Tag: love

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The Law of Opposites

The Law of Opposites

The law of opposites states that to know one thing, we must first know its opposite.

Night/Day
Suffering/Joy
Confusion/Clarity
Hate/Love
Fear/Trust
Dark/Light

The old debate among the spiritual community revolved around the question: “Is the opposite of love fear or hate?

When examined closer, we realize there is no need for debate.

We only hate what we fear, and we only fear what we don’t understand.

The reverse is also true.

When we shine a light on what we don’t understand, we begin to know its truth, and we can only love what is true. 

We find that to know the darkness is to know the light.

**************

I can still remember the first time I heard the song “Accidentally in Love” by Counting Crows.

I can almost picture myself walking out of the movie theater after seeing Shrek with my dad and sister, when Parmatown Mall was still actually a mall and had a movie theater. 

But the stronger memory is of the felt-sense I had of the closing song, how the high vibration of Accidentally in Love still reverberated throughout my body. The first Shrek was released in 2001, which marks the “post period” for me. Post death of my uncle (the firecracker of the family), post parents divorce, post Dad’s nearly fatal heart attack. Every once in a while, I still had the wild feeling of love, of zest for life still in me, when my mom let me wander through the trail-less woods alone or after seeing a movie in the theater, but for the most part, this light had disappeared. So when I heard Accidentally in Love for the first time, it was more of a longing that I felt within me. 

Would I ever get that feeling back?

When I decided to take a deep dive into my healing journey a few months ago, I didn’t really understand what needed healing. I didn’t know something was missing. I didn’t know how deep I would have to go into the dark. I just knew I didn’t feel how I wanted to feel, and so it really was my emotions that pointed the way. 

As it turned out, it all came back to returning myself, to the joy within me. To get truly excited about the little things, to the excitement of just being alive. Allowing my imagination to once again run wild. Getting back to art and creating, just for the sake of playing.

So when Pacer and I found ourselves at Great Sand Dunes National park, paws and shoes in the sand, without thinking about it, I just followed my urge to run. Then, on the drive back, I just started to sing to the songs on the radio, without hesitation in my untrained voice. 

I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was me returning to my light. It really all happened accidentally. Falling back in love with myself and life.

By surrendering to my darkness, I was reunited with my light.

This feeling of joy, of course, isn’t constant. For like every other human on planet earth, I suffer from the collective amnesia. I still miss the man I fell in love with over two years ago, but simply because I miss his beautiful soul, not because I miss my own (insert Beautiful Soul by Jesse McCartney here). Sometimes I still wake up with a sense of unease, and not giving into doubt is still a daily practice. Yet I return to the knowing that I will always be okay. I look up and see the love around me, my sister and brother-in-partnership who let me join them on full moon skis, my dog, my Sunshine, who will follow me wherever I go, my dad in his willingness to fly across country, eat “weird” vegan food , and tells me and my sister that we are his “happy thoughts”, my mom who will text me jokes on a “FriYay!”, my sibling by magic (I’m a Gryffindor, they’re a Hufflepuff) in Denver…

…”You are immensely loved” the psychic told me. For the first time, I believed this. I felt it for myself. The more I come back to this feeling, the more I remember, and the easier it is to return to a state of joy. Of gratitude. Of love. Of light. 

Pic 1: Me and Pacer (Sunshine) at Great Sand Dunes National Park
Pic 2: It really is the little things…completing this puzzle with my family came with so much joy.

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Death by Switchbacks

In the midwest, we like to name the “fun” sections of our routes, like “The Stairway to Heaven” or “The Piano Keys”. If you’re not familiar with Cuyahoga Valley National Park, then you probably at least heard of the infamous “Heartbreak Hill” on the Boston Marathon course.

