Love is space. — angel Kyodo williams
Hello love,
First things first - take a deep breath in. Open the mouth, let it go.
Again - Inhale to fill the belly. Exhale to empty.
Once more - Inhale, the chest lifts. Exhale, the chest falls.
Yes, that’s it. You are here. You are breathing. You are doing beautifully.
Welcome to our November dear.
Last month I wrote about the Fall season as one of activity, but I was remiss in understanding what the central activity of autumn is. I focused mostly on general doing, oh all the doing, and was rewarded with a symptom episode (I manage chronic Lyme disease). Then my teacher Cath gave me a seed of insight in our 40 Early Mornings program and I understood: Falls’ activity is not adding on but letting go.
The proof is everywhere. Follow the flowers and the trees. Seeds and leaves are scattered to the ground. We can shed what is no longer serving us to make room for what does.
What is it you seek to let go of these days?
Perhaps attachment to a certain election outcome?
Maybe old beliefs and stories that no longer serve who you are trying to become?
An old sweater the moths have reclaimed?
Expectations? Control? Expired nail polish? (Does nail polish expire?!)
I come to this Love Letter today with mostly questions and scattered thoughts. It’s intention is an investigation, rather academic of late, into Love as an act of personal and global healing. I have five different topics for this month scrawled in my journal. Each seems more important than the last: FREEDOM! CHOICE! DEATH!
But I let go. I let go of all those intentions, words, ideas. I let go of what I want to say.
Instead, I make space for what you need to hear.
I embrace that in our shared humanness, today we need to hear the same thing.
In the face of the most divided country since the Civil War and on the precipice of my lifetime’s most contentious, important election, I give you our friend Mary to remind you (again) that NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS: YOU STILL BELONG. YOU ALWAYS HAVE. YOU ALWAYS WILL.
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile, the world goes on.
Meanwhile, the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
You and I may disagree. You and I may vote for different candidates. You and I may live worlds apart in conflicting realities.
It doesn’t matter in the end.
You still belong. I belong too.
As long as the dirt you walk on is also brown, as long as gravity remains a universal constant, as long as death follows you too, we belong here. We belong together.
A Gift For You
Each month I release a new yoga offering for you to consider trying as an act of self love. My hope is to provide some nourishment and support as you experience whatever you’re experiencing. This month you’re in for a real treat.
My soul sister, fellow writer, and yogi colleague Donna Borak didn’t let COVID stop her from putting generous, supportive work out into the world. Instead, she created her own digital yoga studio, Still + Free!
She and our fellow yoga teachers Sonia and Ssanyu teach weekly yoga and meditation classes to nourish the mind, body and soul.
Need some chill these days? Love & Friends subscribers can use the coupon code LOVE30 at checkout to get 30% off their 3 class packages:
Three-class yoga pack
Five-class yoga pack
Five-pack meditation classes
Don’t delay: Offer expires on Saturday, Nov. 7!
Questions? Reach out to Donna at hello@stillandfree.com.
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What’s more: there’s a small library of free meditation recordings by yours truly available to you anytime!
Loving Lately
It’s my personal task and commitment to this community to love daily. That means concrete actions intended to nurture my soul. Another’s soul. These days, I’ve been loving through writing. And not just any writing. Poetry.
I believe poetry is medicine. Like all things that heal, it touches a deep place, contains magic that cannot be explained, connects us to ourselves and one another.
In service of this month’s theme of letting go: I let go of the fear of putting my work out into the world. I let go of perfection. I let go of judgment.
I give you, oh wonderful community of family and friends, my first published work.
My first poetry collection, Alias All, is ready for your eyes.
I wrote it while watching Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace on Netflix in one of my inspired frenzies I like to call The Flash.
It centers themes like birth, death, truth, and gender roles still relevant today.
Please enjoy this creation from my heart to yours. As always, I would love to hear what you think.
(I found the cover image in a Johns Hopkins Magazine article titled “The Invisible Women”, a stunning and frustrating summary of the growing (unknown) number of incarcerated women giving birth behind bars and the good work being done in the name of reproductive justice. (If you have limited time, choose this read instead)).
Thank you for your time, your energy, and for being you.
Don’t be afraid. You are never alone in the family of things.
In love and letting go,
Colby
P.S. Enjoy this post and all the goods you get for reading? Please consider sharing it with someone who may enjoy it too!