Inspiration
I am Making a Home Inside Myself
by Julia Fehrenbacher
“I am making a home inside myself.
A shelter of kindness where everything is forgiven, everything allowed-a quiet
patch of sunlight to stretch out without hurry,
where all that has been banished and buried is welcomed, spoken, listened to-released
A fiercely friendly place I can claim as my very own.
I am throwing arms open to the whole of myself-especially the fearful, fault-finding
falling apart, unfinished parts, knowing
every seed and weed, every drop of rain, has made the soil richer.
I will light a candle, pour a hot cup of tea, gather
around the warmth of my own blazing fire. I will howl
if I want to, knowing this flame can burn through
any perceived problem, any prescribed perfectionism,
any lying limitation, every heavy thing.
I am making a home inside myself
where grace blooms in grand and glorious
abundance, a shelter of kindness that grows
all the truest things.”
“The living truth is not a belief or an idea. In fact it doesn’t arise in the mind. Before thought, there is a direct experience that is reliable, intimate and immediate. When truly present in the moment before the mind starts comparing and labeling, we are already moved to our core. We all long to reconnect more frequently with this intimacy.”
— Russell Delman
“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep;
You must ask for what you really want,
Don’t go back to sleep;
People are moving across the door sill
Where the two worlds meet,
The door is round and open
Don’t go back to sleep.”
— Rumi
“Within one complete breath we can experience all the cycles of life. Out of vast, open space comes an inhale - we are born into this moment, this life; At the top of the inhale there can be a brief pause - like standing at the top of a mountain peak - full of life, we feel the uniqueness of this precious moment: Letting go of this particular expression of the living truth, we exhale into the bitter-sweetness of our passing life; in the pause after the exhale, we enter vast, open space before the arising of a new world.”
- Russell Delman
When I use the word love, I refer to a basic warmth - an openness toward the moment. This opening to life is a fundamental ‘YES’. It does not mean that we ‘like’ the situation. It means that we are willing to encounter our life, as expressed in the forms of this particular moment, as directly and innocently as possible. Within this ‘Yes’ there exists the capacity to say ‘no’. This ‘Yes’ is beyond ‘yes’ and ‘no’.