I like to call this section of the Colorado Trail/Collegiate West/Continental Divide Trail “Death by Switchbacks.”  Now truly, this section of the trail is nothing short of majestic, but in these few specific miles, you drop down from alpine via what feels like 100 switchbacks, cross a short marshy section (pictured here- it looks much different in the summer!), only to return to alpine via another 100 switchbacks.  If you’re already feeling tired, it’s nothing short of a struggle.  The good news, however, is that once you make the death march (hike, run, or cycle) up, you meet heaven.  (If headed southwest, towards the Alpine Tunnel and Cottonwood Pass to the northeast.)

The ego (how we feel about ourselves, our self-esteem) death uses a similar model as this section of the trail, although I’m going to offer a reframe that it is not necessarily about a part of us that needs to die, but actually about the part of us that doesn’t want to truly live, or “be here”, as I’ve written in previous post.  It’s that part of us that says life is too hard, too painful.  It’s the part of ourselves we try to numb and call it depression.  The ego death is actually about bringing that part into Light and reigniting your own inner fire.  It’s accepting that there is pain in the world but realizing it is not our own.  It’s acknowledging that there is suffering, but it is not our truth.  It’s reclaiming our authentic expression of self and believing in our divine right to live freely, peacefully, and joyously.  This is “fighting for the Light”.


Again, the question is, will you choose yourself (Love) over fear?

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The Sacred Groan

I cannot live in this pain anymore.

Something must break. 

This must be why the earth splits.

Why it erupts.

Something within me must break too. 

For what I am holding onto will not allow me to live.  

The wounds of our past: slavery, separation, running from love.

Both Mother Earth and I know the depths of the darkness.

Wounds, resurfaced, by no other than a lover.  

No longer buried deep, but instead, threatening to consume the light within.

The love within.

What choice will I make?

I hear my body groan in agony.  

“Good”, instructs my Mother.

This is the release.

I can’t see the way, 

but with signs, she assures me that she does.

My only job is to lean back,

to trust my fall into the night sky,

to trust the stars will catch me.

There is no doubt some type of death will occur. 

In my sacred groan, I choose to release my pain.

I choose to let go.

My only chance to return to the Light.

Notes:

  1. If you are in pain right now, know that you are not alone. This is part of the human journey. To transcend our pain. Not to hold it in, but to release it. To let it go. Realize it is not a burden to carry but a path to transformation. This process of moving through pain often requires more movement of energy than journaling or meditating. I suggest first moving the body and inviting any noises…screams, groans, cries, etc to come to the surface to be released. Then you may find peace in stillness.
  2. I believe this is the difference between suicide and ego death, which is, I know, a big statement to make. But when we hold on to our pain, internalize it, keep it inside, it can absolutely kill our light, our soul. On the other hand, if we choose to step towards the pain and allow it to move, to be released, whether it be by groaning and physical release or talking to a therapist or friend, it is simply the ego that dies so the flame within can burn brighter.
  3. The opposite of the sacred groan is, yes, the sacred moan. I hesitate to write about the sacred moan, for lack of many people understanding. There needs to be some conceptualization of sacred sexuality, even if it is only resonating with the term. The sacred moan is the mirrored twin of the sacred groan. It is the orgasm between two divine energies merging together to create something so expansive that it cannot be held within. It too, must be released. Yes, it can happen during sex, but it can happen outside of physical intercourse too. For it is in the energy, the pleasure, the love, the intersect of two divine energies coming together to co-create something bigger, more expansive, that one could have ever done in singularity.
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The Day My Heart First Split

The day Dad shared the news, I believe, started off as an ordinary day. My sisters and I went to school, came home, maybe ate dinner. That evening, before the announcement, he first took me, Sandi, and Amanda to Brookpark Fun & Games, which maybe I thought was a little odd, being a school night and all. I won a small stuffed animal. I don’t remember what it was, or how I won it. I just remember I had it when he sat us all down on Grandma’s couch.

I think he was standing, we were sitting, Grandma in the other room. He and Mom, he said, were getting a divorce.

