I tap out right now. I have found immense courage in the wake of grief this year – courage to step out and be ever more seen. Courage to offer programs, classes, and words that stepped onto ground that I thought was untouchable. Courage to love more deeply – and likely to have my heart broken over and over as I invite that love to seep through me.

And sure enough, as I step into new ventures of Being, giving and doing that are offspring of my grief, my heart cracks a little deeper. It seeps a little deeper for the reason that I am at this particular place at this particular time. It grasps back through the past to a life that has completed and to a boy that chose differently than I have. Goo seemingly fills from the tips of subtly aching feet to my chest that feels safest today sucking in on the inhale to my scratchy throat.

I am thick and smushy and a lump of Being right now. Every crevice and cavern within this pulsing body feels full up. And with that fullness, I feel empty of the ever elusive thing we Westerners call “energy.”

And it is beautiful. It is stunning.

Feeling a bit like a bog creature wrapped in this skin of a human, I navigate today weaving in and out of choices for clarity and space. Moment by moment and breath by simple breath. I wake and meditate and move. I have clear broth soup for breakfast and sit with my kiddos. I think of my husband as he travels away from us on a plane. I am snuggled by my daughter and I snuggle her. I drink tea and water. I shop for gifts for my kiddos’ Angel Tree at school and I feel the overwhelm of sights, sounds and more in the store. I make a nourishing ojas milk and cancel a compromised credit card. I make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch because that’s my best in that moment (not so clear or spacious but eh – it’s good to be human). I lay on my bed in silence listening to mantra and looking at the trees. I watch the birds on my feeder. I listen to the leaf blowers and see the blue blue sky. I see the fall turning winter winds shower the last remaining leaves over my yard. I buy pizza for dinner because I do not wish to deplete my body’s gas tank anymore. I navigate destruction of my son’s toy by my 3 year old daughter. I lose my stuff with my kids. I finish that blow and get quiet to ride the hot and fiery sensations that echo within. I arrive a bit slower in spin and a tad cooler with the three devil angels. I write to you all who dance with me around this same room called Life.

Hmm… yes. I do believe the bog imagery is spot on. Yet, I’m seeing it’s not so much a bog like creature tucked away inside of me. It’s more the bog itself that rests under my skin. Full, thick, heavy and full of such richness. Such richness of feeling the prism of my life.

I lean in here to the layers of mud, water, and swirling silt in suspension. I am held in the bog. I am embraced here by something as perfect as the trees and as flawless as the sun. In this moment, I rest in wholeness in the bog.

The feeling invites the Being. And the Being allows a deep saturation into the essence of all this Doing.

Wherever you are right now, may you find rest in that place.

Take good care,
Rachel