I see you, turning on the shower and standing under the hot spray, hoping that waterfall of sound is enough to muffle the signs of your tears from the children outside.

I see you, holding up the weight of the world and trying so very hard and knowing, in your bones, that it just won’t be enough to keep it all from crashing down.

I see you there; arms stretched in asana, the mantra of your heart beating steady onward – Stay true. Stay true. Stay true.

I see you, loving so good and strong. And losing it all anyway.

I see you, being judged and found wanting.

I see you looking at her. I see your naked desire. I see your relentless need.

I see you, flawed and humble and road weary and proud and still in spite of the deep ache, somehow sure you’ve done all you can.

I see all you feel but cannot speak. I see the way the words grow and swell, expanding your chest and pressing against the confines in your throat until they form the most unbearable pain, and the air around you so heavy with the weight of words unsaid.

I see the way your chest caves in and your shoulders curl around and your arms hold your knees so tight that you circle in upon yourself.

I see how in spite of this you are expanding, even though others wish you small and in spite of your own efforts to keep peace. I see that you are a wild thing, not meant for containment.

I see you setting that boundary. I see you marking that line and choosing a side and I see that steely resolve that means you have found your way back to yourself.

I see how you want and want and want. I see the unceasing swell of your desire. I see how you look in those spaces, small and large, where you begin to know that desire as holy.

I see you there, in the moment that last burning ember of hope died. I see your face then, the way it went blank for a moment and the pain that flashed in your eyes. And then I see you pull it back together, because there is laundry to do and children to care for and a family that needs you – and what else is there to do but continue?

I see how you always continue. How survival is in your bones. How thriving is what you were born for. How you were meant to rise.

I see you rising, you beautiful phoenix. I see your wise heart. I see your hot tears. I see your bruised knees. I see your prayers rising like poems around you in the cold night air.

I see you in your spiraling doubt and I see you weaving in and out of the shadows and the demons and the ghosts of those gone but not forgotten. I see you dancing there, and it is beautiful.

I see your knowing and your not wanting to know and I see the way every plea you make sounds like that one name you’ll never stop calling out in your sleep.

I see you on your good days and I see you on your bad days. And I see what lives there, just beneath your skin, on the days when you know for sure that very few pay close enough attention to tell the difference.

I see you, in your fierce insistence on living as true as you can, in spite of all the breaking.

I see you, by the light of so many candles and the unmistakable glow of grief. I see you folding and refolding that handwritten note that once held the promise of all things.

I see the way you live every breath as redemption.

I see you in your grace and in your grit and in the way they meet in the very center of things.

I see you there, searching for that just sad enough song song that will release all that is bottled inside. I see you let it go and I see you go to ground with the sobs that look as if they will break you into pieces.

I see you take that breath. And inhale again. And I see your resolve settle in your bones. I see you rise again, still broken, and somehow always whole.

I see you, beneath the surface. I see your untamable wild. I see your billowing heart. I see your unshed tears and your not yet dreams and your devotion to spirit. I see you howl at the moon and call the ocean home and ground to earth and grow taller than the trees.

I see you.

You are not alone. You are not invisible.

You are seen. You are seen. You are seen.

And my god, you are beautiful.

x0,

The post You are seen. You are seen. You are seen. appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

“Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don’t want it.  What appears bad manners, an ill temper or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen.  You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.”
~Miller Williams

We are all, at the heart of it, selfish assholes. And we are all, at the heart of it, good and decent people.

You have brought forth devastation and destruction.

You have been coldhearted and selfish and thrown some ugly sucker punches.

You’ve been the asshole, the heartbreaker, the one who spoke without thinking and who acted in spite of knowing better.

You’ve been thoughtlessly cruel to someone desperately in need of your mercy.

Your ego was bruised and you breathed some serious passive aggressive fire.

You’ve cheated. You’ve lied. You’ve played a callous game of wrecking ball roulette with tender hearts.

You carry the guilt of all of this buried deep in your soul. You could do a lifetime of penance, and never find deliverance. It’s a heavy weight, this hopelessly flawed humanity that is our birthright.

“Forgiveness is the release of all hope for a better past”
~Buddy Wakefield

But remember, you’ve also stayed up all night, wrapping body and heart and soul around a friend who was grieving the end of all things.

You’ve nursed the broken hearted and lifted up the beaten down.

You’ve laid down your heart and done epic battle to shield the ones you love.

You’ve answered the phone at 3am and been the voice in the darkness that stands between life and death.

You have been mother and warrior and protective goddess fire.

You’ve dried tears and bandaged wounds and packed magical picnic lunches and changed lives with the force of your love.

You’ve given and given and given and only let it fill you up.

You have sacred coursing through your bloodstream.  You are howl of grief and the charity of a saint.   You’ve got thief in your bones and courage just beneath the surface of your skin.   And on the days you don’t want to feel and the nights you can’t sleep, when all you can remember is the moments you have failed your own divinity, know this:

In every moment of every day, you are living the path to your own redemption.

None of us is the solely the best or worst of ourselves. We are all our kindest moments and our darkest hours. We are the deepest shame and the proudest accomplishment. Shadows can never exist without light.

Our higher selves and our shadow beings like to nestle together and do a bad ass bump and grind on the dance floor. It’s after hours at the club, and there’s a full on ecstatic rave going on in the center of the floor. It’s all heat and sweat and bounding bass. Bodies so intertwined you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.

There’s the good and the bad and the sex and the shame and the want and the guilt and the freedom and the chains – all right there in the sliver of spaces where skin presses against skin. This is what it is to live with the duality of our humanity. It’s sweaty and messy and hot. It’s pure and good and true. It’s the red-hot center of the paradox. It gets us into desperate trouble and it saves us, over and over and over again.

I have been selfish and ugly and weak and bold and brave and beautiful. I have had the audacity and the grace to follow the call of my own wild spirit, but only at the cost of the heart of another. I have been beautifully true and I have lived a ruthless lie out of nothing but cowardice. I have walked a million wrong paths only to fall into one of my greatest truths in middle of the weakest and darkest moments.

This is what it is to live, and to love and to stumble through this life, as inherently flawed as we are the embodiment of the divine.

The most difficult task of redemption is offering the depth of our kindness to the parts of ourselves we would rather hide from the light. To be as tender with our own flawed and frail hearts as we are with the hearts of our children. To seek our atonement from within, instead of the relentless futility of searching for it in others.

Our redemption can never be externally delivered. It lives in the molten core of our animal beings. It breathes in us and beats in us and pulses with truth and spirit and the infinite grace of our tender human hearts.

Yes, we are all selfish assholes. We are all good and decent people. And we are redeemed, over and over and over again – just by our uncompromising insistence on living and breathing and loving in this world.  By our continued willingness to reach our arms, meeting others exactly where they stand, and making a wide open offering of our frail and fierce hearts.

This is where redemption lives. In the spaces where we come together, and in the quiet moments where it all comes apart. In the wild center of this world. In the wild center of our imperfect selves.

Right here, in the vastly complex and utterly priceless wonder that it is this life.

The post Redemption Song {where the spirit meets the bone} appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.