Faith Is the Sauce - September 10, 2022

What if we can make the choice to be with someone instead of simply being guided toward them?

There are people in my life whom I deeply desire to co-create a space, experience, or reality with. So I make that known. I explain what I am seeing, what I am feeling, and what I believe could exist between us.

We allow so much to be dictated by time. But what if time is not the authority we have made it out to be? What if we are capable of consciously choosing when to enter another person’s experience, reality, or energetic field... not through force or attachment, but through mutual willingness, discernment, and intention?

Can we humble ourselves before the spirit of the all and remember that free will gives us the ability to act with choice?

For me, this may be one of the highest expressions of spirituality and mutual respect: to acknowledge another person’s magic and consciously choose to serve, support, and reflect it rather than fearing them... or fearing our own ability to meet them there.

This goes far beyond the touch and taste of sweet skin.

This is about moving mountains with models and methods that actually work.

It is about calling upon ancient-future truths: looking backward with reverence while still having the courage to imagine what has never existed before.

There is a feeling coming alive inside us.

A purpose.

A meaning.

Something stored deep within us that lifts us beyond the limitations of our ordinary thinking.

To see what has not yet been seen.

To do what has not yet been done.

To create something worthy of the people who still believe there is beauty left in this country, in this world, and in one another.

Maybe the light we have been waiting for is not coming from somewhere outside us.

Maybe it has been waiting inside each of us.

Maybe it is something we already know.

Maybe it is a chance we once took.

Or maybe it is something we never gave a second look.

Either way, it is time to become curious.

To look outside the boundaries of what we have been taught to fear.

Because maybe... just maybe... you will not be afraid of what you find.

This is the moment we are living.

This is the chance we are taking:

to be fully seen and still loved for the nature of our making.

To love.

And to be loved back.

Sacred love.

A State of Gratitude

I am learning how to live in gratitude.

I learned how to breathe, and the moments between action have shown me how peaceful it can be to rest.

I am grateful for my lungs.

I am grateful for clean air.

I am grateful that my breath can help clear my mind and soften discomfort in my body.

Sometimes it is simply me and my breath, sitting together in gratitude.

In and out.

I remember that I can fill my diaphragm and allow my belly to rise.

Then I feel myself soften as I exhale, surrendering some of the pressure I have been carrying.

I allow myself to become completely full.

Then slightly empty.

I inhale to remember that I have some influence over my experience.

That even when I cannot control what happens around me, I can return to the present moment.

And breathe.

I breathe upward.

I breathe downward.

I allow my neck to lengthen and my posture to rise, as though my entire body is turning toward the heavens.

I listen.

Sometimes I experience colors, shapes, visions, symmetry, and dissolution moving through my inner world.

And I smile.

I breathe through my nose, down my throat, and into my lungs.

I imagine my breath clearing space inside me.

I inhale and feel my chest rise.

I feel my heartbeat meeting the air within me.

Then I exhale love as a kind of thank-you for the blessing of being able to breathe at all.

Again, I inhale into my diaphragm.

My stomach rises beneath my shirt.

There was a time when that sensation could pull me toward judgment.

Now I try to meet it with gratitude.

I am grateful for this belly.

Grateful for the air that fills it.

Grateful for the shirt resting against my skin.

Grateful for my ability to become fully full and slightly empty.

I inhale.

I breathe in the fire that lights my way forward.

I exhale stewardship.

Curiosity.

Exploration.

I breathe into the bowl of water resting between my hips.

In my imagination, those waters warm as the breath moves through me.

My energy centers begin to feel connected.

My body becomes less like separate parts and more like one living system.

As I exhale, I feel gratitude for my ability to breathe into the places deep within me... the wells, the currents, the places I once ignored.

I inhale through my blooms.

I rise.

Then I exhale down through my trunk, bringing the breath into my roots.

Connecting myself again to Mother Earth.

To gravity.

To life.

To the simple fact that I am here.

How grateful I am to breathe.

How grateful I am to know that breath can calm me, awaken me, restore me, and help me return to my body.

I am grateful to be alive.

And I am grateful for you. 🌬

On the Other Side of Fear

In the present moment, I can sometimes see the patterns of my past replaying in the hearts of people who are called toward my light but still tethered to old fears.

In the spaces between progress, I see shadows dance.

I imagine angels crying.

And I remember how difficult it is to allow an old piece of ourselves to die.

How difficult it is to rise from the ashes of expectation, love, disappointment, and loss.

The powerful one rewrites.

The longing one rewrites too.

Both are trying to make sense of a story that feels as though it has happened one too many times.

Times gone by.

Times gone wrong.

Oh, how easily addiction can take hold of the humble heart.

How quickly impatience can consume the warrior.

Sometimes we are dragged beneath the surface of our own choices before we finally discover how to float.

And somewhere down there, beneath the noise, we find our actual voice.

On the other side of fear came truth.

On the other side of illusion came reality.

And beyond reality came vision.

But vision means very little without foundation.

You cannot build a tower forever on unstable ground.

Eventually, something gives.

Eventually, something falls.

It can take us so long to discover our footing that we forget how important the falling was.

Then one day we look backward and realize:

we crashed.

And survived.

Maybe that is one of the oldest stories of triumph.

Not that we never fell.

But that after the collapse, we discovered something beneath us that could actually hold our weight.

Assurance.

Trust.

Faith.

Faith that life can continue beyond the version of the story we were convinced had to happen.

Faith that another road exists.

Faith that breath returns.

Faith that love remains possible.

Faith that after everything...

we can still choose.

And apparently, after all the searching, all the falling, all the rebuilding, and all the trying to understand what holds everything together...

I find faith is the sauce.

The Beautiful Story Never Told, Jo He and Mai Taeo

"How do we continue forward knowing that someone we care about is living in anguish. Experiencing the darkness and the shadows that come with it. In my past life I would create a story about the other not being strong enough to handle it and could fall to suicide. A narrative that of course inspires me to leap into action to be a savior. Yet, what if I’m the one who is the source of the anguish? What if the dark visions and internal battle are being fought over me? I guess this is where I learn to stay in my lane. To be everything is to need nothing and to trust in those called to serve the same light as me. I know you’re strong enough, I have faith in you."