Breathing into me

Just past 5 am
I am watching the sun rise over the mountains and ocean.
It is warm on my face, this sun,
and the smell of the sea is rich and strong.
All around me is the song of many birds.

I am alone here.
No one walks the beach at this hour,
so I survey a shore line free from human interference
– except my own.

I say a prayer to Great Spirit; a prayer for my family – all of them.
I pray that one day we know love and peace and healing – together.
Even as the doubt rises within me
I know how strong the hand of Spirit is
and that all things are possible.

A man now walks the beach.
He faces East and raises his arms
as if to embrace the fire in the sky –
perhaps he did.

I love where I live.

It has been a hard time.
The pain of my family finally spoken;
truth shared and denied, anger erupting, tears released.
I love these people, all of them,
and I grieve even as my own anger rises –
rises because of the grief old and big.
I have never been comfortable with it,
have always known we deserve better,
have never been able to get to “better”.

I am releasing so many dreams and expectations,
allowing for the possibility of an unremarkable life.

It may be that I will never write that book,
live in the home with huge windows in the forest,
save my family.

When I feel the letting go there is sadness
but there is also more room for breath.
Perhaps I will only ever accomplish that…

Breathing into me.

Sustaining me.

Me being enough.

I have seen the fear in my family, all of us, fear I know so well.
The fear that drives us to clutch to what we know,
cling to it as though it will save us,
although it never has.

I realize that we have never feared things dying –
instead things living.
But we have mighty hearts and live anyways.

I listen to waves come to shore,
to angry crows claiming food,
to the gentle foot falls of a man walking on stones.

This life is full and beautiful –
as am I…

and that man DID embrace the Sun.

And I am breathing into me.