Where have I been? I am not entirely sure....underground? within? digging? sprouting? I don't know really. I thought this photo might explain it better than my words ever could. My co-teacher discovered this incredible corn plant growing from a wad of clay made by one of our five year old students and kept moist for future use. Our student had employed an ear of indian corn to make impressions in the earthy mound. Some of the kernals obviously found their way into the creation and this beatiful gift was the unexpected result. When we first saw it we both knelt in front of it, awed by the determination of life. This image became a sort of metaphor for my life right now. I feel like freshly kneaded and tilled earth. I don't know what seeds have been planted by the larger hand of life. Yet I seem to trust the determination of life within me, like those seeds of corn embedded in clay. There is a resilience and tendency toward growth that simply won't be ignored. Perhaps someday I will be able to see the plants and even eat the fruits of my souls tenacity.
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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