At first I didn’t understand it. I think I was only 6 or 7. My only timeline is that my uncle, Dad’s youngest brother, passed away from Leukemia the year before. My sister tells me this is the first time she remembered seeing him cry, the second being just a few years ago when Amanda passed. Soon after the news, Dad had a heart attack, age 40, cause: a broken heart. I remember helping him put on his socks as he recovered that winter. I faintly remember mine and Sandi’s (my twin) kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade teachers feeling bad for us.

As I was sitting on Grandma’s couch, I remember picturing me and my sisters floating away in boxes in the ocean. Separated. It sounds silly, but I was so little, still partially dependent on my parents for shaping my understanding and view of the world. I must have cried. I just don’t remember. I don’t remember what happened next, when we saw Mom at home.

I think this is the day I first learned how to dissociate. My body partially shutting down and my imagination floating somewhere else, to protect me from my emotions, the emotions that my little body couldn’t yet process on its own.

I needed to my parents. I needed them to comfort me. To tell me that they loved me and that everything would be okay.

But they were in their own pain. They had learned themselves as children to shut down their emotions from their parents. A survival technique most likely used for generations to get through the hardships of life. And so, I was left alone, inside my own inner world.

For much of my life, I tried to dismiss my parent’s divorce as having any affect on my. After all, I figured, lots of kids experience the divorce of their parents. Of course, some of the wounds started to creep up in relationships as I entered my late 20s. Then, I recently learned that divorce, especially when kids have no voice in the matter, affects the part of the brain that associated with self-worth. [To be more specific, the frontostratial pathway, which links the medial prefrontal cortex (self-knowledge) with the ventral striatum (motivation and reward). Thank you Dr. Bruce Perry for sharing this research in What Happened to You? and https://www.huffpost.com/entry/self-esteem-brain_n_5500501]. I don’t think I felt that the divorce was my fault, but I didn’t feel like I had control of anything happening and I certainly had no one to comfort me, save for my stuffed animals Big Abu and Little Abu.

My brain, at the time, must have associated this with not being enough. A belief that I’ve only semi-consciously carried with me for the last 25+ years.

As a kid, self-soothing came in the form of eating, until I heard the “chunky” comments, and then I numbed my way to anorexia. Then there were sports. Sports, of course, aren’t bad. Except exercises fed my anorexia. Basketball, thinness, and grades all become closely associated with my self-worth.

Eventually, I became ruled by the belief, the fear, that I wasn’t enough. My body was too anxious to play basketball well. My shooting wrist would lock up. I’d have panic attacks, simply playing against boyfriends. In running, I was determined to leave the pressure, the past, behind me. I just wanted to bask in the freeness of running outside.

But you can’t escape the shadows that you don’t know are there. (Aka, the unconscious.)

I loved running.

Yet I got caught in the traps of a culture that said “do more” over and over and over again.

My body had enough. The left hip developed a “hitch”. On flat ground, I felt like I couldn’t control the leg’s swing. I developed calf strains. Running, limping, fainting 100 miles through the first one. And finally, an Achilles tendon injury that stubbornly wouldn’t heal.

I was frustrated for so long. Now I am simply grateful. I believe my Achilles was telling me “I’m not going to let you run until both you unconscious on conscious believes that you are enough. You don’t always have to do things to feel that way. You don’t have to work so hard to be loved. Only then will you know what it’s like to run embodied with freedom and joy. “

Joy and freedom have always been what I’ve strived for. And I have felt that way in the mountains, yet never without that little voice in the back of my mind too, coaxing me like the serpent of Eden, “You a have enough time. Do that mountain too.”

Now, there are times that I do want to extend the day outside. It’s the pressure in my body that feels awful, unloving, persisting even after I call out my ego and choose to stop. The should haves on the drive home actually driving me further away from myself, the home inside my body.

Striving, I realize, is not the right word for what I want to obtain. For striving for love is not love. It’s actually a returning. A returning to my 6 year old self, reminding her that she is loved. That she has nothing to prove, no need to claim her worthiness. A returning to that core truth, so when the world around her spins in a way she can’t control, only that truth exists. That love, joy, and freedom are always present, if not outside then within. The heart that exist outside of protections, ego, and human form.

