Presence is the Medicine 🌊 Is the antidote to disconnection. Life, our own Hearts, are asking for presence. {words shared in 2022, calling again ~ perhaps it will hold some of you too} This mantra has been playing for me for months ~ presence being an anchor 💚 Present to the Beauty of Life. Present to the pain & physical discomfort of longing. Regret. Present to joy that comes unexpectedly as well as to the tears… Presence to who we are becoming, who we are while transmuting, alchemizing, the grief. Presence. I think it is part of what makes grieving, bereavement, ‘healing’ extra challenging in this col0nial overculture. There are many pulls for attention. It can further disconnect us from all that is. The goal of these systems, is just that. Disconnect from ourselves, our bodies, our attention, the Land, one another, Water. And this isn’t to say there isn’t connection & beauty w/in modern tech, I believe there can be too. But the more isolated & disconnected we are, the more *distracted,* the easier it is to manipulate, to sell, to fill with things that further disconnect. To feel hopeless. To forget the beauty that exists here too. In a Sunrise, in the mist, or a bird song. In the Flowers blooming, in the fragrance of rain. When we are with the Land or Water, in awe, watching a Sunrise, singing to the Stars, putting our children to bed, planting Seeds, fishing w kin, Medicine making, feeling the textures of lichen ~ we are present. Senses enlivened. Kinship strengthened. We don’t know when a grief wave will arise. They can be unpredictable. I have found that I can be present. It isn’t always easy to move slowly, to be present to it all. Holding the grief, my Heart, anger, longing, frustration, fear, with gentleness. Compassion. Just. Letting it have space & being. {sounds peaceful, but, that doesn’t mean it always looks or feels peaceful ~ it may be sobbing or screaming in a safe place} The Plants, the Ocean, have taught me so much about being with my grief. About being present to my emotions, to my body, myself 🌊✨ Letting compassion & gentleness lead the way back to ourselves. To our Hearts. To presence✨