To be human.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field.
I will meet you there.
A poem by Rumi.
I see grass bending in the quiet of the falling light.
I see night swallowing the sun and the clouds shifting across the open mouth of the sky.
I hear wind making music with the branches of the aspen.
A stream flowing like a ribbon down the belly of a field.
I see a quiet world outside of me,
And it is perfect and pure and free from any ideas of right and wrong.
It holds no weight from its past,
No hope for its future.
It is empty and shifting like sand underfoot.
This is the earth I am made from.
Its minerals are in my bones and my teeth.
My body is holding salt water from the sea.
I am made from dead stars and dust.
And when my body dies,
I will return here,
To this quiet earth,
To this dark soil and open field.
I will fall back into the arms of this perfection and forget every scar that I carried and forgive every hurt I endured.
My chains will be cut free from me,
And I will remember without a doubt that I am cut from this cloth.
That I am perfect and human and flawed and built of this quiet,
Peaceful earth.
We don't have to wait until the end to remember our true nature.
It has been holding us since our first breath,
Our first step.
For each of our falls,
It is here now,
Back of us,
Still and strong,
Holding us.
We can lean ourselves toward it if we choose.
I know we cannot always see the truth clearly,
That our pain lays on top of us like stone,
That our breath grows shallow under the weight of the untrue,
That our eyes grow dark sometimes and forget the light.
I know of the invisible secret world that makes it hard to live.
But we are both and.
The great peaceful hush of the sky and the struggling human,
Not wrong nor broken,
Simply walking with one foot in both worlds.
No matter what harm or pain we may experience,
No matter what harm has been done to us or what harm we have caused,
There is a field beyond ideas of right and wrong and we can meet ourselves there to forgive,
To let go,
To stop punishing ourselves for being human,
For being alive.
Never has there been a soul who has walked this earth without their own bag of torment.
We in being human must step out from the story of perpetual suffering and write a new one.
In order to tell a new story for ourselves,
We must first write it quietly,
On the walls of our own heart.
So here in this moment we place our hand against our beating hearts and we allow ourselves a small sliver of compassion.
We draw a great pause to acknowledge that we are not broken,
That we are simply alive and human and worthy of choosing a new way.
I am looking out at an open field.
I am standing in hip-high grass.
I am remembering my belonging.
Fear and anger fall from me and get absorbed into the dark soil at my feet.
Nothing is wasted on this earth.
Just as the forest swallows a fallen tree,
I am embraced by this same force of well-being.
Nothing is broken.
Nothing is wasted.
But new life is nursed out from the pieces that have fallen.
I am remembering my belonging,
That no part of my life is wasted.
I am not afraid of the dark.
That no part of my life is wasted.
I am being nursed by life into new life with every breath I take.
I am remembering my belonging.
A holy man was asked what forgiveness is.
He said it is the fragrance that flowers give when they are crushed.
My dear one,
Let the sweet smell rise from you.
There is no need to hold your heart ransom.
In your being here,
You belong just as you are.
Breathing in,
I know that I am breathing in.
Breathing out,
I know that I am breathing out.
Breathing in,
I allow myself to be held.
Breathing out,
I allow myself to be held.
Breathing in,
I know that I am free.
Breathing out,
I know that I am free.
Breathing in,
I allow myself to be held.
Breathing in,
I allow myself to forgive.
Breathing out,
I allow myself to be forgiven.
Breathing in,
I allow myself peace.
Breathing out,
I allow myself peace.
Breathing in,
I see the flowers on the tree.
They are blooming.