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The Vibration of “YAY!”

One gift, or word, my older sister left our family with before she passed was the word “yay!”. I think she must have picked the word up from the minions in Despicable Me. I really don’t remember, but “yay!” and “awesome” became word that we associate with her.

While it’s not uncommon to hear any member of my family say “Yay!” and then see another family member smile, I only realized recently what an “awesome present” (all puns intended) my sister left us with.

Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts that discuss things like quantum physics and vibrational frequencies, which a very teeny, tiny part of me has begun to understand on a logical level.

I’ve also begun, while alone in my yurt (+Pacer), seemingly out of nowhere and somewhat unconsciously, hearing myself yell “Yay!”. Pacer looks up from the couch and wags her nub, both of us realizing that at the same time that the sound came from me.

Yay! is an exciting, celebratory word. The exclamation point that comes after it is more of a given than a necessary component.

Yay! doesn’t just mean life is good, it means life is amazing, miraculous, and so much so that your inner being can’t help but shout “Yay!” It’s like the vibration, or the energy of the word is too big to contain inside of oneself and must instead be shouted.

As you read the word “yay!” over and over again in the blog post, can you feel the energy rising in your chest?

Why hold it in? Say it out loud with me. Yay!

How did that feel? How do you feel now compared to when you started reading this post?

Yay! is like sunshine in a word. It contains so much light that it can’t help but to burst forth, raising your vibration and that of everyone around you.

Even when not feeling great, try saying “yay”. When said without the exclamation, or in a monotone voice, it feels kind of silly to say. Which is still a lift in the right direction. And personally, while I’m not one to bypass uncomfortable emotions, a little silly on a dark day is still a much appreciated light. Whether a day is a bit gray or already sunny, I’ve now come to consciously start saying “Yay!” to raise my own vibration and let the Universe (Spirit/God/Mother Nature) know that I am grateful for what I’ve been given.

Practice:

Have you ever seen this magnets that say “YAY! _______!” “YAY! MOUNTAINS!” “YAY! COFFEE!” “YAY! DOGS!” “YAY! CAMPING!” “YAY! LOVE!” “YAY! ADVENTURE!” “YAY! ADVENTURE!” “YAY! PIZZA!” “YAY! CUPCAKES!” “YAY! FRIDAY!” “YAY! PICKLES!” “YAY! FRIENDS!” There is pretty much a “YAY!” for everything, which is another way of saying that there is so much to celebrate and be grateful for.

This is your practice. Make saying “Yay!” a daily habit. Throughout the 16 or so hours that you are awake, say “Yay!” whenever you see or hear anything that makes you happy or thankful. “Yay! coffee!” “Yay! dog walks!” “Yay! lunch!” “Yay! friendly cashier!” “Yay! friend who called me!” “Yay! candles!” “Yay! books!” “Yay! going to be early!”

At the end of the day, just take note of how you felt. Then, if you want, do it again the next day. And then maybe again the next. Because life is way more miraculous that we’ve been trained to see. Yay!

[I always feel like I have to write a disclaimer when I write a post like this for fear that what I say will be misconstrued and called “toxic positivity”, even though the study of “positive psychology” itself is misconstrued. I am 100% for feeling all the feelings, because feeling them is the only way we allow uncomfortable emotions to pass, and the only way we can be guided to deeper truths. Maybe it’s because I’ve done the challenging work of going into my own darkness that I’ve gotten to this point, but I really, really care about feeling good and living a life that is directed towards joy. So yes, feel all the feelings, and then orient towards beauty, awe, and however you want to feel.]

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The Opposite of Love

“The opposite of love is fear.” -Said in different ways by many people, but I usually think of The Course in Miracles or Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love.

Your thoughts?

After all, the Lumineers say “the opposite of love’s indifference” and plenty of others will say it’s hate.

What if we add the caveat that the only way to move towards love is to befriend your fear?

