Stone of Silence

I come from a world that was once broken. Like a ray of sunlight pulsing her way through tree branches, I am finding my way home. 

I pray that it will all flow through me – let it flow through me. My purpose. 

Today I hold in the palm of my hand a small green stone. Deep-blue, like the bottom of the sea, your eyes and mine, green like a mountain top. Within it, a whole world is still and unbroken. Chrysocolla. A stone so gentle – its quietness astounds me. I carry it with me, close.

*

Befriend the darkest parts of yourself like welcomed visitors. The sadness that perched up at the foot of your door; the loneliness and fear that arrive unexpectedly. 

Remain so present, so acutely aware that you feel the aliveness of it all. 

There’s an unspoken gift in the shadows, a certain song that can only be heard through pain. A message of such value that our discomfort brings. 

I pray that you allow this numbness to melt away, ice to water. And feel. Feel whatever it is that you must. 

Perhaps an anger so visceral that was silently stuck to your bones; an anger for the hurt, the betrayals, your giving and giving to them that left you dry like a fish. 

Perhaps it’s a pain that you never allowed yourself to feel – weak, unnecessary, you thought. Feel it now. Look at your strength for reaching this place of complete awake-ness. 

Or perhaps it’s a sadness so real that you chased and hid and stuck away within you. 

Whatever it is, feel it now. Allow it. Welcome it like a long lost friend. You are no longer alone for you have found this place where you belong, me and you. 

Truth is, I have always been terrified of the darkness in me – standing on the threshold, feet on the edge of the ocean, too frightened to step in – what if i drown. But the voice inside me told me – surrender to your darkness. Surrender to the pain, the inadequacy. Become a servant to the part within that you have rejected for so long and welcome them. Make space. Hold space. 

And so allow others to love the ugly parts, the loud ones, the imperfect indentations of your skin, or your mind, the part of you that is heavy, unsteady, unguarded. 

Allow them to love you all and love them back, guard their darkness like a sacred gift and grow together into a shared quietness. 

Day by day, you are building your world. 

*

I squeeze this small stone of silence in my palm, its coldness is real. There is not much of the old left, I feel. 

I hold in my palm a promise of new beginnings.