Lifelines

Well, isn't life funny? You write the blog post that will either a) go viral or b) bring the proverbial wrath of God down on you with its attendant lightning strikes, but nothing happens. A small handful of people have read "A Dedication" at this writing. It was very important to me and I absolutely had to write it, but it has left me somewhat emotional and off-kilter. Essentially, I'm happy, perhaps as anyone would be who tells the world some essential truth about their being. It's a relief to achieve alignment, but it unleashes a lot of stuff. The tsunamis are still pouring over me, but I think they are diminishing.

Yes, the goddess has been my lifeline through this process, and episodes of Time Team.  Somehow, incredibly, they must be connected. Also, a friend shared a lifeline in the form of a remarkable poem, John O'Donohue's "For One Who is Exhausted, A Blessing":

...The tide you never valued has gone out

And you are marooned on unsure ground...

You have traveled too fast over false ground;

Now your soul has come to take you back...

Bless him. The tide I never valued, indeed.

How do you prepare for your soul to take you back? If it's humanly possible, pull your boat out of the water onto a safe beach, face the waves of pain, let that tide go out, and then start to say something true every day. Do something you love every day. Accept the gift of a poem or a song or a good deed or a meal every day, or give one away. Find beauty in something, anything that is beautiful to you. For once, don't measure it to what other people value. Truth, love, gifts, beauty. Coming in, going out. I will settle for no less than this from now on. When the tsunamis settle down and I brush myself off and get ready to re-launch my boat, my lifeline (my navigational chart) will be my truth, my gifts, what I love, and what I find beautiful. My soul is only present in their presence, and I'm not leaving her behind again.