What is

Sometimes to be with what is, it is painful.

We can't all be desired all the time, chosen every time, visible all the time, a part of every tribe, a consideration.

We can't know rejection, if we receive apologies, acceptance and an invitation to return with open arms.

We live in a culture that accepts pleasure, but hasn't found a way to be with the painful. We are subject to pain because we are born. We breathe in. We breathe out. We meet, we depart. The meeting and the departing are both important.

The way to be with pain is acceptance, to be with what is,
not to create more pain or the conditions for suffering,
there is enough already,
to be with what is.
Just this much, a centimeter at a time.

Today I am grateful to be alive, to walk outside on the earth this morning in the warmth of the March sun with the purple crocuses coming up through the leaves, to find the pussy willows along the side of the road, the fragrant daphne blooming in my front yard. Things happening three years ago, find space to be. The glacier melts. My limits get stretched thin because it sometimes takes a 2 x 4 over my head to be with things as they are, the subtle, or not-so-subtle messages before then, not heard, not accepted. 2 X 4, here I come. Wake up, avalanches of chunks fall off the glacier. Aware of the present moment, I know it is a wonderful moment. Making room for what is, Boom, Crash. Wake-up. Rolling in the river.