After feeling driven my whole life

something very near the center has

unwound and I can no longer hurry

through airports or return all my calls.

And sometimes people I barely know

swim up like old worn fish to show me

the map of their gills, and the one long

gash of something they once swallowed,

and how it has cut each breath since.

And I am honored to warm them

like a blanket. But when alone, I

find it hard not to watch

what I swallow.

When alone, these things

I’ve wanted to know since birth

feel so unanswerable, I must

have been torn from them.

I’m sure a hawk doesn’t know it’s a

hawk. I’m sure a spirit doesn’t know

it’s being spiritual. Or a screen door

slapping, like a tired life, in the night,

if it’s opening or closing.

Though we give up the murky fears,

we still can’t know our worth, any-

more than a faceless treasure

can fathom why

it was boxed

or buried

or saved.

~Mark Nepo

we cannot know our own hearts until we feel what is dark and cold and still…..then we come into our own, bearing witness, digging deep….

inquiry for today~ reflect on the heart beating….and all that it must hold…..

dig in to the heart

Here’s the deal. The human soul doesn’t want to be advised or fixed or saved. It simply wants to be witnessed — to be seen, heard and companioned exactly as it is. When we make that kind of deep bow to the soul of a suffering person, our respect reinforces the soul’s healing resources, the only resources that can help the sufferer make it through.  ~Parker J. Palmer