In loving ourselves, we love the world. For just as fire, rock, and water are all made up of molecules, everything, including you and me, is connected by a small piece of the beginning. Yet, how do we love ourselves? It is as difficult at times as seeing the back of your head. It can be as elusive as it is necessary. I have tried and tripped many times. And I can only say that loving yourself is like feeding a clear bird that no one else can see. You must be still and offer your palmful of secrets like delicate seed. As she eats your secrets, no longer secret, she glows and you lighten, and her voice, which only you can hear, is your voice bereft of plans. And the light through her body will bathe you till you wonder why the gems in your palm were ever fisted. Others will think you crazed to wait on something no one sees. But the clear bird only wants to feed and fly and sing. She only wants light in her belly. And once in a great while, if someone loves you enough, they might see her rise from the nest beneath your fear. In this way, I've learned that loving yourself requires a courage unlike any other. It requires us to believe in and stay loyal to something no one else can see that keeps us in the world—our own self-worth. All the great moments of conception—the birth of mountains, of trees, of fish, of prophets, and the truth of relationships that last—all begin where no one can see, and it is our job not to extinguish what is so beautifully begun. For once full of light, everything is safely on its way—not pain-free, but unencumbered—and the air beneath your wings is the same air that trills in my throat, and the empty benches in snow are as much a part of us as the empty figures who slouch on them in spring. When we believe in what no one else can see, we find we are each other. And all moments of living, no matter how difficult, come back into some central point where self and world are one, where light pours in and out at once. And once there, I realize—make real before me—that this moment, whatever it might be, is a fine moment to live and a fine moment to die.
I've learned that loving yourself requires a courage unlike any other. It requires us to believe in and stay loyal to something no one else can see that keeps us in the world – our own self-worth.
This is a beautiful and breathtaking moment that fills the sky with vibrant colors, as the sun rises above the horizon.
Practice, Why we recite, do, memorize, return to over and over again. This Breath. This moment. Over and Over Sometimes it feels mechanical. And sometimes it brings up its opposite. And you just keep working with it. In the Jewish mystical tradition, there’s a story of a great rabbi who taught his disciples to memorize, reflect, contemplate, and place the teachings of the holy words of the Torah (Jewish bible) ON their heart. One day a student asked the rabbi why he always used the phrase “on your heart.†The master replied, “Only something greater than yourself can put the teachings in your heart. Here we recite and learn and put them on the heart, hoping that someday when your heart breaks, they will fall in.†So we do this practice both to release ourself from the past, and also to allow the heart finally to break open and to renew the original goodness.
The best chance to be whole is to love whatever gets in the way until it ceases to be an obstacle.
Like light in the sun spilling out of the sun, the spirit within beams its way through all our cracks till our most treasured walls come down. The coming down of those walls is the blessing we crave and resist. The coming down of those walls- so the light of the soul like the light of the sun can help the world grow- this is the call of calls.
We waste so much energy trying to cover up who we are when beneath every attitude is the want to be loved, and beneath every anger is a wound to be healed and beneath every sadness is the fear that there will not be enough time. When we hesitate in being direct, we unknowingly slip something on, some added layer of protection that keeps us from feeling the world, and often that thin covering is the beginning of a loneliness which, if not put down, diminishes our chances of joy. It's like wearing gloves every time we touch something, and then, forgetting we chose to put them on, we complain that nothing feels quite real. Our challenge each day is not to get dressed to face the world but to unglove ourselves so that the doorknob feels cold and the car handle feels wet and the kiss goodbye feels like the lips of another being, soft and unrepeatable.