Paying Homage

Grief comes to me in waves, and in its waters, I visit the sacred. The sensation of that wave's approach is becoming more distinct to me as I grow older. It has a sound, a pressure rising, a hue that rushes before it into my day, across breakfast dishes and spilled milk. I feel it coming like a storm, and I find myself in choice to take cover or to open my heart to it, whole.

Today, in the opening, I discovered a fear I have harbored. Is the "letting go" of what is lost to me, the acceptance of what is passed, somehow permission for that sacred experience to dissipate, to be lost? This is what I fought today in rising tide.

I held that fear at storm. So much noise and rushing water. So much hope and pain dashed against the sides of human limitations. So much love. And it came to me that in this letting go is a taking in, a harboring of that which we care for as we watch it spring leaks and sink before our eyes. As the bulk of our care goes under, we swim deeper and deeper, according to our willingness to follow the beauty of it as it descends. We witness this world falling inwards to the tide of love rising in us. Our heart rises to hold what is larger than the world we live in. It rises to hold what has not only been fully alive to us in our memory, but even "alove" -- that ecstatic presence that binds us, unthinking, to the divine.

The letting go is a taking in, drinking deeply, integrating what has been beautiful so that we may be beautiful. It has nourished us. We are changed. We grow. The letting go is only the sensation of fully recognizing what is holy so that we may pay our homage to the source itself.