Even Gods speak of this

Look! Look hard! 

Isn’t this heart, this world, the pain and the joy of it all, the most incredible thing you can dream of? To me it is. To me the world is an offering and I can only walk with humility to be given this gift. Present. It seems perfect to me that the present moment is called present. Can you think of any sweeter gift?

The world dropped this heart into my palm and I have been carrying it around haphazardly.

I dropped it in the dirt and brushed it off. I shoved it in my pocket, and I stuffed it in my glove compartment. I lay it underneath my pillow, I lit a candle for it, and I baked it a cake. I found the key, unturned the lock and hastily shut the door again.

I ask for imagination and I ask for creativity. I ask for life to be breathed into my lungs so that my heart can continue beating. I ask for my heart to continue to beat, and yours too.

I ask for apple pie and warm chocolate chip cookies. I ask for milk and honey and coffee in the morning. I ask for your heart too and maybe we can put them in a hammock, swaddle them in flannel, and let them rest for awhile.

My heart is a muscle and it aches. It is sore from pumping and beating and continuing on day after day. But luckily, we are so much stronger than we believe we are. Keep breathing and place your heart tenderly in your chest. Open your arms wide and trust that the pain will only carve greater canyons for flash floods of joy.

Remember cracked black peppercorn, Orion’s belt, dark chocolate, wolves, and magic. Remember to swirl, swerve, and dive into it all! Then come up for air when you need to.

 

 Remember beauty and I will do my best to remember it all too. 

This is one of my favorite poems and the beauty of the words ask my heart to rise.

Self Portrait

It doesn't interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.

  -- David Whyte