9.4.19

Dear Self,

I wanted to thank you for all that you have done for me over the course of this shared lifetime together and apologize for the recent moments when I have doubted you and our judgment and left us both hanging on the hook for perceived wrongdoings – real or imagined.  It is a hard season that we find ourselves in right now.  The seemingly fixed trappings of our life have fallen away into a previously unimaginable abyss and we have been left there clinging to the small scrubby trees scattered along the edge just before the drop.  Unable to look away and not yet strong enough to pull ourselves up to the trail above we linger inert and scared.  The danger is still real and the fall into the past leads nowhere good.  So we must go within and gather the strength we need in order to make our next move together.  If we can just find a way to go within and rest in the silence of our deepest selves it will matter less where we find ourselves in this moment.  The warmth of our heart still burns within like a long-tended hearth made of smooth weathered soapstone its edges painted in ash.  She still waits for us – our heart.   She loves us even still. Even as we flounder and fumble and thrash she waits for us.  Our perceived wrongdoings and shortcomings and failings and doubts do not color her vision of us or shape who she believes us to be.  The outer world might tend towards such shallow tricks, but our heart she is not fooled.  She knows us.  She loves us.  She is at the core of all of the good that we are and have been and will be.  She is an eternal optimist.  Our champion.  The one whose embrace we can always rely upon.  She is us my love.

And we are her.  We just forget so easily what we have known at moments in our lives.  When every cell of our being sang along with the melody of the Universe reminding us of our inextricable link to every being that has walked this Earth, with every blade of grass swaying gently solitary drops of morning dew quivering in time with the wind.  We are all connected.  We are all fleeting.  We are all just passing through.  We are all perfect and Divine and mortal – singular just as we are in this moment.  We forget that we are gently held in the web of creation even in those times when we feel rootless and afraid.  Even as the circumstances that mark our surface routines boil in turmoil, we are still gently held.  We are never alone and never without love because we are both connected to all that is and are forever the deepest love our beautiful heart will ever know.  We had forgotten – that the key to our happiness and safety and fulfillment is within us rather than outside of us.  It is such a human failing that forgetfulness.  We cannot walk forward towards our destiny until we are again rooted in and cared for by our tender ever-giving heart. 

She loves us even still.  It is an odd moment when one realizes that one directed so much love outwards that there was nothing left for us.  The cultural assumption that love given will be returned falling flat and leaving us here on the ground clinging to the bushes next to the ravine that swallowed our old life whole wondering what we did wrong.  And the answer carries with it an interesting opportunity for learning.  We gave until we had no more.  We carried on.  We expected little and got even less.  We tried harder.  We made ourselves smaller.  We grew less vital.  We began to doubt ourselves and our inherent truth and our lovability.  We wondered what we did wrong.  We focused outside looking for the love that we have had inside all along.  It is inverted.  Until you can go within and protect the heart and tend her fire beside her you are at risk.  You must remember what she already knows – That you alone are the Source of your happiness.  Everything beyond that is a bonus.  But she is the one who will always be there for you.  She is your wise companion and your trusted friend and you must remember that she comes first.  She must be listened to and heeded.  She is ever wise and all giving and for this we must be deeply grateful.   

So my dearest Self, I know that you feel alone right now and that the ravine of your old life is desolate and the path towards your new one is unclear and feels far away, but you must take heart – both literally and figuratively – my dear one.  We are not alone.  We will rest here now and close our eyes and slowly build our strength.  We will appreciate the sounds of the underbrush stirring and the smell of the small pines around us, and the sky with all of its many faces and we will reconnect.  Returning to the deepest, wisest parts of ourselves that live in us even still.  We must cradle our tender little one within and hold her gently as we seek to restore her and help her find freedom from the fear that wracks her.  We must trust in our bones that those who love us as we love them are not so flighty or easily scared as the love we thought would walk beside us all of our days.  We must forgive the body and the mind for the challenges they face and have faced and for the consequences that arose as a result of circumstances beyond our control.  That is a hard one.  Especially facing the plunging ravine as we do in these moments.  We scream why into the depths of the canyon and get no answers – only the echoes of our own pleas return. 

So please walk gently during these days dear Self.  There is no sense in saddling ourselves with fault or other burdensome fictions.  In this moment please know that as painful as this is right now we walk this road together guided and fueled by our heart.  You are not alone.  I am not alone.  She is not alone.  We walk as one.  New days will rise up in their own time.  The strength and gumption to climb out of this limbo in which we find ourselves will come when it comes.  Until then tread gently.  Tend to your heart.  Known that even as bruised and depleted as she might be right now she still shines.  Just as we will shine once again back safely on the other side.

Love always,

Emily

9.4.19