Two friends send me links to recordings, sound baths.  I listen when the kids have gone to the hardware store for the bench they’re building, I listen when they’re off on their own.  I sink into the sound, I sink into the moment, I release all doing, I breathe.  What if it’s as simple as breathing?  Breathing in love, compassion, joy, peace, gratitude, breathing in sound.  Breathing in All and Everything, into every cell of our body, into every muscle, every fiber, every bone ligament tendon organ system.  Taking it in, then releasing, understanding that releasing makes room for receiving.  What if it’s that simple? 

I do the usual… cooking, some cleaning, walking the pup, hugging my people, teaching yoga, writing, editing, emailing, texting, making a few photographs, cutting pasting collaging, listening, laughing, sleeping, reading, breathing.  All of that.  It’s no small matter to do all of that.  And yet…

So many people want me to believe that there’s more I should be doing and that their way is the best way.  But I can only do what fits into my day, what I choose to make fit, allow to fit.  I can only do that and no more, can only do Life in the way that suits me, my heart.  This is something else to add to my list of usuals: this way of being, this practice of awareness and attention, this practice of living in a way that suits and supports and nourishes (me).  And it is a practice (and I need the practice); I forget, go down rabbit holes, succumb to outside expectations.  And then…

Something catches my heart.  The swirling steam from my tea, the afternoon shadows falling across the floor, my son’s sneeze, a line of poetry, a conversation, a kind email.  Something draws me in and back, something reminds me to release all that I’m holding just a little too tightly.  I release.  And then I receive.  Grace falls over me and, when I close my eyes, I see this grace as a sprinkling of light, feel this grace as something warm that envelopes me, holds me, tells me it’s okay to move in a different way, is okay to have my own way of doing and being.  This grace, this something that has caught my heart, reminds me that it’s really and truly simple: breathe, and breathe again, breathe in this world that is both big and small, breathe in fresh air, breathe in sound, breathe in poetry, breathe in kindness.  Receive.  Release.

Grace (life and love and breath and being) will come back a hundred fold.
Dare to love yourself as if you were a rainbow with gold at both ends.
~ Aberjhani ~

P.S. I'm offering a FREE 5-day journaling series during the months of January and February. No resolutions to set, just the opportunity to pause, to reflect, to release, to call in. Details and registration are right here.