Nothing is entirely bad,
Or entirely good.

All we ever see
are the mind’s snapshots,
momentary glimpses
in a river of change,
filtered through our fears,
and hopes,
and assumptions..

Joy and suffering,
wanted and unwanted,
are part of a flow,
morphing and merging
as event follows event,
perception follows perception.

All we ever know
is that we are alive
and free to choose
in this moment,
free to look anew,
free to act.

In our direst dreams,
we descend into hell,
and in our sweetest,
we ascend to heaven.

But still,
as we dream,
buffeted by fear and hope,
we remain where we are,
not where imagination leads us,
but where dreams subside,
and we come to rest,
before hope,
and before fear.

As I sit,
empty,
I am what fills me.

I am the candle,
glowing in the dark,
I am the flickering flame,
I am the dancing shadow.

I am everywhere
and nowhere,
awareness
flowing
into what I see.

I am the seeer
and the seen,
and the space between.

Some of our wounds
become covered
with bandaids of distraction,
which shield,
but do not heal.

Until,
when inspiration and courage strike,
the bandage is ripped away,
exposing what is raw and tender
underneath.

The air stings,
and the light burns,
as the pain, exposed,
flows out,
and away.

It is that moment of violence
against our own defenses
which frees us,
so that time
can heal us.

Time
paints its portraits
on everything,
etching into every surface,
layer upon layer,
the jagged edges of each moment
bleeding one into another,
telling stories
of coming and going,
birth and decay,
being and change.

Gratitude
is how we acknowledge
the serendipity of our being here,
and that we continue,
moment by moment,
to recognize this gift,
this daily miracle,
this opportunity
to share what we are
and what we’ve been given.

Do not look back with regret
At what you haven’t done.

Look forward, instead,
At what moves you to action,
And let go of the rest.

Today we begin
our next trip
around the sun.

Part of our path
is laid out before us,
the momentum
of planets and particles,
people and plans.

All the rest is a cloud
of Brownian motion,
a million choices,
seen and unseen,
taken and not taken.

As we weave our way
through the web ahead,
may we see, all the while,
something in the distance
worth finding,
and, step by mindful step,
make our way towards it..

To be comfortable
with discomfort,
to be unafraid of fear,
to not be sad
about sadness
is to live in your own skin
without resistance,
allowing your life
to be the beautiful play
that it is.

Self-discovery
is discarding who we think we are,
who we think we ought to be,
and seeing what remains.

There is nothing to discover,
only an uncovering
of what was hidden.

And the one who sees all this
is who we always were,
always will be.