Fear certainly isn’t bad. It’s our key primal survival mechanism. But in our modern world, fear has gone a little haywire. We fear what needs to not to be feared.

Fear in today’s world, you see, protects one from the risk of love, the risk of getting hurt, of having your heart broken. If it’s not the opposite of love, we can at least say it’s the biggest block to love.

Really, it’s all based on a myth. Love never goes away. It may change forms, but it can never disappear. Love surrounds us just as much as the air surrounds us. We’ve just been trained not to see it or deny its existence. Instead of being all encompassing and always existing energy that is all around us, we’ve been told love is limited and that love can hurt us. This is a lie.

While yes, a break-up, divorce, or death can be a source of great emotions such as sadness, fear, and anger, it’s not love that is hurting us. It’s the lie that it’s gone. Love is the cushion we fall back on. It’s in the arms of friends and family waiting to comfort us, our dogs waiting to lick the tears away, the Voice within us telling us it will be okay. It’s still in the relationship that was, it’s still in that other person, even if the relationship ceases to exist how it once was.

This doesn’t mean we still don’t get to have our uncomfortable emotions. We just need to take the time to feel them, as scary as they can be, and let them pass, so we can move towards a path of freedom, a path full of the love that awaits us.

Side note: You’re living a human existence in a world filled with fear. If you don’t understand this right away, that’s okay! You just have to believe it’s true. Personally, it’s been months and months of dedicated inner work to get me to this point, and I’m still not fully there. I just trust my Higher Self that the message is pure.

********

“Love in your mind produces love in your life. This is the meaning of Heaven. Fear in your mind produces fear in your life. This is the meaning of hell” 
― Marianne Williamson, Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles.

“A Course in Miracles says that only love is real: “The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.” When we think with love, we are literally co-creating with God. And when we’re not thinking with love, since only love is real, then we’re actually not thinking at all. We’re hallucinating. And that’s what this world is: a mass hallucination, where fear seems more real than love. Fear is an illusion. Our craziness, paranoia, anxiety and trauma are literally all imagined. That is not to say they don’t exist for us as human beings. They do. But our fear is not our ultimate reality, and it does not replace the truth of who we really are. Our love, which is our real self, doesn’t die, but merely goes underground.” 
― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”

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Grasping at the Clouds

Why do we always want to tell others how they hurt us?
Most of us knowing we would never get an apology, or even recognition that we have wounds. My own experience is rarely an acknowledgement of my feelings. Usually, it’s a complete lack of a response and I feel abandoned all over again.

Maybe it’s a wish things could somehow, miraculously, fantastically, work out. Maybe the hard parts could be undone, erased. Less from a feeling of sadness or anger. More from love- back to the denial of a love lost.

Even when we know its fantasy, even when we know we want to be loved differently. By someone who hears our needs and does more then speaks words, but takes appropriate action.

What to do when left with our own hurt?

Acceptance… yes, of the situation. But more so, of the fact we are still grieving.

From there, the only other answer I have found is to sit or walk with the hurt, even as it lingers. To keep showing up for myself and my pain that few others in my life ever could. To stop grasping at the clouds. To witness myself “I see your pain, and I am with you.”

And then I hug Pacer extra tight.

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Lunar Eclipse

On the last lunar eclipse,
I thanked the skies for finding you.
Tonight, I offered a simple prayer of gratitude
for the growth I endured.
Then I thanked the skies for finding me.

*While we just has a lunar eclipse a few weeks ago, I’m referring to last year’s November lunar eclipse…but that didn’t sound very poetic.

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“I will not abandon you.”: Coming back to Myself in the San Juan Mountains

(Note: This is an edited version of my journaling. The other pages were messier and free-flowing, allowing me to move through my anger and fear. While I’m happy to share many of my thoughts, some things are personal and sacred. I also apologize for the going back and forth with tenses. This is a mix of journal entries and reflections.)

