I need to die each day in order to live it fully No more dragging my heavy heart stone out of bed each morning Trudging through a sticky quagmire of bitter resentment Hauling and heaving my great boulders of blame I want to die each day Even through the agony of forgiveness Even through the screaming voices demanding that I hold on to my rightness Even through the fear that I will lose Even through the injustice of it not being fair So I die each day with a little more grace

Finally on my way to say yes I bump into all the places where I said no to my life all the untended wounds the red and purple scars those hieroglyphs of pain carved into my skin and bones, those coded messages that send me down the wrong street again and again where I find them, the old wounds the old misdirections and I lift them one by one close to my heart and I say holy holy

Slow down, friend. Breathe. In, out. In, out. Sink into the vastness of presence Life is only a moment. Answers do not arrive on-demand. We are on an ancient schedule here. The teaching is simple: Slow down, friend. Breathe. In, out. In, out.

Stillness is like water moving deep inside the earth seeping slowly between rocks trickling down in the dark a tide moving inward Stillness is the space between breaths inside heartbeats the silence of the gathering wave that never breaks Stillness blankets me cushions me against my own sharp edges wraps me in her protective shawl keeps my tender heart from ripping on the thorns of the world