Again
Here I am again and the tears begin to fall. For I feel and I feel so deeply and so fully and so freely and I wonder, is this mine? Is this yours? Is this our collective grief and pain? Is this really what it is that I am here to share? To be within it with you so that you do not have to feel alone, so that you never feel alone again? You will never be alone again I said and I mean that to my core, yet now it’s with another for you are within all. I see all within you. You are the mirror, the reflection of divinity that I know to be so true. Yet why do you feel so much pain and why is it so hard to just let go, to let the light in. Don’t you know that you are worthy? I shake my own shoulders in the mirror every morning just to tell myself. You are worthy! You are love! And the constant reminder is what pulls me back up and above, to ride the top of the wave rather than to fall into the depths low. You are worthy and you are strong, fierce, brilliant, beautiful, and you belong! Amidst an earth plane in which you’ve always felt so alone. Yet not with the trees, for they’ve also felt like home. You are no longer alone and you never will be again. I say to myself over and over and over again and I am sorry and I love you and please forgive me and thank you. One after the next after the next the tears fall and they bring me out into the bright open field.
For so long my soft place to fall was simply to get away. To get away from the noise in my mind and the voices that overlapped and shouted when the dial turned up too strong. Be more like this, do less of that, I ran and I ran and I ran into the dark brambles of branches, not caring where my skin was cut or that my clothes got tattered. I ran and I ran and I ran until I could not longer move, until my body fell upon the soft earth. The rich and dense soil of a cedar grove and I here I laid mauled to rest. Curled up upon the earth let my lungs finally breathe deeply, fully, like I had never tasted sweet air before, I breathed and I breathed until my body relaxed and softened. I let the tears come and go, falling, ricocheting and crescendoing until they no longer carried movement. The last final few slid down my cheeks. Mixing with the earth beneath me, my offering. Safe, so safe finally in the woods. So held, so protected within this portal of a circle, the atmosphere slightly warmer than the dark forest around, these trees with their abilities to move the waters, to protect, to nourish, to hold, to feed. They held me as I laid. Laid myself bare and raw and open and within it all I know myself to be safe.
Do I have to move on, will I ever have to leave this place? I wished not, for I finally tasted sanctuary after so many years of living without. I finally breathed clear and deep again after sipping air in only short bursts. I finally felt warmth again, held and so seen and so loved.
Will I have to leave this place? I asked after just arriving, after barely putting my feet down, after just finally catching my breath. What if one day I’ll need to go and to leave this whole place behind? Can I really stay and let go and enjoy, can I really let go for some time? Rest until the sun comes up, and see what the new day brings?
What if what comes next is worse than what came before I sob into the base of a tree. Great grandmother arms wrap firmly around me and hold and hold and hold unwavering and strong. My head clears and I sit up straight. She tells me it’s all okay and I can fall back into it as much as I need, that the courage and determination and power of will will return once I have allowed myself to soften. That maybe what’s just around the bend is not a dark bramble of forest but instead a clearing, with a stream, and a little house with a warm hearth and some freshly made food, I can almost smell it wafting in the air, baked bread with sweet cream salted butter, mulberry jam. I can feel the warmth of family emanating and pulsating. A clearing full of golden light, a bright clear star filled night. Full of twinkling lights shining back at me.
And so it is.
