I was doing fine with the anniversary of COVID’s lockdown until Denver had a two day snow storm that left me cooped up with my people wondering how we were going to fill the days.
The past two weeks have been a struggle to stay present and patient with my internal panic. This symphony of voices have comprise the compass I’ve held in my hands, seeking to still the spin and find the horizon.
From Tara Brach, a mindfulness teacher and author of Radical Acceptance:
“There’s only one question that really matters and that is what are you unwilling to feel?”
From John O’Donohue’s poem “For the Time of Necessary Decision”:
May we have the courage to take the step
Into the unknown that beckons us;
Trust that a richer life awaits us there,
That we will lose nothing
But what has already died;
Feel the deeper knowing in us sure
Of all that is about to be born beyond
The pale frames where we stay confined,
Not realizing how much vacant endurance
Was bleaching our soul’s desire.
From Jan Richardson’s poem “Blessing for One Already Brave”:
Yet I have seen the blessing
that came after the rending—
how you took what was torn
and made a life
not unmarked by
what had passed before,
but not unhinged by it.
You know about doors,
know what depends upon them,
know the grace that comes
in creating our own
and the power of choosing
how we will cross the thresholds
we never hoped to see.