“Shelter! Let’s take shelter from the rain!” 7 year old Ruthie exclaims to Nora as she scurries her doll into the pink and yellow dollhouse.

My ears perk. “Shelter.”

Right.

Shelter can be Grace. A pause from the deluge of chaos and confusion.

My mind is easily side tracked these days into how to have an “appropriate” voice in the erupting abyss of hard and tough of our country and our world.
Into the fear that my writing is contributing to the very separateness that our country is experiencing.
Has always experienced.

But I don’t want to learn in a vacuum. I’m a human being and human’s learn in relativity to one another. I must be in relation in order to grow and expand.

We must be in relation in order to grow and expand.

So my small piece of “how” is simple today. (It usually is.) And by way of nature and my children. (It usually is.)

Find shelter. And feel.

As the dragonfly in this photo took shelter from the blowing rains, take some planned time to shelter from the rage of voices and feel what your heart fills with. Overflows with. It is not our time to talk. But it is our time to hear and to feel.

Checking out sometimes is not wrong. It is necessary.
The trick is to check back in.
In and out. Up and down. Forward and back we flow.

This feels Big like Godzilla with his leveling arms of fury and might. And it Is. But the flow of nature points the way.

Find shelter of the trees to sit. Find shelter of a friend to rest. Find shelter of a cool dip in a summer lake to be still.

Know that even in the midst of your sadness, your heartbreak, your fury, your gratitude, your fear, your shame – all of it in juxtaposition to a flurry of emotions bouncing around our world and within these shapes we call bodies –
None of what you feel is wrong.

It is what has been given to you from your culture, from your history, from your family, from your karma.

And there is more coming for You.

This path that you are on requires shelter. To ebb and flow. To feel and protect. A million times a day expand and contract.

Breathe in and breathe out.

There is so much we don’t know.

So be there.

Not knowing.

Space surrounding you. Tether to a ship of shifting earth.

Where can you find shelter? Drop me a note at rachel@pureresilienceyoga.com if you desire to share.

In shelter breathes Grace. Rest your weary solving mind for a time.

With gratitude and the Biggest of Love,
Rachel

p.s. I’ve posted a guided imagery clip that offers one way to pause in Shelter for 4 minutes. Click here to practice with me.