deep well of longing and belonging. I could feel your poem spiral down into the dark, and back again into the light of breath.

Me: I hope it is enough, no matter the woundedness, to breathe and stand in awe without needing or having answers.

Chuang Tzu (tilting his head): Enough? Of course! Don’t you dare measure such things. Breathing is the Way of Heaven and Earth. Before words, before names, before knowing, there was breath. Breath asks nothing but your presence. Standing in awe IS presence.

John O’Donohue (placing a hand gently to the earth): Here, now, in this presence, you find home. A presence that holds you. You know, and your poem shows it, you are not a problem to be solved, but a being to be held. Held in presence. The presence of love.

Me (with a soft chuckle): Maybe I was just trying to remember how to love myself. Not in an inflated way, I hope. But in the simple, unflappable way the earth holds the roots of wild weeds. No matter the obstacles. No matter the path it takes. No matter how crooked it grows. Wildflowers know they are held by the earth as they reach for the heavens.

Chuang Tzu (smiling ear to ear): There! You’ve said it. That’s the whole of it. Of course, you said it, so that’s not it at all.

John O’Donohue (smiling): Ah, Chuang Tzu smiles with his words. I will tell you this. Your ancestors are smiling, too, at your welcome. Your words are not just a poem to them. They are remembering. They are an offering. A welcoming home.

Chuang Tzu & John O’Donohue, turn away together, climb into the boat and row off illuminated by the moon’s river of light.

John (turns and shouts at me): “Hey, Danny Boy! Seeing your wounds as specks in a universe of love. That’s soul.”

Chuang Tzu (laughing wildly and pointing to the one-winged butterfly fluttering by): Yo, curious crooked wounded ecstatic wanderer, perhaps you are that one-winged butterfly dreaming you are a man.”

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Chuang Tzu was a 4th-century BCE Taoist sage renowned for his wild and paradoxical stories. His teachings invite us to dissolve our fixed identities, go with the flow, and surrender to the Tao.

John O’Donohue was an Irish poet, philosopher, and former priest who brought Celtic spirituality to the modern world through his writings on beauty, belonging, and the soul. Rooted in mysticism and nature, his work bridges ancient wisdom with contemplative insight. Every word John ever wrote was saturated with soul.