"Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."
-Abraham Lincoln
What are you building? It's a question I've asked here many times, and it shapeshifts, serpentine- gaping wide in fear, and a holy, healing, ladder in confidence and honesty.
In the race to become faster, more responsive, more seen, smarter, loved deeper by more, much becomes lost. Lost is the loneliest word in the world, is it not?
I've been moving with the seasons, the creatures, and the life-death-life cycle for many years; this slowing-down quarter seduces me to stop and self-reflect, to be a dormant seed in the cold Earth, rather than birth, birth, birth, without rest.
I awoke several nights ago with an aching in my bone marrow, I've never felt anything like it. I could feel it at the center of my being, and I listened carefully for it's name.
There is medicine that is made privately, insights which do not require sharing, and grounding energies found in solitude and silence. I'm finding that I'm enjoying my forties in a way I couldn't have imagined, and I believe it has everything to do with what is kept close, and sacred, what can never be gauged by measurable results or expressed in language.
Wishing you a deep and graceful satisfaction when you're alone with the ache of what is true. Nothing else will do, you know.
