Our longing is to belong...we’ve been cast out of the circle and as a result exiled ourselves from our sacred mandala temple body and this land. As if it’s not punishment enough that we’ve been stripped of our ability to bond with our own vessel, we’ve also been banished from the dream...

Our job is not to try to make everything better...it is simply to witness, to experience, to be with, to hold....Presence. Suffering is painful, grief is heavy, anger is throbbing, fear is paralyzing... Feel it? Choices remind us we are free. How do we know we are fully alive? We feel fully alive. We create, we experience, we live, we learn, we laugh, we love, we dream, we heal. When we create, we seed life. Our breath gives shape to form. It is expansive.

Other people try to change what they don’t understand. They think that control keeps them safe but it only keeps them small. They try to hold us back by projecting their fears onto us, acting like something is wrong with us. They can fix us, make us better. Who are they? In what world do we need someone to change us so they can feel better about themselves? Our pain and suffering give us depth of character. It is a gift to truly know the depth of the human experience. This is how we connect, bond. The gift, the medicine, is we also get to experience love, joy, beauty, pleasure, ecstasy.

Please don’t take my pain away. It is the only thing that keeps me sane in this insane asylum. Ask for permission. Do not invade my space. Give me space to heal. Hold your own so we can feel each other’s company and enter in kinship together as One.