The healing hum that reverberates through all the small, silent moments can become buried beneath the louder frequencies of frustration and forward motion The panicked pace of ungrounded grasping the breath that's stolen while being swept off your feet it can feel like dying to slow down, to surrender momentum in favor of savoring the soft rustling outside your window Finding peace can be counterintuitive stop flipping over rocks and just pause to feel the cool stone against your skin and hear the whispering stream gurgle past It's hard to accept that happiness is here when we've wasted so much time searching learning to laugh at ourselves like when we've been seeking the object that's been in our hand the whole time It's the simple things that will save us if we can sit with the fear that they won't be enough in the end they will
let go
Lessons in Letting Go
Marble mountains of morning mist rising like phantoms from the warm river water blue grey mirrors of the colorful hillsides behind hanging motionless in the much cooler air Another period of miraculous transition lingering warmth of summer days meeting the icy nights of autumn manifesting monuments of change Gentle nudges from mother nature reminders that letting go is something beautiful reassurance that life's long winters are making new space for another spring Each dark night of the soul threatens that the sun will never rise again but new happiness will find you as surely as the earth will keep spinning Fall is a yearly ritual in finding faith bravely embracing a season of snow instilling a confidence that striding through darkness will always lead you back into the light
You Deserve It
Holding back the happiness has become a form of self-defense a suit of armor inlaid with spikes stripping the soul of all color A perversion of pleasure believed to be undeserved the conviction that hardships will hurt worse with contrast Let your heart lift with the certainty that there are no prerequisites for celebration the spirit is free to sing at its leisure relinquish the reigns of self-affliction Wrap your heart in layers of joy so when the rain comes, as it must you will have a safe harbor of happiness to sustain you from within Don't ever feel you must deny yourself life's most simple, innocent delights don't leave your soul to starve without its natural nourishment I promise you've already earned your small share of sunshine don't waste your life wondering if you are worthy You've won the lottery of merely living each automatic breath is a reminder that you deserve to be here and thoroughly enjoy it whenever you can
Soft Escape
There is a stillness in the night that stops all thought I often wonder if it is supposed to feel so sweet as I slip underneath existence Each morning is an agony of renewed responsibility and expectation awaking to find myself again confined behind the same searching eyes within a cumbersome prison of flesh and bone Where is it exactly that we spend half our lives? why does my soul seem more suited to the ethereal landscapes of the unconscious? why has the waking world never seemed to hold me fully in its solid hand? I've always looked forward to the night to the moment I am swallowed up by the soft oblivion behind my eyelids even a dreamless inky darkness to me seems simply scrumptious I've rarely known the torment of an agitated, incomplete night's sleep I am equally a stranger to even a moment of conscious rest and repose I'm accustomed to black and white My soul is perpetually sleepy exhausted by the constant fires lit within the waking world It wants to dissipate under deep slumber to be scattered into stardust I can only hope that I'll be greeted by this same strange pleasure as I let go once more into my ultimate end and sink beneath those familiar, dark waters for one sublime and final time
Forgive
Fall is a reminder to forgive ourselves for our failures The inevitable plunge after a season of fiery energy the slow decent into old age We cannot always hold ourselves to the standard of our best days the winter will come again And it's okay to rest it's okay to stumble and go backwards There is no shame in still loving yourself after your worst mistakes Don't be afraid to offer yourself the sacred medicine of self-love it's not reserved for perfection alone You won't be spoiled by your own positive regard during the dark night of the soul There is strength to be found in forgiveness there is grace that blooms from the rich soil of having faith in yourself Severity will not serve you rigidity will leave you broken let your inner gaze be soft Gather up the lessons learned and save them for future opportunities life is abundant with second chances
Overthinking
Passenger
A coyote cuts across the foggy highway a life held inside indecision, a moment's hesitation could be a violent end of everything all at once Sulfurous air that once shrouded out the sun a sudden impact that swallowed the earth in many decades of dark, lifeless winter Time has a way of emphasizing the absurdity of right and wrong when final outcomes are impossible to predict Half the suffering I've known has been an inner upheaval of moral outrage resistance to the evils of this world My stormy turmoil subsides if only I can learn to surrender all judgement and accept my place as a humble passenger Who am I to hold dominion over the way life is supposed to unfold? I prefer the role of patient witness anyway To watch with curious eyes and an open heart ready to embrace all of life with equanimity a grateful submission to existence beyond understanding To play my small part with a soft hand extending a gentle, hopeful intention of pure love prepared to let go of any and all expectations Tender feet along the balustrade, balancing between engagement and surrender too often falling into indignation and anger The perpetual repetition of life can be tedious but it offers endless chances to keep trying precious lessons linger behind a door that is always open Every failure is an opportunity to find grace there is no permanence, perfection, or wasted effort everything is as it should be, everything is as it should be
Fear is Futile, the Future May Never Come
The future is always uncertain fear cannot solve anything instead it keeps you small trembling in your lowest frequency A protective shield repelling all positive energy from entering there is no way to escape pain avoidance only amplifies it How many things have I agonized over that never even came to pass? I've aged myself tenfold expending energy on the ugliest ideas of things that would never happen The art of living is learning to be present no future safety and comfort will matter if we can't even enjoy the peace we have now so let your mind be still, just exist All we can do is savor the moment everything else is only theoretical there is no use struggling with demons that we may never meet along our path Build resiliency for whatever may arrive by cultivating a garden of delicious experience that will satiate you as the future floods in you are alive, you are safe, just breathe
Still Here
Beyond the Intellect
They gather like wolves on the boardwalk below. They’re howling for answers no wolf can know.
