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gratitude to Ellie Stone for this photo of rock formation in Nevada  When the heart is pierced by loss, don’t be so quick to look for your strength in a shield. Allow the grief to have you. Go deeper than need. Meet the yearning. Down here, in a land of no half measures you may feel you’re entirely broken, without any power except to simply be present and breathe. Sometimes the heart opens so far that when it falls there’s nothing to save it from the dark embrace. Surrender here is no longer a maneuver, something to achieve or avoid, but an inescapable reality. You don’t get to set the pace. It takes just as long as it takes. Some imagine this overwhelm of all the heart’s defenses, a failure, to be avoided at all costs. But have you tried it, really? When nothing in you wants to avoid this, run from this, there’s peace to be found that doesn’t depend on absence of turmoil, freedom that doesn’t depend on flight. So bow to the door that shuts in your face, the hand that pries away your grasp. Some of us need to be refused our total desire before we’ll drop all the way through the bottom to the groundless source of our love. Here we learn the song that can never be understood by a heart that shies away from pain or seeks control. Entitled to nothing, graced by everything. Living into this, we live into this. Entitled to nothing, graced by everything. Living into this, we live into this. ~~Luke Anderson |