Bodhi will proudly tell you that he is five years old, with a voice loud enough to convey his advanced years to anyone who might be standing nearby. He is a child with an intense approach to life. When his eyes open just before the sunrise and sometimes even before his long lashes have parted their nightly rest, he begins talking- of Scooby Doo, or what he wants for breakfast, what video games he NEEDS to play or if he has to go to school today, which inevitably leads to a download of all the reasons going to school is not fun, from cutting up states, to writing his name, from friends that won’t play with him to friends that won’t leave him alone. I take him in my arms and hold him close for a moment, he doesn’t relax into my arms but struggles to be free again, demanding my help in turning on the TV he knows I won’t turn on or setting up a game on the computer that he knows he can’t play. When his older brother awakens, not of his own choosing, but from the persistent efforts of his younger sibling, he groans, saying “Bodhi will you leave me alone?”. The answer of course is, “NO”. When Bodhi’s will is thwarted he may not be able to find the words to vent his frustration before his body responds, with a hit or a scratch. This action, somewhat outside his volition, often results in a flow of tears and an outpouring of grief, his sensitive heart often hidden beneath his busy persona and intense approach to life.
Some days, you just have to forget about ‘healing’. You have to stop trying to feel better, trying to overcome your emotional wounds, or trying to be anywhere other than where you are. You have to embrace the day as it is. And you have to give yourself the most sacred permission of all: To shatter. To break. To be an ugly mess. To lean into a place of utter humility and powerlessness in yourself. To cry out to the heavens, “I can’t do this!” To admit utter defeat in the loss of the life you had imagined. To crumble to the ground, lonely and hopeless and profoundly ruined. To want to die, even. And there, in the darkest places, in the blackness of the underworld, you may begin to rediscover... life. And learn to love the beginnings. A sacred reboot: A single breath. The way the sun warms your face. The sound of a tiny bird singing in the tree over there. The raw simplicity of a single moment of human existence. Hell has been transmuted, thr...
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