Mewithoutyou – Fox’s Dream of the Log Flume
I’ve been reading War & Peace these last few weeks. Pretty ironic considering the state of affairs in the world right now. Nonetheless, the passages I read last night were very insightful. One of my favorite characters, Pierre, is talking about God, religion, and spirituality with an old freemason. The conversation goes as follows:
“He is attained not through reason, but through living.”
“I don’t understand,” said Pierre, dismayed at the doubts surging up inside of him. Put off by the vagueness and weakness of the freemason’s arguments, he felt the dread of unbelief. “I don’t understand,” he said, “why human reason cannot attain the knowledge you speak of.”
“The highest wisdom and truth is like unto the purest liquid which we try to absorb into ourselves,” he said. “Can I receive that pure liquid into an impure vessel and judge of its purity? Only through the inner purification of myself can I bring the liquid received within me to some degree of purity.”
While I still don’t believe in the Christian God or the Bible, and have a general distaste for this particular expression of spirituality, I do think these words have a certain truth to them. I may not be religious, but in recent years I have come to consider myself a spiritual person. Hidden inside the horrors of the churches that have cropped up around the world in various forms, is a poignant, important truth. I don’t think it’s merely a coincidence that all forms of religion seem to share very similar threads. There is wisdom to be obtained there. I once held logic and intellect above all else, scoffing at the idea of faith. Now I think there is a place for both.
I used to believe that everything could be understood through science and reason. My experiences with psychedelics, more than anything else, have opened my mind to the idea that there are things our minds are just not capable of grasping. There are states and perspectives we cannot even conceive of. I’ve always been a curious person. As a child I had so many questions that seemed beyond answers. I contented myself on the idea that after I died, I could ask God. Then I would finally know everything and nothing would be a mystery to me. When I lost my faith, I also lost that comforting thought of finding answers one day. Now part of me thinks that far away hope might not be entirely off.
“You’ll die and all will end. You’ll die and know all, or cease asking.”
Will the new view I tentatively hold of death, I think it’s possible I may still have all the answers some day. When this fragmented consciousness disconnects from my mortal form, it will be submerged once again in the larger ocean of all that is. I want to believe that there is peace in that dissolution. That I will once again understand and remember all that I have forgotten in order to take part in this earthly existence. Yet, even this explanation isn’t exactly right. Part of me feels sure that whatever the real answers are, the full truth of reality is something that we simply cannot comprehend or conceptualize in the brains we are currently working with as humans. That is why no answer appears sufficient or correct, testable, or provable. There are no satisfactory answers that we can obtain in this life regarding those large existential questions of who am I, what is this, why am I here.
These questions and our endless, futile search for definitive answers to them have caused suffering throughout all of human history. We wrestle constantly with the gnawing ache to know things that cannot be known. This is were I believe that faith becomes a valuable asset to us. Faith can be twisted and used to manipulate the masses to bow to corrupt authorities, and for most of my life, this seemed like its sole purpose, to trick and take advantage of people. Now I find myself longing for a more abstract and vague faith. Not a faith in some supreme, all-knowing being. Not faith in the institutions of mankind. But a faith in the idea that there are things at work in the universe that I cannot comprehend.
This form of faith is a great comfort. It is a surrender. It is the acknowledgement that I do not understand, that I can never understand, and that that’s okay. I don’t have to keep struggling and suffering for these important answers. I won’t find them. I may not even be asking the right questions. There is such peace in trusting that everything is as it should be. That everything is going to be alright, even if you can’t fathom how. There is a reason, an explanation for all of this seemingly random chaos out there somewhere. We must accept that we are only working off of very limited, myopic understanding. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s all we’ve got to go by and we have to keep going despite not having the full picture.
In this way, faith is a necessary part of life for all of us, it is a constant practice, whether you consider yourself religious/spiritual or not. Faith is that energy inside of us, that yearning, that momentum that keeps us going despite all the pain, the suffering, the confusion, the doubt. It’s scary to relinquish control in favor of faith, but it is what we all must do sooner or later. Logic, reason, knowledge, and intellect can only take us so far. Certainly use them and value them. They are essential, important, wonderful tools. But also know that it’s okay to let go and surrender to the unknown, the unknowable too. It’s going to be okay, even if we can’t understand how. Everything is as it should be.