i’m trying something new today, inspired by my friend meg’s beautiful new site. i love meg’s stories, how she crafts and nurtures them, but what i love especially is hearing her tell them, in her own voice. i highly encourage you to take the time to explore her new space and offerings. she, and her work, are wonderful.

i often leave myself voice memos during the day with my iphone, because usually when the words come is not when i am available to write them. last thursday, i left myself one of these memos as my day unfolded. this time though, instead of writing it all down a few days later, like i usually do, i re-recorded my stream of thoughts into an audio file. i am sharing it here with you, perhaps because i still long for new ways to see and hear one another. because i am focused currently on home and family and don’t always know how to bridge the greater themes from here. because maybe i haven’t been able to write the waves that crash in my psyche and in my gut. and because, meg inspired me.

and, with that, click the link below to hear my voice, in one take, sharing freestyle about an epic ordinary day.

epic ordinary day

note: audio will play immediately, so put on those headphones!

i didn’t think it was possible to love them more, to rise each day in service to this love.
i didn’t think i could give willingly, without restlessness. freely, without depletion.

when i didn’t believe myself worthy of figs and the blue moon, there was only sacrifice and doing.
now there is undoing.

what was an experiment in intuition, in claiming toward believing, is now a living resolution.
there is time for breathing in my every day.
there is time to notice the dying moth on the windowsill, and to step back and appreciate a circle of community.

i understand the cultivators and the gardeners now. i understand the holy gasp of a ripe plum.
i understand the chemistry of our intentions meeting our circumstances.
i understand the importance of seasoning.

i also understand how delicate it is, this moment before the dew dries.
even the parts that still twist, rise up, and reinvent the day that i expected.
the tired, the timed, the strained, and the doubting–these too i offer reverence.
there is space now for all of me, mine, ours.

gently submit to it,
passionately embrace
all of it,
wickedly revel in it,
quietly explore new
parts of it, laughingly see joy in it;

with all of you,
be in it,
this gift,

this, your life.

~from the gift of it, by my beautiful friend leonie wise

i feel disarmed, wound, unsteady. maybe it is the longer shadows, the back to school, the slightly more caffeinated half-caff. there is that haze in the head, that overwhelm at nothing in particular, that urgency for the intangible.

i don’t know why this comes. nor why, when it does, that i feel compelled to resist it. why is it that when my body begs for sensory respite, my first thoughts are of all the ways to complicate my day? my mind invents ways to busy, creates lists of things that must be done.

it is a curious thing to unravel the habit of avoiding what is most wanted. what is most needed.
it is even more curious that the ideal of responsibility has somehow become synonymous with self-denial.

it is clear that i need more of this today: quiet. nature. nourishment.
sometimes the well empties quickly and needs to be refilled just as quickly.
again with the no apology. again with the remembering. again with the listening. again with the knowing.

As you become conscious of the different parts of your personality, you become able to experience consciously the forces within you that compete for expression, that lay claim to the single intention that will be yours at each moment, that will shape your reality. When you enter these dynamics consciously, you create for yourself the ability to choose consciously among the forces within you, to choose where and how you will focus your energy. ~Gary Zukav

i am owning this life, this body, as subtly it changes, sinks and settles.

i do not apologize for the view, the invitations, the sweet pleasure of time.

i know that i am here to help you with the same. to offer legitimacy to what is longed for. to witness what is already there. to know beauty as a birthright.

i remember what it felt like to be free.
and my soul’s purpose is to find the doorways back in–for all of us.

may you never doubt the gifts you bring ~john o’donohue