
Tomorrow is not promised.
Align and open to the greatest gifts of today.
Open to your strengths.
Hold your wounds and weaknesses as reminders.
If you can remember these, you can remember you are something more.
You are something so much more.

Tomorrow is not promised.
Align and open to the greatest gifts of today.
Open to your strengths.
Hold your wounds and weaknesses as reminders.
If you can remember these, you can remember you are something more.
You are something so much more.

So awkward are these first steps of
holding on
and letting go,
remembering
and reimagining,
allowing love with all of its bitter suffering
and sweet consolation,
reconciling the aliveness
with the empty space.
The heart broken open
to feel more deeply
and love more ferociously.
The painful ebb and flow of longing,
overflowing with fullness,
aching from absence.
Bravely moving
with and against
the rhythms of this inescapable dance,
gently wisping and twirling
the scattered parts of the heart
back together,
slowly,
softly
coming
home.

You are so wise
…and powerful,
beautiful,
kind,
…and attuned.
You do not have to be any stronger than you are.
You do not have to be more brave than you are.
You do not have to be more balanced than you are,
or flexible,
or creative.
You do not need to be anymore of anything right now.
There is power in peace,
clarity and confidence in grace.
Feel into your wild and free intuition.
Let it guide you unabashedly!!

Johann Hari once said, “We grieve because we have loved. We grieve because the person we have lost mattered to us.”
Grief is not a linear process.
It is an ebb and flow of emotions
and choices that we navigate,
between holding on and letting go.
Like this water,
tears move,
ever changing in shape and patterns.
The flowers that bloom and subsequently fade away
help us find our way back
to a place in our hearts,
to remember
the beauty,
the joy,
and the love,
to soften for just a moment
the pain,
the aloneness,
the fear of having to live beyond this very moment.
Set it all down,
come into this moment.
Let it hold you.
Let it nurture you,
stroking your cheek,
embracing you with softness and sweetness.
For the next few moments,
let everything else go.
You are loved,
and held,
more than you will ever know.

Take time to rest.
Time to feel.
And time to heal.
In this moment there is nothing more important than
the next breath.
Feel me sitting right there next to you,
in the center of your softly beating heart,
exchanging a wink and a smile, surrounded by light,
knowing that we have loved
and are loved so dearly.

Let it all flow…
Hot and messy
like a volcano.
Root down and rise up,
Stop your feet,
Get low to the ground.
Burst with great force,
triumphantly,
unapologetically,
into the sky
Release the big
and scary
and frustrating.
Shake like a wet dog when you feel stuck or over burdened.
Curl inward and rest until you remember your power.
You are magnificent.
You
are
magnificent.

If our morals and beliefs suggest that we should all
love,
support,
and guide one another,
then wouldn’t true,
authentic
moral conviction
show up in the form of
grace
and forgiveness,
not shackles?
A calling back of the misguided to the embrace of
patience and gentleness,
not humiliation
and chastisement.
The invitation
to not be isolated,
but to come closer.
To take accountability.
To grieve in communion
for the loss
of others wounded by their actions
and
for their own internal suffering.
To wail in the arms of
a community
that shoulders mistakes,
missteps,
and misdeeds,
with understanding and humility,
no matter how egregious
on the surface.
To shed tears together to cleanse,
not punish,
embrace,
not discard,
teach,
not convict.

Fresh water mixes with salt.
The gateway brackish,
murky,
churning.
Swimming against the angry currents of
struggle,
despair,
and loss.
Riding the tides with
flexibility
and fortitude,
trust
and patience.
Constantly changing conditions stir hope and determination.
Survival requires adaptability.
Leaving the familiar marshes of the small, quiet stream
to swim in the wide open playground of the ocean.
This choice
a devotion.
This river of tears
leads to an ocean of joy.

Curled up in a tiny ball,
breath pressing against muscles and bones heavy with the weight of not knowing.
The voice trying to find its footing,
wanting so desperately to be guided to its answers by the outside,
knowing it must dig deep and mine its own direction authentically from within.
In between each sigh,
a tear drops to the floor,
the only sign of motion
in this otherwise still
and down thrown body.
The simultaneous fullness
and emptiness
pulling at its core.
To be all
and
nothing.
Not afraid
to be afraid.

Loss and grief are proof that you have loved.
Love is the gateway to joy,
joy to peace.
You have loved and
known the essence of being loved.
Let the suffering move through you.
Rip yourself open with this grief.
Purify yourself with tears.
Beat your fists on the ground.
Pound your aching heart.
Take and give every punch with gratitude.
Shatter the barrier to feeling it all.
In the shallows of this darkness that accompany the pain,
Let every pain pour out.
Drop for a moment into the stillness,
this vast emptiness your refuge.
And, just as suddenly as the suffering began, a small space,
cleansed by your tears,
and broken open through your courage,
will begin to fill with sweetness, softness, kindness.
A slow, gradual unfolding will take place
as joy reveals itself
shyly,
purely,
authentically,
and more richly
than ever before,
because you have loved
and are willing to love and be loved again.