Containing a Tide

Change is inevitable.

Just saying those three words is enough to shift anyone from their stance and core. But that it existential reality. If you exist, you will not only experience change; you are change. Many people don't realize that they are the very thing they fear.

I won't detail how many times my life has dramatically swirled so that I'm on the ground feeling like I have to start over again. But that's the best way to forge a blade. Break down particles in the heat of desire, mold it to your will. Cool things down; inspect your progress. Break it down again. Keep molding. Keep cooling. Feed the flames with the bellows of hope.

This is tedious work. But this work of building, breaking down, and rebuilding is the work of Nature, and the work of us all, the work that is us all. It is our death and rebirth as humans, as beings of life and Spirit.

If I could keep just one of my tools of the forge, it would be to retain the consciousness that is held in my breath. I can lose desire, I can lose faith, I can lose integrity. But I will always strive to hold conscious breathe, because not too long afterwards, all those aforementioned will be mine again. I can lose my sense of self, my identity. But if I can hold onto this moment in space for just a little bit longer, I know I have made a monumental breakthrough which can not only help me but help all existence. A big responsibility held in each of us, in all our actuality that is us, I know. But that is our Great Work. Again: change is inevitable, that is reality, and if you exist, you are a thread upon that web of change. Your breath is both the silk that holds the web together and the spaces in between.


So breathe. Stop and just breathe. Amidst the chaos of your mind, breathe. Amidst the injustice in the human world, breathe. Amidst the battle your demons, breathe. Amidst what feels like a losing fight between you and your fears, breathe. Even if it hurts, and it might hurt. Breathe.

We must have hope if we are to rebuild ourselves as human beings capable of empathy and integrity and connectivity with all things in our existence. We must hold our hard-working hands to our chests and feel the pulsation of life under our tissues, and remember that all things around us are beating with the fires of life, tied to the same web of change that is us.

We must embrace this very moment. And it can start with a single intake of a breath.