Sunday, June 19th, 2005

I wonder how much time we spend in our lives second guessing. It can be a wonderful skill at times when we are asked to reassess, but it can also be the most difficult habit for our sense of self-knowing.

What would happen, do you think, if you woke up in the morning and never second-guessed yourself again? We are asked, by the nature of living, to invest our hope and belief in so many things. We have to trust in order to breathe, speak, get in our car to drive, turn on the stove to make food, walk in the woods, make a phone call, open our hearts…even a little…to another.

We place our trust, sometimes hesitantly, numerous places sometimes before ourselves. We have all the answers in our hearts and they whisper patiently to us, and we second guess so easily sometimes. We know what we want before we dress it up in different clothing in our minds. We know what really matters and how to react to things. We know where we stand and where the waters inside us run. But we doubt so often. We wonder if we could really possibly know what is right in our core and relate it to absolutely every aspect of our lives. We reserve self-trust for certain events we deem safe for such trust.

We are sunbeams, we are the fruit of all we have ever wished for, and what we want is within our reach. Tend your trees and plants with love, self-love, and your fruits will come early and be juicy, ripe, and deeply nourishing. Just like plants the things we wish for grow, and these things grow by love. You can never give yourself too much. If it were too much it would have become something else. Pour it on and make sure your roots get wet with it…and stay wet with it.

I believe in you. I believe in the power of love in you and in your ability to never second guess that love…just like I believe in myself. Here is some extra love from my direction to get you started. Go find a garden, or a thriving plant or beautiful flower. That is you. You don’t have to identify as anything else or carry any other reference points unless you choose to. Your essence is that of the most incredible beauty and yes, it is perfectly right to enjoy it.

Love, Jennifer

Wednesday, June 1st, 2005

We are timeless, I know. Then these moments come that encapsulate our whole existence, and they seem to carry everything within them and they turn our soul skin into a fine glass. Time condenses and we are riding on faith.

We are fragile, I know. A thousand new cells born every instant, and their fate so dependent on a soft place to land. It’s so easy to be hard on ourselves, and to be hard on others. It’s so easy to be hard. And so much harder to be soft. In this world, I should add, not in all worlds. We are by nature soft, and this is where our true strength lies. In our softness. To be soft is not to be weak, it is to encounter the edges of life with tenderness.

Our bodies, our psyches, our hearts ache for flow. They ache to reunite with the ultimate rhythm of life. If we are quiet inside, the tide will rise and if we let it, it will take us.

To the land of tenderness, from which we all come and to which we all return. We are made of that tenderness. Blood and bones, tissue and breath, sweat and faith, and all that is unseen. When life is hard on you find something tender in your world…a flower, or a song, and meditate on it. Enter deep into its essence and it will take you home.