Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery...
Laistrygonians and Cyclops, wild Poseidon-
you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind-
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for...
Without her you wouldn't have set out...

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

~Constantine P. Cavafy


My Uncle Guy sent this poem to his sister when they were young. The ideas it so hauntingly expresses have very much informed my ethos of living. Somewhere in between Phoenician trading stations and bits of coral is a way to live by seeking grace and aliveness in every possibility, in every victory, in every loss.