Everything starts within oneself...

Today

You walk out the door and the wind scuttles leaves across your shoes.

The crackle of fabric wickers in your ear.

Trees bending.

Air so clean the blues and yellows of sky and sunrise are hyperHD.

Piles of seeds from {what is that plant called} shuttle along the bike lanes in rivulets of little not-almonds-but-close by the tens of thousands.

A man in sunglasses walks his dogs, all three of them leaning a slight right.

Near the football pitch, with the "Field Closed" signs all blown over, ten black-tie ravens on their morning commute walking across the browning grass. Every so often a hop attempt to fly up and no luck, whooshed back 10 steps for every 2 forward.

A dust cloud rifles into the air suddenly and you are not yet there to get frosted by it, watching it cross the street alone.

You stop and turn face first into the wind.

You open your arms.

You let it rankle your jacket and scoop out a hollow in the cave of your belly.

You're getting ready to fall and yet not fall, high on the edge of a grassy hill and a planet.

You lean out and laugh.

It holds you for a second.

Then you fall forward at finally that angle where the windy wind has to surrender to your massive littleness.

You laugh and try again.

The ravens try again.

The sun shines.

Everybody falls back to earth.

ps/smoh

love light and peace

YOU DON’T NEED TO DIE TODAY

"If you feel like taking your own life today, you are not alone.
It is an urge as old as life itself. 

To die. 

To shed the old skin and be made new.
To be rid of the false and touch the real.
To find deep relief from the pain of being human.

The urge to die is not wrong. Many on this planet have felt the urge,
even if they will never speak of it, even if they try to numb it,

You are not numb. You feel everything so intensely.
You are so alive. Not everyone will understand.
Your sensitivity is not your fault.
There is nothing wrong with you.

Feel what you feel today! Bless the part of you that longs to be somewhere else.
Let the mind scream its screams today. 

You are not the mind but the one who hears it.
You are not the one who longs to die. 

You are the space for the hurting self, the despairing child inside.
The one who holds the longing. The one who is still here.
Here, in spite of everything.
Hurting, exhausted, but still here.

Feel your feet on the ground, friend.
Hear the sounds all around you.
Bless your aching heart, head, chest, belly.

Your ancestors are with you now, even though you cannot see them.
Your brothers and sisters all across the world, supporting you now, willing you to go on, even though you cannot feel them.
The Universe is holding you now. 

The Earth and all the stars. 

The mountains and the forests. 

The oceans and the sky. 

All the gods in all the realms.

You don’t need to take your life. Just let your life be taken by all that you see.
Give yourself to this moment. Fall to the ground. Feel your rage, your grief.
Let life in. Cry, scream. Make a mess. There is no failure here.

There is no shame in hurting. A new life is dawning, that’s why it hurts now.
Your pain is calling for change, even if the change seems terrifying.
You will meet the terror moment by moment.

It takes great courage to admit that we’re hurting.
It takes great courage to face our deepest pain.
It takes great courage to say: “Help me, friend”.

You will tell the story one day of how you transformed.
How you faced your deepest pain and found the light on the other side.
How the alchemy happened. 

How love found you.
How you wanted to die, but found hope in a single breath.

In the birdsong. In the warmth of the sun on your face.
In the anger or the grief that burned so hot inside.
In the face of a stranger. 

Someone curious about you.
Someone who listened. Who saw your potential.

The fire has come to burn away the false.
And illuminate something new, something unseen until now.
Trust. Breathe. Have patience with the fire.

You are destined for life."

jf/ps/smoh

THE KIND OF LOVE YOU DESERVE

More than anything, we long to be seen.

To be held in a safe, nonjudgmental, all-accepting presence, and be seen through loving eyes.

And being seen is what we fear the most.
More than death, we fear intimacy's piercing gaze.
And yearn for it all the same.

It takes such courage to show yourself!
To take off your mask, when you look and feel your worst to take off your mask (the one that was suffocating you anyway) and to say, "Look. Look. Here I am, world".

To let yourself be seen
before you're ready.

When you feel the most rotten, the dirtiest, the most wretched and unloveable, the most unevolved, the most boring, the most confused and lonely and broken and sad and angry and hurt, to let yourself be seen there.
There, in that sore, shameful place.
Let the light in.
Come out of hiding and invite someone into your 'private' world.
Let them witness the real, authentic you.
Before that pitiful defence called 'personality'.

Say, "Look. Look, friend. Here I am".

Take the risk of being loved!

The risk of being rejected, yes.
The risk of being shamed again laughed at again, ridiculed again, maybe.
The risk of being seen as a failure. As sick, or broken, or ugly, or weak.
But the risk of being loved?

Yes. Take the risk today because life is short, and it's exhausting trying to repress your authentic self. Let yourself be witnessed in the raw. The vulnerable you without protection, without answers, without expertise. The imperfect you.

Because the deepest shame is only healed in love's light.
And your flaws were always longing to be touched with an awareness so tender that it would birth entire universes to find itself.

And you can fall now into the arms of a loving friend.
Who will hold you?
Naked. Unprotected. Imperfect.

Loveable.
Just as you are.

This is the kind of love you deserve.
True human love which is also God's love.
The kind of love that bathes you in gentleness when you feel the most ashamed, the most frightened, the most lost.
When you feel the smallest.
A huge love that holds you.

Never settle for less.


jf/ps/smoh