Day 95.

How to Come Alive

Wake yourself in the middle of the night by weeping
Cry for days
Take advantage of the opening
Let everything pour out, like a rushing river
Breaking branches, smoothing rocks, flowing into tributaries that lead to the vast ocean

Know that you are part of the vast ocean
That your tears make you part of everything else that is.
Know that the ocean is the grandmother of the desert
And that where there is anything, there once was everything else.
Know that by letting yourself cry and run dry
You affirm your connection to earth
By letting yourself cry and run dry and cry again
You are like the infinity-long-forever-backwards-inconceivable history of this earth
Water moving over land
Nourishing life and moving on
To nourish life elsewhere
And giving the old lands some time to lay dry, baking in the sun, dirt cracking, life shriveling up and dying, becoming food for the insects (just like you will be, one day)
To shit out and make more dirt with.

Tears are surrender
To ourselves
The deepest parts of ourselves
The parts so long hidden, stuffed so deep inside our bellies, we could live our whole lives without remembering.
Weeping is surrender
To the realization that all knowledge, all wisdom, is right behind your eyes
Just wanting to be cried out,
Wanting to touch the air and know the world outside of your body
And remind you that your skin is not a container
That barriers are imaginary
That you are everything you have touched
And everything you have not touched
That your history is everything's history
That everybody's sorrow is your sorrow
That the song of the rushing river
Carrying salmon
Keeping feet cool
Moving boats full of people and the things they value
Has the same melody as the song of your tears
Rushing out and connecting you to the universe.