Entire limbs of a tree turn ash while shoots of crimson and burnt orange,
Notched with ripe bud,
Rally to touch the sun.
The body lets life go and defies death in the same spring.
Though parts of us become brittle,
We are not all broken.
We too are simultaneously letting go and fiercely reaching,
Veined with gold toward the light.
If we are not what we have done,
Not what our parents or caretakers told us we were,
If we are not the story or the label,
The color or the sound,
If we are not what the world placed on us,
Who are we?
Can you hear a string being plucked somewhere inside,
Longing to make a song of you?
Can you hear anywhere inside a faint voice that wants to stand up from the rubble?
Is there a place in you that is moving against the tide of the story?
Can you hear inside a sound wanting to be made into a song?
We have been built from the milk of our mothers,
The bent backs of our fathers.
We have inherited a pattern,
A rhythm of sound.
And yet some part of us wants to live as if it were not besieged.
Some part lives outside the box of this rhythm,
This pattern,
And plays a drum inside its own heart.
Whatever courage you can muster to move into this different sound,
I urge you to find it.
Look to step on the other road,
For the one we are all on is paved with sad things that do not suit what we know inside.
Whatever longing or yearning we feel to return to the soft earth of our hearts is the true path.
So now,
Here,
On the breath we are given,
In the space we are together,
We have the opportunity to grow in wisdom by moving ever so gently to another song.
One yet to be written,
But being sung nonetheless in some far-off room inside of us.
Our heart is the kingdom we left long ago that holds the new tune.
So quietly now,
We place our hand on our hearts and we breathe.
We acknowledge the mire we have innocently been born into.
We acknowledge the clothes we are wearing that feel tight and shorn.
And we listen ever so attentively.
We listen and we listen and feel for an open space opening around us.
There at the borders of your being is an open sky,
Radiant with a humming silence that calls to you by name.
Even just one moment spent recognizing this rhythm will pull parts of us in toward it.
And slowly we begin to reorganize the cells of our body.
Slowly we move away from the well-rutted roads of our inherited pain.
And we let the old limbs of our tree die.
We reach,
Notched with bud,
Toward the light.
The biggest lie we've been told is that we don't have the power or the abilities to shift.
The biggest lie we've been told is that we must continue down this road that hurts our bodies and our minds and our hearts.
The biggest lie we've been told is to keep our head looking down instead of tilting our face toward the sun.
So dear one,
Standing on this threshold with me,
With your hands placed against your heart,
With your breath as your companion,
Tilt your face up toward the sky and find in you a place of quiet surrender.
Find the yawning sky behind you and lean yourself away from your inherited pain.
With each breath we spend here,
We start to make a new sound.
And it begins to sound sweet.
And it begins to sound like love.
And it begins to sound like trust and faith.
And it begins to sound like forgiveness and understanding and compassion.
If we stand here in the heart of our experience and we reach toward a deeper self,
A deeper truth,
Becomes us.
There are no words for this place,
For this shift.
It is a gentle homecoming that is ours alone.
Each breath we spend in surrender,
Looking to make a new sound with our lives and ourselves,
We succeed.
This is your kingdom,
Dear one.
You are free here to make a new song,
To let all the dead limbs of your tree die and reach,
Veined with gold,
Toward the light.
Now that we have settled into a new dimension of our being,
We open our eyes and come back into this room together.
You can use this practice when you notice that your patterns and your habits are coming up.
You can use this just to tap back into your greater understanding and awareness of what's taking place in your body.
You can actually choose to change directions and to lean away from our inherited pain,
Our inherited suffering.
And train ourselves to write a new story,
To write a new song,
To listen to the wisdom thread through our bodies and to move in a direction that actually makes us feel well,
Makes us feel healthy,
Makes us feel strong.
Thank you for taking the time to do such a courageous practice with me today.
May you move forward with grace and with ease.
Be well.
