There are times when life feels like too much, when emotions swirl, the world burns, and we are left searching for solid ground. Today was one of those days, I went into the garden, hoping that the earth might steady me. I didn’t expect to find my answer in the stubborn roots of couch grass, but sometimes the simplest things carry the deepest wisdom.
Many of us are living through an unraveling. It can feel like a storm inside, a cauldron of feelings and thoughts too heavy to carry. But even here, in the middle of it all, there is a thread of trust. What is truly ours will make its way out of the fire. Tears may clear the path. Space may open, almost miraculously, for us to release what we were never meant to hold forever.
Unravellings are rarely gentle. They strip us of what we once clung to. But they also invite us into something deeper. Surrender, trust, acceptance. Not so we can be “better,” but so we can be lighter, freer, less burdened.
Life shows us how. I think of the stubborn couch grass I tried to pull from my garden today. It had grown unchecked all winter and the job had grown big. At first, I grabbed clumps too big and fell back in defeat. Then came the whisper: bit by bit. So I took small handfuls, and the roots loosened in my hands. This is how surrender works, not all at once, but piece by piece, in ways that feel almost tender.
Perhaps you too feel tired from the endless changes, griefs, and global traumas. You are not alone. Sometimes surrender feels impossible. Sometimes resistance is the holier act. Alice Walker once said resistance is the secret of joy. I have come to believe that knowing when to surrender and when to resist is the real secret. To balance both is a sacred art, a holy equation.
And here we are, living in a burning world. We are witnesses to suffering we cannot fix. We are distracted while the shadows grow. Most of us would rather avoid facing our own pain, but the shadow of the world has grown too large to ignore. This is no longer business as usual. The earth is trembling, the veils are thinning, and something is asking us to wake up.
If you feel this too, you are not alone. My friend asked me recently, “Which way is up, and which way is down?” I laughed and said, “I don’t know anymore.” Maybe you’ve felt that way too. And perhaps the truth is not either/or, but both. Both surrender and resistance. Both undoing and rebuilding.
The signs are all around us. Birds weave their nests as if nothing has changed. And yet, sometimes the messenger comes. For me it was the piwakawaka, swooping so close they brushed my heart. Wake up, they sang. Wake up.
So we are invited, again and again, into deeper surrender. This is not only grief. It is a becoming. A release. An embrace. We cannot cling to the shore forever. Sooner or later, we must trust the current. Trust the unseen. Trust the heart that knows what the eyes cannot yet see.
And when the tide delivers us to shore, we will not be alone. We will find our people, those who have also been broken open. Together we will step into the light of a new day, carrying nothing but ourselves. The ancestors are already leaning close, urging us forward. This is an ending, yes, but it is also a beginning.
Those of us who have already been broken open can hold space for you. If you are only just beginning to break, know this: there is love waiting in the rubble. There is light hidden in your own heart.
So come home. Come home to the place where you can rest, gather strength, and prepare for the rebuilding. Come home to yourself, to the ground of your being, to the love that has always carried you.
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