I recognize the outlines, the shadings of my own familiar suffering. I see it as it approaches–and oh, I do know better—but slip down the slippery slide anyway. Perhaps this happens because it is known and familiar—way more comfortable than the always unknown erupting now, and now, and now. I label that unknown “scary” and then build possible nightmare scenarios about what that scariness might turn out to be.

I see the silliness, even stupidity of this pattern: to fear what isn’t here, and so die a thousand deaths and heartbreaks instead of one, or two, or three.

And while dying these thousand deaths and heartbreaks, awareness shines—steady, clear, unending—welcoming whatever shows up, even worn out and seen-through patterns. That the phrase I find myself repeating—“it’s already welcomed; it’s already welcomed; it’s already welcomed!”

Rest there, Amrita, rest there.

© Amrita Skye Blaine