A little over 3 months ago (actually much longer than that) I would never have imagined that my life would be what it is today. There were many moments where I felt like I was walking through the shadow of death; many moments where I didn't believe that my heart would stop aching; many moments where I thought I would never ever see or feel or smell or sense the light. And yet this time, and for the past couple years as my life started taking a turn, the universe was telling me it was time to face some painful truths and memories of my past ... it was time to stop running and it was time to move through the pain, the sadness, the grief. There's that saying, "the only way to the other side is to move through it." I look back on my life and I smile at all the wonderful (and not so wonderful) ways I have mastered how to avoid, diffuse and redirect the pain and hurt I was feeling inside. As I got older at least I picked healthier outlets like exercise :) I admit, even volunteerism can be a diversion, but at least I'm helping abused, abandoned and neglected animals in my work in animal welfare :) So as I get older, I am learning that I must find and embrace balance. To fuel the fire that burns inside of me with my passions, yet slow down and allow myself the quiet and stillness to feel and experience all that life offers to me ... and yes, the sadness and the grief and pain I have experienced are the landscapes where my greatest transformations have taken place ... and so I share with you a piece of Rilke writing that I just love ...
"Consider whether great changes have not happened deep inside your being in times when you were sad. The only sadnesses that are unhealthy and dangerous are those we carry around in public in order to drown them out. Like illnesses that are treated superficially, they only recede for a while and then break out more severely. Untreated they gather strength inside us and become the rejected, lost, and unlived life that we may die of. If only we could see a little farther than our knowledge reaches and a little beyond the borders of our intuition, we might perhaps bear our sorrow more trustingly than we do our joys. For they are the moments when something new enters us, something unknown. Our feelings grow mute in shy embarrassment, they take a step back, a stillness arises, and the new thing, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it all and says nothing."
as I captured the image above, I was reminded of how even in the midst of winter there is life. I am grateful for my life today and for all that I have experienced up to this point in my life.
Namaste.
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