Day 1

The San Juan mountains greeted us with clouds, drizzle, and 50 degrees. A comfort. Mother Nature reflecting the emotions living inside my body. A storm of beauty, gratitude, and grief.

“I will not abandon you.” She whispered.

Day 2

The next day, I cried. Balled might be a better word. As in balled my eyes out as I stumbled down an alpine trail.

You see, I don’t just cry. I ugly cry. I could never be an actress daintily crying in a movie, even though tears come easily for me. They always manage to make crying look like such a pretty act. I cry more like the comedian impersonating the actress crying in the movie, wailing, hiccuping, and sniffling.

“I hate having such a big heart.”, I nearly texted a friend before choosing not to.

This happened several times throughout the day. Each time I thought the pain might break me. “How can my 5’4″ frame bear so much hurt? I’m going to be ripped apart.”, I thought. But after a few minutes, I’d feel the space in my chest expand, the pain would settle, and a smudge of clarity would take its place.

**********

After the evenings misadventure that included a failed attempt at backpacking (which turned out to be good luck), a cloud enshrouded us. It felt good to be consumed. The hug I had been wanting. Later it started raining. It was nice knowing that Mother Nature was crying with me. That I wasn’t alone, not with Her and Pacer by my side.

“I will not abandon you.”, we whispered together.

She reminded me not to self abandon. I keep saying this “I will not abandon you” to myself as my body tried to go numb. I so desperately want to, but I was determined to feel. To not abandon myself, my body, or my Inner Child who always felt like her emotions were too big and needed to be hidden. I had learned through my older sister’s passing that I can survive this pain, this “breaking open.”

And as the darkness enveloped, I could rest.

Day 3 (Colorado Trail)

On the 3rd day, I was mostly tearless as long as I was moving. (I had intentionally planned the day to be moving for half, then napping, journaling/writing, and reading in the second half.) Sad, but more hopeful moving through the sacred mountains. There was clarity in the remote space. Thankfully, Mother Nature decided to wait to cry until we were back at camp. There, we cried together. And that crying opened up space within me to write.

I have so many regrets, but I know I was doing the best I could with how my nervous system was reacting. I have to forgive myself. And if this leads to his healing and happiness, I can find joy in my suffering.

And then I got my perfect moment. Pacer and I were napping (well, I was resting while Pacer was on and off snoring) in the car, mostly dry inside, as the rain fell around us and pitter-pattered on the car. Pacer grabbed my hand with her paw.
(I always new if I were going to get married, it would be in the San Juans. -Note: Humor coming back).

Maybe what he had given me was a gift.

I noticed that even though it was still raining, the sky wasn’t that dark.

“…nothing beautiful in the end comes without a measure of some pain, some frustration, som suffering. This the nature of things. This is how our Universe has been made up.” -Archbishop Desmond Tutu (The Book of Joy)

Day 4 (Colorado Trail)

I woke up in the middle of the night trying to get comfortable, frustrated and sad my time in the abyss was being cut short. The stars were out.

Today’s intention: find joy.

(Later) Still no sun, although I see it trying behind the clouds. A little more gratitude. Enough light and joy to feel Amanda again.

It’s funny how both grief and love can feel so all-consuming. Well, maybe love isn’t the right word. Fear-based love. I never understood the “fear God” concept in Catholic school, so its interesting to me to see I’ve still clung to the ideology in adulthood. Can I let it go for good?

Love, while everywhere, is spacious, not confining. Its Mother Nature saying to us humans “Even though you hurt me, I will still give you wildflowers, just as Father Sky presents you with the Perseids meteor shower each August.”

No tears. There hasn’t been thunder in a few days. Still clouds. Yet a clearing. No sun, but stars.

(In my isolation with Pacer, I was also blessed to meet with a friend this day, a kindred spirit. The perfect break in my retreat inside myself.)

Day 5 (Handies Peak)

Sunshine.

