Hello there.
Let's inhale.
Let's exhale.
Bring in a breath that is deep and long.
Now release it and let it go.
Welcome to a hit of hope.
The great poet Walt Whitman once said,
I am large.
I contain multitudes.
I turn to his words often,
Especially when I'm struggling or feeling weird or both because it's a reminder not to silence or berate the amazing selves that we carry around.
But rather,
Whitman's words are a call to celebrate all that is inside.
So celebrate the voices inside.
Maybe you have the philosophical or poetical one that says,
May you wash the desert from your body.
May you pull the stone from your mouth.
May you hold open the cup of your heart.
May you be filled with love and light.
Maybe you have a voice that asks what spirit hasn't needed stitches.
Maybe you have a voice that observes life is glue,
But more often scissors.
Maybe you have a voice that wants to know how do the fragile things survive.
Maybe that voice asks that question after you see a clay vase that has survived without breaking for 2000 years.
Maybe you have a voice that cries out when it sees the kingdom falling apart.
Maybe you have a voice that tells you wisdom and peace are active.
We must practice them.
Maybe you have a voice that urges you to find the wonder and beauty as often as you can.
Maybe you have a voice that reminds you to seek the green moss in the white snow or to see balance of stone upon stone.
As I was considering this idea of Whitman's that we are large,
That we contain multitudes,
I thought of the earth.
The earth has deserts and mountains,
Streams and woods.
And it made me really sad to imagine the earth saying,
Oh my God,
I hate the Rockies.
Don't they make me look fat?
Or my Atlantic Ocean is so damn moody.
It makes me ashamed.
You are large.
You contain multitudes.
Celebrate them,
Explore them,
Climb the heights,
Plumb the depths,
Live.
Live into your large self.
Live into the multitudes inside.
Celebrate them and be as big and wide,
As full of wonder as the earth.
You are amazing.
Namaste.
