It is spring. The time of green shoots and blooming. When nature asks us to let go of the cold and the fear, and present ourselves, raw, in our newness and our vulnerability. No expectations. No demands. Only the slow beauty of a petal emerging from a tightly woven bulb.

To me it feels like an invitation to be more honest, to be more present. To be here now. In this moment. I have noticed it for some time now. Whispers in the wind, a quiet voice deep inside, asking me to trust that I am safe, that I am fully rooted; and to breathe new life into this opening in fertile ground. And I have been listening, allowing that voice to guide me more and more. Though there are moments of fear, this growth somehow feels easy. And refreshing. Like freedom.

Everything I seek is now. This is the deep truth I am learning to live.

There is no arrival when it comes to the elusive destinations of freedom and peace, and love. They flow in the ecstasy and the laughter and the lovemaking, yes. But they are also mixed in the mundane: in the hours of the workweek; in the buying of groceries and the making of meals. They are the hands holding heartbreak and anxiety and depression. Hidden in resistance and procrastination. Buried in busyness. Flowing in the moment lonely eyes meet the glance of a stranger. Shouting in the quiet hours of a sleepless night.

There is no arrival. No destination. Simply a letting go; an allowance; a permission. An ownership of who I am, and of now.

After years of running and striving, I can say this: you will not love life more if it turns out as you imagined, as you dearly wished, as you sought and strived for it to be. Upon arrival you will only seek and wish and strive for it to be some other, greater, version.

No, the thing we seek is not seekable; it is not reachable, by trying.

A certain amount of effort is required to find love and freedom and peace, but this effort is more accurately described as the courage to let go, the willingness to listen to our own truth, and the permission to be okay in this moment, with all of its imperfections.

There is no other now. Only now. Here. Nothing more.

I do still desire things I do not have in this moment. Some fiercely. I still want to go places. I have dreams and goals. I keep my vision in my heart and my eyes on the horizon. I am committed. And I work hard. I am not stagnant. I am in massive amounts of action. I am doing and experiencing and creating and living and loving, fully, and powerfully, with a fierce forward momentum.

And, yet, I am not waiting to get there, or anywhere. I am no longer holding out for some future moment to be fully alive. I live now. Here. In this moment.

This is it: this devotion, this intimate dance with life. This is the peace. This is the freedom. This is the love I have been waiting for, my entire life.

xo,
Danielle

We are asked to expand. This is Life. An invitation to grow larger in all ways. To create space in small rooms, and tear down the walls.

We are capable of holding so much more than we realize; more than we dare to even imagine. The joy, exquisite and raw. The love, fulsome and feverish. The grief; the sorrowful nights. Bright hot anger. Venomous envy and rage. Indulgent escapes. Passionate affairs. Fog-filled wandering. Tumbling lost and peaceful in the wild. Ecstasy.

Every moment is a bite to be savoured. An opportunity to rise for, and to sink into. The adventure is always calling; inviting us to say yes! to being alive. Here and now. In the rough. We cannot avoid these calloused edges if we want to peek at the gleaming diamond within.

Fill potholes with wonder. Be curious in your despair. Ask questions of simplicity. You will find magic here. In the heroic mundane. 

Smile. Breathe. Love. Sit. Here on a bench. On this busy street. And see only the slow movement of a caterpillar as it inches past your toes.

Life is full of moments. One million simplicities entwined in a dance; a symphony of minutes streaming into hours and days.

Life becomes a masterpiece not in a single rain, but in the pooling of dew drops over centuries. In wet trickling off lily pads, snaking streams into raging rivers, melding unrecognizable and blasting open at the foot of the Gods. In the long high note reverberating in the waves. In the tears rising from the depths of the ocean into cloud conversations, landing early one morning, the first drop on the tip of the nose of a child dancing for rain: a tiny hand reaches out; a smile breaks wide; a dusty village celebrates.

A thousand years caught in a moment in time.

Joy; holding it all.

xo,

Danielle