Stems and Roots, a shameless snatch

“Trust in the slow work of God.”
~ Tielhard de Chardin

Stems and Roots

“The love we show saves the Love we hide,
the way a sprig in sun feeds its unseen root.

Even though I believe in living in the open, parts of me hide. I can’t help it. But what I can help is which parts of me–the open or the hidden–run my life. What I can rely on is this inexplicable knowing that when I am in the open, life nourishes even those parts so sorely hidden.

Just as green stems in spring stay connected to their darker roots, just as the roots grow when the stems do, my compassion soothes my fear where I can’t see. Unknown to me, my love feeds the underside of my confusion. The light I take in keeps the roots of my soul alive.

We become so preoccupied with what we are not able to address, what we are not able to mend, what we are not able to leave behind, that we forget that whatever we are in the light of day is slowly, but surely, healing the rest of us.“

~ Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

We do get hung up, don’t we?

Our imperfections can haunt us. Our failures drag behind like toilet paper stuck to a heel. Our inability to hold all the balls in the air can, here and there, make us feel like we’ve dropped every ball. Off a cliff.

What if we could trust–truly trust–in the slow marination of the soul?

What if we could know, deep in our bones, that the work carries on in the background, that we are nothing less than an intricate web of being where every tug and touch sends reverberations throughout and beyond. What if we were reminded that healing, more than anything, takes time.

That the darkness
can compost,
fertilize,
and bring forth
what the light of day,
sometimes,
cannot.

Wow. That would be something.