To feel

You don't have to think deep, philosophical thoughts to feel.

Sometimes you just feel. 

You just feel because you're a human,

And us humans are gifted with this frail, beautiful humanity that cannot be spoken of, only felt. 

And just feeling is the truest form of feeling.

It comes from within, from a place where language is irrelevant.  

It comes from the heart. 

This may be ridiculously simplified and equally naive, but it makes sense in my mind. 

We are fully loved, 

fully known,

and fully understood 

by only One Power.

That Power is Love. 

Now, Love can take on many forms;

Love presents itself to us in

mysterious ways,

beautiful ways...

Love puts on skin in 8 billion different life forms. 

Love walks the Earth with four legs.

Love ruffles our hair when we step outside. 

Love blooms bright in the Spring, and neutral in the Fall.

But amidst all the various ways in which this Power, Love, reveals itself to us, 

we must remember the source from which it came...

This source is inexplicable, but it manifests itself so fully in our hearts. At the core of our being, in the very essence of ourselves, lies this Love. Even if we don't consciously recognize it residing in us, Love is always there within us, guiding us, fighting for us, cheering for us... 

And just because no human can explain the transcendence of this Love (although we try), does that make it any less real? Do we feel it any less because we can't explain it? 

So it is with my understanding of God. 

You mustn't forget

that you are on your own journey.

Please don't let yourself be consumed

by the weight of The World. 

"But there's so much to be done." 

Yes, this is true,

but it is necessary to make space

for the serendipitous moments - 

the unplanned meetings, laughs, conversations 

that change the course of our day

(the course of our lifetime). 

So,

allow yourself to be carried away 

by the uplifting breeze 

of the unexpected. 

I recently rediscovered Sylvia Plath's journal, which I had begun to read last year but never finished (because sometimes life gets in the way like that). But I love when this happens.. I love when I forget about something that I once enjoyed. It gives me the opportunity to fall in love with it all over again.

I deeply admire Sylvia Plath. This woman had beautiful, meaningful, intellectual, and introspective thoughts. 

Here's one:

"God, how I love it all. And who am I, God-whom-I-don't-believe-in? God-who-is-my-alter-ego? Suddenly the turn table switches to a higher speed, and in the whizzing that ensues I lose track of my identity. I act and react, and suddenly I wonder, "Where is the girl that I was last year? Two years ago?... What would she think of me now?" And I remember vaguely Tolstoy's argument about fate and inevitability and free will. As an act recedes into the past and becomes imbedded in the network of one's individuality it seems more and more a product of fate -- inevitable. However, an act in the immediate present seems to be more a product of free will."

Beautiful quote in the Indianapolis Public Library 

How many times
have I sat here,
alive,
and wondered
what it would feel like
to not be alive?

Why do I waste my aliveness,
as limited as it is,
in this way?
Why do I waste this precious breath,
this precious, continuous
beating of the heart,
pondering what I will be like
without it?

Answer.

Because my mind has an
unquenchable desire
to know
what is can not know..

and this is my demise.

a rant on a sunny day

We mustn't forget about the little things.. The small bouts that bring joy, bliss, contentment: glancing up at the clouds and filling with wonder, a warm, fresh spring breeze emerging from a long winter, the tender touch of a caring friend, a lover...
But we do inevitably forget the little things. We're human - we get caught up and worked up in the sweep of the day. But, when we do forget the little things, when we are preoccupied with our countless, stressful thoughts and endless to-do lists, we can remember the big things, the indispensable things: we have working  lungs that are receiving air and keeping us alive, we are existing and moving, and we can make it through this day with the promise of a new sunrise tomorrow.
Gratitude for the big things is indeed just as important as gratitude for the little things.
And some days, when both the big and little things have bypassed our minds, when we're having "one of those days" with no rest, no true breath, no stopping and recognizing the day as a gift, we can hang on to the ultimate hope, the greatest thing of them all...
That we are here, we are aware, and we are beloved to the earth. And nothing can take that from us.