When we are brave enough to sit with our pain,

it deepens our ability to sit with the pain of others.

It shows us how to love them.

~Valerie Kaur

taking life one heart moment at a time…

inquiry for today~ there is a special light born of pain…..

how we live from grace….

What do we say to longing?

If you have sat in the chill
of early morning bleakness

and watched as the deep blue
sighed and blushed, touched

by the warm curve of dawn
and pinker than pink then

apricot soft and spreading its
glow, you know. You know.

How
— in this dim parade of brutality —
might all be well?

But if we trouble it with light,
train our sights on
the rebellious good,

and work
to make it
truer.

Beneath the face
of the water,
wonder.

In dark woods,
a gate.

In the chapter
called lostness,
a friend.

All the help
we could not
yet see.

It cannot be always comfortable.
So love the thousand knives as they enter
and see your shape still sitting.

See that you too belong to paws
of soft silent hungers, to thirst-tangled
roots, to silver-spun constellations.

Know you’re no sicker than the rest of us.
The big secret is this: No one else can brave you.
Messy, yes. And marvelous.

~Rachel Hebert