It is more important now than ever to seek out what you love and love it hard. Every moment it has been more important than ever. Because we do not have forever and what we love – it is going away.
Like many of you, I am in a state of deep and painful awareness of the changes we will see in my lifetime, changes to things that I once thought were impervious to change. But I have to also accept that nothing has ever been permanent; that in fact I was always going to have to say goodbye to people, and places, and things, and hopes. Mortality kicks you where it hurts.
And there is little comfort there…except for this – This is the time to take in the world. THIS is the time to revel in the pleasure available to you. Use your body as it can be used, now. See what there is to see, smell it, taste it, experience it. This fortifies you for the big picture and motivates you to protect and strengthen what you can.
Don’t do this from a place of desperate hoarding, but from a place of deep honoring. This love and pleasure is time well spent in a world worthy of our attention. Get up, go love!
This morning
even the ocean seemed hushed in reverence
at the incredible softness of the lightening sky,
pink flush touching ocean’s face,
gently, gently waking.
This is the morning
I wake to a calling
to leave my warm bed in the darkness
and join the day
as though it is my last chance.
Because what if I hadn’t seen
the small black dolphins weaving themselves
into the surface of the sea?
What if I hadn’t seen the hummingbird resting;
how bright its red throat?
What if I hadn’t heard the birds clapping
their wings on the dancefloor of water?
What if I hadn’t burst with tears of gratitude?
This is the morning
that I know I am saying goodbye
to everything I have ever loved.
This is the morning
my life is a gift, and I am here now
my participation an offering.
This is the morning.
This is the mourning.
This is the morning.
- Melissa Jebian Fritchle (Esalen, 2019)