Wednesday Wish (97); Soften

photo by heather breighner via flickr

*Note: Please play the video below before you read. No need to watch it, just lose yourself in the music. Let it infuse you, gift you, with its tenderness. And only then, when you begin to taste a bit of softness in yourSelf, only then, begin to read. With the music and my words, together, softening you gently home, into your feelings ...

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Wind carries the sea to her skin. She closes her eyes and lifts her head, her body longing. She listens as the salty air rustles the palm fronds, as they dance in their knowing, in their silent secrets. I’m coming, she whispers, I’m coming. Bare feet, toasted brown. Along a dusty dirt path. A silver toe ring already warm with morning sun. Long hair, messy and free. And a body ... aching for the sea.

She slips from her transparent cotton shift, leaving it draped across a rock, and turns to look back from where she came, her eyes wondering, expecting. When she finds no one, she returns her eyes to the sea. The brine, the warmth, the soft humid air—all of it, ahhh. She smiles. First her toes, her dusty brown toes, then her calves and thighs. She stops when she gets to her stomach. To feel the sand as it muds up between her toes, to feel the sea move her with its natural rhythm. She lets it teach her what she needs to know, lets it teach her what she has briefly forgotten. And when a wave comes that could swallow her whole, she dives.

He watches as she swims, as she rises up and dives back down, her body sleek, supple, graceful. He aches. Aches in a way he cannot understand. Maybe he aches to understand her connection to the sea. Maybe he aches to feel the passion she feels. Maybe he aches to love her, take her, possess her gently as his own. He doesn't know, but he trembles just the same, his own eyes closed now, rising up to the sun. Guide me. Guide me where I am meant to be. And his body walks his soul, further, deeper, into their sea.

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To love. Deeply. With a passion and a sacred knowing. With that sparkle in your heart that you had to forget. With that tremble to your voice that inevitably reveals your soul. It hasn’t left you, that knowing how to love. It’s still there. Otherwise you wouldn’t have asked. Asked the universe to cut you open, to guide you to your sea. Did you not think I could hear? Did you forget your connection to me? To everyone around you that dares to see. Those threads are never cut. No matter how hard you try, no matter how cruel life can be, those threads are always there, between you and me, between everyone around you, everyone your heart dares to see.

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My Wish? That you soften. Soften yourSelf amongst the trees and the hills and the birds and the sea. Meet a flower. Magnify its color, its gifts, the beauty that it is without it ever doing a thing. Invite it to speak to you. In a language that you feel. In a language that resonates deep down, ever so quietly, like a memory, buried beneath the sea. And if that doesn’t suit you, sense the wind dance upon your skin. Say hello to a bird. Walk where a tree points you. Caress its leaves. Swim in the clouds. Let the tall grass tickle your thirsty legs or the short grass cuddle your hungry toes. And all the while, with eyes closed to ugly and open to the hidden gifts, to the quiet treasures, to the beauty all around you, aching to be seen.

My Wish? That you surround yourself with other vulnerables. Not just in nature but among people and all things. Kind eyes, gentle words, tender touch, feelings from deep-seeing places—soften outside, soften inside, soften yourself Home, home to Love.