Last month, Sounds True published a new, expanded edition of Inside the Miracle: Enduring Suffering, Approaching Wholeness, which gathers twenty-eight years of my writing and teaching about suffering, healing, and wholeness, including thirty-nine new poems and prose pieces not yet published. One of the great transforming passages in my life was having cancer in my mid-thirties. This experience unraveled the way I see the world and made me a student of all spiritual paths. With a steadfast belief in our aliveness, I hope what’s in this book will help you meet the transformation that waits in however you’re being forged. The following piece is an excerpt from the book.
LOVE YOUR WINDOW
No matter how small or old. Keep it
clean so you can see what comes your way.
When the lost bird flies into it looking for
its mate, keep the feather stuck to the glass.
Take it with you and dream of finding what
completes you. At the edge of winter, open
the window of your heart and see your
breath, how what you bring up becomes
the air. When you’re ready or pushed,
close your eyes and the other window
will appear, the one that faces all of
time. What flies there never lands, but
hovers, dropping seeds of infinity in the
breaks we can’t heal. So open the window
of your pain, though the whisperers tell you
to nail it shut, and let in everything that’s
ever lived. What flies and never lands has
been waiting. Be brave. Don’t run. Let the
fire around your window burn until you
become the opening.
A Question to Walk With: Describe your favorite window and why it has meaning for you. Then describe your inner window and what it lets you see.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In