excessively gentle

It is quite the week, again.  Full in so many ways, none of them bad, but all together, a lot.  I am close to overwhelm and, if it’s possible to be a tiny bit overwhelmed—though this seems a word, a condition that is either/or, very big or not at all—I am, a tiny bit.  But (a tiny bit) overwhelmed with an underpinning of peace.  Again and again, I pause, try to make thoughtful choices about what I’m doing in any given moment.  I juggle multiple projects, tuck my loved ones into the mix, try to fold into myself as well.  It's not easy, this juggling and tucking and folding.  Somehow, I manage.  Somehow, I arrive at the end of this week, feathers extending, floating on the wind.

As part of a freelance writing job I’ve taken on, I learn to use new-to-me apps that record, transcribe, connect.  I work with a beautiful team.  It’s new and stimulating, and (a tiny bit) overwhelming. There is juggling, there is love (yes, in this work there is love), there is a folding into, a trusting in.

Midweek, I gather online with a few lovely women to write, and to rest.  At the last minute, a few registered participants can’t make it so we end up being a cozy group of five.  It’s perfect and as it needs to be.  The women share and write, and trust me when it’s time to rest—without words or music, with only themselves—until the chiming of bells brings us back together.  As it needs to be.  I share a poem by John O’Donohue, For One Who is Exhausted.  I think it strikes a chord for each of them, perhaps in different ways but, yes, a chord, a note.  They are a song.  And, two days later, my heart is singing.

Our succulent, Swordtail, has grown a stem, a tendril, an arm that reaches out and up.  At the end of this stem are little, white flowers.  What a surprise to notice this stem growing, how enchanting to discover flowers.  What a delight, during this very full week, on the tail of two previously very full weeks, to be reminded of the beauty in stretching oneself beyond the known experience, the known expression.  Spiky Swordtail is graceful and not-just-spiky.  I, too, am not always what I appear to be.

Each day, I endeavor to be gentle with myself, excessively so. 
I fold in, I trust, I love, I learn, I reach, I (begin to) blossom.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.
~ John O'Donohue ~