I was behind the wheel and curving around a familiar road in a thick fog a few nights past. There’s something special that happens on roads we know by heart when circumstances suddenly make them strange and unfamiliar to us. It could be the first time on that road at nightfall or a heavy thunderstorm or the first time cutting through a heavy fog. It happens in a moment and if we’re not careful we might miss it for indigestion or sleepiness or some other mundanity…

However, IF, by grace, awareness sparks, we might feel a tingle, a catch of breath, or an excitement stir within our chests in that moment. It could become a moment of knowing something so intimately, so close, that even with limited vision you know right where you are.

Contrast that feeling to a sense of unknowing, untethered, lost… and, in truth, the feeling is not-so-different actually. Tingles, breath-catching, heart racing: these same sensations all come in that place too!

“Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you cannot bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain.
What you have not done is feel all you are beyond that pain.”

—Kahlil Gibran (emphasis added mine)

 

The fear of feeling often comes for good reason, whether it be the delights that seem to flee ever so quickly, and sometimes without warning, or the constraints that seems to have an unending crushing sensation in the general region of our souls. It stands to question: why would we want to do that again?

There are times in our lives when feelings are so fresh that we need to face the legitimate question… Why? Why would we either want to lose or win and stand to lose?

Once upon a time, in all of our lives, each of us have trusted. We’ve trusted someone or something. We had a way of life and even a language that surrounded and, in a sense, defined that trust. It’s a language our brains and bodies know, not always by words.

Likewise, once upon a time, in each of our lives, some of those trusts have been betrayed or simply lost. And slowly, perhaps largely indecipherably, we abandoned the language (actual words) and ways that once seemed so intermingled with those trusts we gave. Beautiful words, vulnerable gestures, states of mind and heart… went away.

Or did they? What if those expressions are what some might call our native habitat? The inner roads of our lives that, whether night or storm or fog, once encountered, we know the terrain all over again. It’s us, our truth, our road.

How else could the sweetest of pleasures or the worst of deceptions been known there? Those kinds of severities, whether we perceive them for naught or good, those things can only happen close-in, you know… the general region of our hearts.

It happens in a moment and if we’re not careful we might miss it for indigestion or sleepiness or some other mundanity…

However, IF, by grace, awareness sparks, we might recognize it as wonder. We might pause and notice home wasn’t so far away as we once felt like it was. That we weren’t quite so lost as we thought we might be. We might even find courage to utilize the language of trust once again, the actions of vulnerable love that once may have been used against us so powerfully but only because we didn’t notice it was our own, our sacred ground. We didn’t know yet that these roads are all-at-once very particular to us and simultaneously so very very common to every single soul alive.

We feel alone. But maybe that’s what darkness and storm and fog are for? Just like the way when I was standing in a vast open sunny field and an airplane flew overhead and I was suddenly in a massive shadow, I finally understood shadow is always telling the story of light.

Maybe all of these things are like an x on a map, something to take not only comfort but excitement in… to remember trust in and to give us sight that home must be near, we’re traveling our road.

So, this is me, remembering too and encouraging us all to take courage and notice when our breath catches and not to assume at first it’s just another strangle-hold in life… it might… it could be… miracle. It might could be the very interior of our soul recognizing what our past experiences have blinded us to for a minute… we belong here, together.

 

There is a language and way of life that surrounded the trusts we gave. Those old words we used to know, and the art of them are still important, they still belong here, they are needed here. Your heart, willing to take risks and willing to question the rut of old tired stories in your head, is needed here.

 

You’re not alone, I’m not alone, and the remembrance is available out in the stratospheres of our lives when planes and other heavy things fly over and leave us in massive shadow. There is something, there are somethings, sooo good and so beyond all the pain we’ve known. Far and away from the heart ache — shadowy, stormy, foggy landscapes are whispering the secrets we know by heart, every. single. day.

 

I was behind the wheel

And I didn’t even know
Curving around and around
Until I felt dizzy
Then something extraordinary happened
Something I knew by heart
At first it felt strange and unfamiliar
Then there was a whisper
I’d been here before
Fallen asleep here before
Thought I was just being smothered
And losing all breath before
Then I remembered
To listen to the whisper

 

“Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you can not bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are beyond that pain.”
—Kahlil Gibran

Love,

Raynna

I want to say thank you to each of you who sent love, congratulated me on my latest book, shared the news, and/or purchased a copy of The Love Writings! It has all meant a great deal to me. Hearing from those of you who have already begun reading or finishing…Wow!

The best way I know to say even a fraction of what this has meant to me is to tell you that in writing The Love Writings I was on a journey of learning out loud. When you get to the end of my book you’ll find what I found was a recognition of just beginning my trek in the vast landscape of love. It was where I learned to forgive myself. This gave me a foundation, a place to land, to be planted in and launch out from.

Every purchase and kind word you all have sent to me feels like water and plant food and nourishment to keep growing. I am! And I thank you each so so much for being a huge part of this stretch of my life.

If you’d like a more intimate opportunity to discuss the writings and grow together, click the box below to sign up for more info on my upcoming book club (held via zoom)… Hope to see you there!