[Source](https://thedewdrop.org/2020/09/30/david-whyte-the-bell-and-the-blackbird/) *Meditators at a temple might sometimes be aided by the sound of a bell ringing at intervals throughout the meditation session. The bell, which is often cast to be bigger than a person, can be housed in its own structure and is rung in the spirit of [awakening](https://thedewdrop.org/2018/10/11/the-maha-saccaka-sutra-the-longer-discourse-to-saccaka/), to reverberate all around the temple grounds as a gentle call to awakening. By the same token, David Whyte’s poem proposes the sound of the blackbird, the sound of nature or of something quite ordinary, as an alternative, another path to the monastic life. He is reassuring the reader of their radiance, of their courage, and that their deepest spiritual path doesn’t necessarily lead through an institution – that the approach is really ‘the meeting itself, without any meeting at all.’* --- **The Bell and the Blackbird** The sound of a bell Still reverberating, or a blackbird calling from a corner of the field, asking you to wake into this life, or inviting you deeper into the one that waits. Either way takes courage, either way wants you to be nothing but that self that is no self at all, wants you to walk to the place where you find you already know how to give every last thing away. The approach that is also the meeting itself, without any meeting at all. That radiance you have always carried with you as you walk both alone and completely accompanied in friendship by every corner of the world crying *Allelujah.* *David Whyte ***From: [The Bell and the Blackbird](https://bookshop.org/a/55848/9781932887471)**