Love Note: The Other Side

Dear Ones-

What today’s poem lacks in length (as if lengthy is necessarily better) it makes up for in depth.  Mexican poet and Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz offers a message that is relevant today, similar to some we’ve heard before and worthy of our attention again.  

The difficulties of this pandemic can be as the face of night – dark, unknown, fearful, the bringer of endings.  The face of our days are also fraught with challenge as our awake selves are conscious of restrictions and monotony at best, suffering and death at worst.  Throughout these hard truths there are also inspirations and transformations interwoven.  We are called to be truly awake, to be fully here, to recognize them through the lifeblood of grace that unceasingly pulses in our veins despite our distracted nature.

There will be the other side of this night, even if it fails to mirror the side from whence we’ve come.  A new side awaits that in and of itself, because of its current unknown-ness, can also feel night-like.  And yet we’re called to be awake, because it is through our awakeness that we may truly experience the graces and gifts that this period of slow-down offers; one such gift, a big one, is living deeply into our shared humanity.

There are gifts that await us.  Unexpected and not necessarily made-to-order.  But perhaps the best kind…those that the deepest part of us desires.

Love to each of you,
Lori

Sandstone (excerpt)

door of being, dawn and wake me,
allow me to see the face of this day,
allow me to see the face of this night,
all communicates, all is transformed,
arch of blood, bridge of the pulse,
take me to the other side of this night,
where I am you, we are us,
the kingdom where pronouns are intertwined,

door of being: open your being
and wake, learn to be ….

~ Octavio Paz ~