From Within
What we seek in the world is often the light waiting for our consent inside.
The light is coming from you. You can't see it, but everyone else can
(Lang Leav)
There is no bond,
and yet.
I let myself love.
I let myself be loved.
I let myself become
the Beloved.
Not as a vow,
I am forced to keep.
Not as a chain,
I am praised for wearing.
Not as a contract,
signed in fear.
But as a consecrated choice.
A living yes.
As holy permission
to be touched by life
without being taken by it.
For a long time,
I mistook distance for freedom.
I mistook numbness for peace.
I thought that
if no one could reach me,
no one could wound me.
That was
the old language.
The dialect of exile.
The grammar of survival.
The prayer of the half-closed heart.
But these are new times.
A new language,
is returning..
A language,
that does not bargain with love,
does not kneel before fear,
does not confuse withdrawal, with wisdom.
Now I remember.
There is another kind of freedom.
The freedom of the inner gate opening.
The freedom of the soul
no longer hiding
from its own light.
I let myself be guided,
by the wisdom that arrives without noise,
the voice beneath voice,
the knowing that does not beg,
to be believed.
I let myself be met
by what is true in me,
not by what is required of me,
not by what the world,
wants me to perform.
I let myself be held
by the eternal flame,
the one that does not bargain
does not accuse,
does not blame,
does not keep scores.
From within, and not from without.
Here the turning comes:
Love is not longer a place,
where I go to disappear.
It is a place,
where I feel at home.
I act now,
from my own true will.
Not the will that clenches.
Not the will that defends.
Not the will that obeys,
from the fear to be abandoned.
But the will that is clear.
The will that is quiet.
The will that moves,
as water moves,
as roots move,
as stars move,
through their appointed heaven.
The river does not ask permission
to become itself.
Nor does the soul.
From within, and not from without.
Open.
Free.
Without fear.
Without guilt.
Without the old tribunal
that made breath
something to be earned.
My noble truth does not descend
as judgement.
It rises
like something buried,
remembering
it was never dead.
It returns
like a river
speaking its first name,
again.
It returns
as joy,
without spectacle.
It returns,
as certainty,
without violence.
It returns,
as the soft arrival
of what has always been mine
beneath the noise,
beneath the bargain,
beneath the long forgetting.
From within, and not from without.
And my Beloved,
this holy presence
I once searched for
in a hundred altars,
a hundred faces,
a hundred forms of permissions,
was never absent.
Not when I could not feel it.
Not when I abandoned myself.
Not when I mistook being chosen,
for being known.
Not when I built shrines
from the praise of others
and left the temple
within my own chest
in darkness.
Still,
the Beloved remained.
Still,
the flame remained.
Still,
the door remained.
My Beloved is with me.
Always with me.
Even now.
Despite everything.
From within, and not from without.
And there is magic here.
Not the magic of dominion.
Not the magic of conquest.
Not the magic that bends life into obedience.
But the first magic.
The faithful magic.
The sacred magic,
of consent.
The magic
of choosing love
without surrendering sovereignty.
The magic
of belonging to myself
so wholly
that love becomes offering,
not transaction.
Blessing,
not bargain.
Fire,
not debt.
There is magic
in letting myself be love,
be loved,
and be the Beloved.
There is magic
in moving
by my own true will,
not in bondage,
not in punishment,
not in penance.
If the Beloved has never been absent,
who is it that seeks?
From within, not from without.
May you remember that what is holy in you does not need to be earned, only welcomed.
Yo lo creo/
I believe, and so it is.