On Belonging.
From the moment we take breath, our bodies know when to breathe and our hearts know when to beat, no one teaches us the simple wisdom of being alive.
We live, just as a million others have lived, through the fall and steady rise of seasons. The same moon waxes and wanes; the same sun rises and falls and the same constellations cast their sweeping nets across the night. Over every nation and every time. And over every spark of life.
There is a centre, a universal rhythm to things.
It’s not until we relinquish this idea that we are different or apart, that we are special or don’t belong, that we can re-member and reclaim our sacred birthright in the Great Cycle. That we can surrender to the mystery of how those same, wise rhythms transform us – in both the inner and outer worlds.
We can stare up at the sky and know that we are alive. We can swim in a swelling ocean and know its waves have kissed every shore, and in every age. We can find our own soul in the fleeting glance of a stranger, or the eyes of a fellow creature; hear the soul in the brush of leaves in the woods, or connect to the new and trusting being of a child, hand held safely in our own. And each transforming sunset, and every changing season reminds us that with and without us – it will all go on. The precious moment is now. Each joy and trouble is fleeting.
There is a freedom to honouring our fleeting place in it all. And a sober responsibility too, that the indigenous peoples have always understood – that everything in life is deeply connected.
And at the same time, when we find that Centre, we can experience our own. That we are whole in and of ourselves, that our eyes and breath, and soul, are the songs of a whole planet. Nothing is lost. And there, in the connection to our own heartbeat we can find a stride that matches the heartbeat of the World, and in that stride find the gentle, embodied power of our own significance. This is the power of the Feminine. Where light and dark, sorrow and joy, life and death are contained in the ancient embrace of The Mother, where her children might grow.
Every voice tells us to forget that we belong – here, and to one another, you and me. Instead we name differences, we demand perfection, we are blinded by all that separates and creates divides. We are told that we must fight and conquer, to earn our place in a world we already call Home. Have letters or titles after our name to be heard, respected. That we must be unblemished, untouched by life, perfect to be loved, *seen* – when all it takes is to catch another’s eye to see the part of us that is here, learning, struggling, *being*; and that is eternal. All part of a grand web of life in a unique world, in a universe that is itself, a miracle.
It is the soul that remembers the perfect unity of our life here, together. Love that crosses distance and heals the divide, in ourselves and with one another; humility that reminds us each day that we participate in a short moment called Life.
We’ve built entire civilisations to compensate for this loss, this disconnect – but if we are quiet, we will still hear it. For each day our heart and our souls commune with this Great Mystery. For they are the very impulse of Life itself.
~ Rachel Alana (R.A Falconer)
Midwives of the Soul ❤
art | Bertha Wegmann, Pine Forest in Tirol (1890)
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