The first time we’ve seen it since arriving in the San Juans. A butterfly from my sister. Still clouds, but so much more sun. A friend commented on a picture of me and Pacer on Handies Peak, saying that we/I looked so happy. (Pacer is almost always happy). I reflected: I was. The type of joy that only comes from suffering. After forgiveness, with gratitude and acceptance. Unfiltered light.

While I was never in a labeled relationship, the inherent love was always there, right from the start. It just had no space to grow. Not because we didn’t hold unconditional love for each other, but because we held conditional love for ourselves.

“I will not abandon you.”, I whispered to myself.

****

The most courageous human act is to choose to love again after your heart as been broken.

To live, to truly live, is to have your heart broken. At least once, but often many times. After, it is a natural survival response to guard it. After all, it is the holiest thing we possess. But once we are aware of this mechanism, we have a choice: to put walls up around our hearts, to defend and protect, or to let our hearts be broken open and allow for even more love to be let in.

****

Final reflections:

  • Part of me feels like I have simply repeated another “non” relationship from several years ago. Another part of me realize that I have pulled back yet another layer and met with a deeper truth.
  • A few days, mostly alone in nature can help me feel, explore, and grow more than a few months’ time at home. Somehow, in the arms of Mother Earth, healing is accelerated. I feel closer to Me again. (For me, the San Juan mountains* appear to be my go-to: https://adogandhergirl.com/2019/09/10/heartache-and-healing-in-the-san-juans/) *These mountains played an important role when Pacer and I backpacked the Colorado Trail in 2015 as well.
  • A lot of the pain had to do with the “second arrow“, that voice that asked “why doesn’t he want me?”, that believed I wasn’t enough. Ultimately, stepping into that pain and following the thread of that false belief is what lead to my healing.
  • I have rarely ever felt this close to myself.
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Normalizing Rain

Rain.
One of Mother Nature’s greatest gifts. Earth’s life flowing. The source of our food and spring flowers. A gift we often complain about. We stay inside and close the shades.

Tears.
One of greatest gifts. A release of emotions, born to flow. Forthcoming gratitude and growth. This rain to is often shunned. We turn away and choke back the rising energy in our throats. Shunned.

For as long as humans suppress their tears I fear that Mother Earth will suppress her rain, leaving all of us to burn.

Where I live in Northern Colorado, our relationship to rain is changing. With wildfires now a yearly occurrence that has no seasonal bounds, many of us now praise the late spring snow and perform rain dances weekly in each of the other seasons.

All of us have stopped in pure awe of a miraculous mid-summer rainbow, born only after a late afternoon thunderstorm. “Let if fucking rain” we all scream, curse, and pray simultaneously.

I wonder too…what would happen if we started to praise our own tears? Thank them for their magical healing powers. Let them just flow…I wonder what type of rainbows humans could create.

Driving to the canyons of southern Utah a few weeks ago, I came into awareness of how many times I had felt my throat tighten over the past few months. The energy it took to dam those tears up. The damage it cost me to dam them. Now when I start to feel my throat tighten and the energy start to rise, I consciously remind myself to surrender to my emotions and let the tears happen. There’s nothing to be ashamed about by my big emotions. When I limit my emotions, I limit myself. And I want to. be. free. expansive. serene.

A list of my rain in the past week…

-Leaving my dog when I left for a trip.
-Searching my sister’s Spotify for a workout playlist and finding one for my (grad school) graduation in 2019.
-Missing my older sister, and knowing my Mom was without a daughter on Mother’s Day.
-Accepting (grieving) my Achilles injury may never go away AND all the times I ran through the pain.
-Learning about a friend who lost her dog.
– Watching a close high school friend get married, then watching her dance with her unabashedly joyous dad, the dad who at one time expressed displeasure when she came out as gay.
-Realizing my shame and fear could be the end a relationship that never had the chance to flourish.
-Saying goodbye to my parents before I returned home to Colorado.
-Giving space for my voice during my therapy session.

My tears are what happen between the joy and pain of life. Between Sky and Earth. They let me know I’m alive.

I want to fucking live. So I let it rain.

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