One thought,
One practice,
One poem.
When I look up at the stars,
Awed by their effectual,
Burnished light,
I often wonder what they see when looking down at me.
I imagine it sees a tiny,
Quibbling ball of energy and light bouncing inside its walls.
An eruption,
Trying to happen,
But contained inside some invisible limit.
An impossible tension of light trying to spill into space,
But too afraid of unleashing.
I imagine the stars are watching with hopeful anticipation for the fighting energy to reach the beam.
Will it sputter,
Fizzle,
And stop?
Or will it grow into itself?
I can imagine them looking down at us,
Rooting for the birth of another star.
Sometimes if I move my body enough,
Sweat will weep from every pore,
Turning me into water.
A flowing,
Hot body of blood and breath,
A wonderful,
Fluid thing.
And in Raptured,
I see life is for the taking.
That I am built to encounter and savor.
Four thousand taste buds line my tongue.
Some four million touch receptors coat my skin.
And a nearly unbearable celebration inhabits every cell.
Warmed into liquid,
I feel my essence spill from its confinement into the room,
Laughing as it breaks the clay pot.
When I have worked myself open,
I become acutely aware of the tempered glass walls and dams I have broken out from.
The not visible,
But all too real cell of my defended life.
It's too hard,
I can't,
I don't want to.
That will hurt,
And that even more.
That's too terrifying,
Too far,
Too foreign,
Too uncomfortable.
I don't feel good.
Abort,
Stop,
Turn down,
Turn from,
Turn back into the shell.
The thing we are arguing against,
This faceless stranger we oppose daily,
Is our life force trying to unleash itself and find its way into its beam.
Offering an endless assortment of inspired thought and action.
And all we can do most days is tell it how many ways it is flawed and wrong and irrational.
All we can do most days is build invisible walls around it as it bumps and bounds and leaps away inside.
Remaining hostage is a sad way to live out your life in the unknown,
And a tragic way to return in the end to the unknown.
I don't want to arrive in death tail between my legs saying,
I forgot.
I got so lost in the lament that I neglected to love.
I forgot to play and smile and say yes.
I forgot to stop arguing instead of agreeing.
I forgot to use all of my energy for expression,
Abandonment,
And discovery.
I forgot to ignite and invite my vitality to spread itself over continents.
I forgot to cut the shoes off my feet and walk through the pathless wood.
For your practice,
It might help to carry a notepad with you throughout the day and make two lists.
To write down how many times you argued with life.
To mark each time you complained and talked yourself out of something.
Mark the times you named something you do not love.
Your disdain,
Your criticism,
Hatred,
Unwillingness,
And excuses.
Mark how often you said no to yourself,
To a feeling,
A movement,
A thought,
An action.
And on another list,
Mark the times you spoke of something you love,
And the number of times you said yes to a creative and inspired idea,
A feeling,
Or an action.
Mark how many times you were a fluid,
Wonderful,
Celebratory thing.
We often overcomplicate our life when things are very simple.
If your list of complaints outweighs what you are celebrating,
This will show you the cracks where water leaks from the bottom.
Patch this hole.
Be sure to use both your hands.
Take this very seriously.
Make sure not one more drop of you is wasted on things that make you small and sad and immovable.
Ensure that not one more drop of you is wasted on fruitless crops.
If you have countless names for your hell,
And very few for your heaven,
Your harp is missing its strings and no one can celebrate without music.
It could help to imagine for a moment the stars are up there watching and rooting for you.
Every so often,
I'm convinced I tell the world too much.
Hold my heart on my sleeve,
Cough out my secrets,
Confess my pain.
I swear to myself I won't do it again.
I'll be all lock and key,
A porch with screens,
Elusive and safe.
And then I talk with a friend who's all heart,
All summer and June,
Raw and flawed but so complete.
And I'm reminded how flowers thrive when they're open to it all.
To the rain and the sun,
To footsteps and weeds,
To the changing of seasons over again.
And when someone's looking for hope,
There they are,
Blooming despite it all.
Poem by Hannah Rowe.
Thank you.
Be well.
