Rather than me choosing a poem each week, it feels more like the poem finds me. This one arrived through a serendipitous trail of breadcrumbs; an article, an author, a book review, a book I was already excited about. And then, somehow, Machado!

Antonio Machado

Last Night As I Was Sleeping

Last night as I was sleeping,

I dreamt—marvelous error!—

that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.

I said: Along which secret aqueduct,

Oh water, are you coming to me,

water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

Last night as I was sleeping,

I dreamt—marvelous error!—

that I had a beehive

here inside my heart.

And the golden bees

were making white combs

and sweet honey

from my old failures.

Last night as I was sleeping,

I dreamt—marvelous error!—

that a fiery sun was giving

light inside my heart.

It was fiery because I felt

warmth as from a hearth,

and sun because it gave light

and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night as I slept,

I dreamt—marvelous error!—

that it was God I had

here inside my heart.

So much of our lives are spent looking outward. How do I come across? Am I doing enough? We measure ourselves against the people around us, against who we were last year, against some imagined version of ourselves that is always, somehow, just out of reach.

But in this poem, Machado is dreaming of nature, and rather than looking externally, he finds it all within.

Think about what you feel in your chest when you are excited, nervous, or in love. That hum, that aliveness. Yoga calls this the heart centre anahata and it holds everything: the joy, the fear, the grief, the hope. All of it buzzing away in there.


The bees are not making honey from his triumphs. They are making it from his failures. That is the invitation; to stop dragging yesterday's weight onto the mat and give ourselves permission to let it go.