Amid her life's coda my angelic mother-in-law, Marian Lokvam (pictured with my wife on our wedding day), water-colored an image (below) that 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 security, can batter your heart. The more you merge your self-worth into your job the more you fear losing that security.

Our individual souls require nurturing. 

Fear blocks love.The flood of troubles this year put spirits at risk of drowning.

David Whyte writes that 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 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.

Although, Whyte wrote or me in reviewing my book, Radical Loving Care that I was a "beacon of light in American healthcare" HE 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

Painting by Marian Lokvam, 1993

*Column based on piece I posted October, 2014