On Renewal

I go Away.

I find the loud parts of me that are exhausted from the waking and rising and caring for myself and others.

A voice that feels unheard.

Tap tap, tap, I touch my mouth “is this thing on?”

I notice that I have lost my breath.

I’m contracted and have to force the breath into these parts of me that feel so terribly unlovable.

I try to push the breath into those parts of me that are starving and thirsty for simple acceptance.

At first I address these lesser parts and scold them “you are no good”, “just go away already”.

But in renewal these parts quietly reply “please change your position, please love us, please soften.”

In renewal I have found a way to show up again.

With a receptive body, my organs open up and say yes.

In renewal I lose the judgment of you should be any other way than you actually are.

And I claim the same right for myself.

Suddenly I can hear the birds and the sweet song they sing through the morning rain.

To renew is to find fresh sight, to remove the scales from my eyes, and see again how vulnerable you and I really are.

To not be lost and sold into the slavery of the mundane but the ability to scratch the surface dirt away from a simple moment to see its glowing, shiny, truth.

To hear the nuanced way her voice expresses something or the tone of his masculine exhale as though for the first time. Each sound touching me revealing a gift.

Renewal is to remember to inhabit the fullness of my human costume. To let my wings fully expand.

Renewal is to forgive that which has become strained and dusty and agree to start again, with them and myself.

Renewal is to find the parts of me that hurt, and hold them tenderly, in the way only I can.

My breath has found its way into my feet and my footsteps lead me into a rainy morning (re)membering myself to myself.

The rain pours down and brings future life to the sprouting spring.

Renewal brings space to my heart, not to change it, but a grand offering of total acceptance of it.