Hi beloveds, I hope everyone is holding up as the U.S.of A. continues to fall apart. In my free time this last week and change, I have been lasered in on writing, especially focused on writing my novel. A couple days ago, I started to feel weighed down in this practice, like the flow just wasn’t coming and clarity was nowhere to be found. I wrote the piece I’m sharing with you today to connect with the parts of me that feel afraid, blocked, like they’re at a loss, surrounded by total darkness. As I wrote this and as I’ve been allowing myself to slow down a bit, I’ve realized that while these vulnerable feelings came to my attention in relationship to my creative writing practice, it’s the same vulnerability that’s touched by other domains and forces too — like the harrowing realities of the current political climate in the U.S. or the devastating facts of violence and abuse of power in our society + the buried histories that are their tails asking to be faced. So, here’s a love letter to the one standing in the dark… whatever darkness we may find ourselves in.
To the one standing in the dark,
You thought it was so dark that you could go unnoticed, that the lines of your body might even cease to exist and you could just… disappear. You thought since the weight of the darkness felt so heavy, felt like it might just take you completely, why not just let it all go, surrender to it, become it, so that you too are just darkness, swallowing up everything else that is? At least then you’re winning at something, right?
But I see you there, on the brink of forgetting yourself. I am here to remind you: No matter how dark the night, you are a safe person for your dreams. There is nothing in all of eternity that can snuff out your dreams if you simply refuse to let them be snuffed.
Your dreams are not rules. Your dreams are not conditions for thriving. Your dreams are not shackles or carvings in stone. Your dreams are those things that create light inside of you, that stitch wings onto your heart and allow it to fly.
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