gratitude to Ellie Stone for this photo of rock formation in Nevada
When the heart is pierced by loss,
don’t be so quick to look for your strength
in a shield.
Allow the grief to have you.
Go deeper than need.
Meet the yearning.
Down here, in a land of no half measures
you may feel you’re entirely
broken,
without any power
except to simply be present
and breathe.
Sometimes the heart
opens so far
that when it falls
there’s nothing to save it
from the dark embrace.
Surrender here is no longer a maneuver,
something to achieve or avoid,
but an inescapable reality.
You don’t get to set the pace.
It takes just as long as it takes.
Some imagine
this overwhelm of all the heart’s defenses,
a failure,
to be avoided at all costs.
But have you tried it,
really?
When nothing in you
wants to avoid this,
run from this,
there’s peace to be found
that doesn’t depend on absence of turmoil,
freedom that doesn’t depend
on flight.
So bow to the door that
shuts in your face,
the hand that pries away
your grasp.
Some of us need to be refused
our total desire
before we’ll drop
all the way through the bottom
to the groundless
source of our love.
Here we learn the song
that can never be understood
by a heart that shies away from pain
or seeks control.
Entitled to nothing,
graced by everything.
Living into this,
we live into this.
Entitled to nothing,
graced by everything.
Living into this,
we live into this.
