Amid her life's coda my angelic mother-in-law, Marian Lokvam, water-colored an image I imagine as her soul flying towards eternity. Her angel greets you with the gift of her art.

   We need such gifts. Your daily work, with all its benefits, can suck the heart out of you. The more mired you become in the false security of "the company" the more you fear losing that "security."

   Fear blocks love. Your spirit risks suffocation.

   The arts are not a past-time. They are vital to maintaining your soul's balance.

   You & I need a guide.

   That is why poet David Whyte is a caregiver. He is the only being I know who has dedicated his career to helping you bridge the land of your workplace with the landscape of the arts.

   That is why he is one of your angels. He is what one friend calls "a compassionate genius."

   Invite Whyte into your world. Read his seminal book, The Heart Aroused. Listen to his voice soothe you with his poems. 

   In one poem, "This Life," Whyte alludes to one overpowered by work: "He has left the life/ he once tried to love/ now it is only a shadow/ calling for another shadow/ and this shadow/ wants to become real again."

   Have you fallen out of love with caregiving? Whyte's subject wants to live anew "before the specter haunts me to my/ grave."

   There is a milligram of fear here: Watch out or you will reach your life's end aboard a regret-flooded gurney haunted by angels you ignored.

   Whyte wrote about me in reviewing my book, Radical Loving Care that I was a "beacon of light in American healthcare." But, Whyte is the beacon – your beacon.

   Let David Whyte's light shine into your life & you will experience the soul-refreshing presence of one of your angels.

-Erie Chapman