Tag: Fear

My Little Girl

August 25, 2022 / Tom

There she was, my little girl, getting set to leave me.

Yeah, I know. As the cliche goes, she wasn’t really leaving me. But she was. It was her time, and she was grasping it. It was a moment she had worked hard for, and she was taking it. I was the nest and she was flying away. All I could do is watch.

Was it really, though, all I could do? Of course not. As a man in love with a woman, in this case a Dad in love with his Daughter, I could do quite a bit. I could encourage her. I could help her. When she looked back, I could be there. I could offer a whisper, or a shout, or I could just be silent. This wasn’t about me, so whatever decibel level she needed ,she would have. Otherwise, I’d keep my mouth closed and my heart open.

Her older sister had left too. That was different, though. Her sister stayed close to home, so was within a short drive should she need me. My Little Girl, in the truest form of her being her, decided to go out of State, a not-so-short 7 hour drive from home. This was her toughness showing itself, her badassness claiming ownership of her life, and her independence shouting “I will let you know when I need you.” It was all the things I loved about My Little Girl, and all the things the Dad in me wanted to change even as the heart in me refused to try.

I always just wanted her to be her. Nothing more, nothing less.

The Day Had Come

So now it was the day. The day I had both loathed and looked so forward to. This was the day when I could no longer protect her easily or be there quickly if she called. The day when all of my admiration of this warrior woman would mix with all my regrets as a Dad, when all of my hopes for My Little Girl meshed with all my fears of her departure. The day when she was to give birth to herself, and her parents would become more of passive spectators than of active participants.

I stood in amazement as she was born, first crowning and then flying out of the womb. I watched her fight for life her first 10 days of it, and stood in awe of this baby who was somehow strong, independent and never willing to give up. Memories sprouted of when she would push her older sister around on a Playskool trike even before she could walk on her own. Yeah, this was a badass.

I can remember those moments when she’d hide behind her mom or me, afraid of new parts of the world showing themselves. Then one day she took off, facing the world fearlessly with a field hockey stick in hand. She transformed from the shy girl who would never talk to anyone into a kick-ass champion almost overnight. This had been her way since the day of her birth, and this would be her way on the day she gave birth to herself.

I know this was not really the day she had given birth to herself. It was, however, the day I saw her as a woman, and as someone I knew would do well as long as the world did not try to fuck with her. She had birthed herself long before I saw it and in the gradual stages that led to this day. In this moment, though, my eyes were fully opened even if shrouded by tears.

The Lesson Learned

Like any good lesson, this one keep evolving and showing itself. She’s gone, but still here. She calls and texts and send pictures in her time, in her way, just like always. I am not there to protect her, but perhaps she doesn’t need my protection as much as she once did. I’m not there to help her when she calls, but I’ve realized she rarely called for help. She has always helped herself, and figured it out, and proved to us all that she is capable of being…her.

I’ve come to realize that my fear was not of her leaving the nest, but of my failing to be there should she need me. I feared not being needed, not that she wasn’t capable. My fears had little to do with her, they were all about what I saw as my own shortcomings.

Just as she has since the moment I knew she existed, she continues to teach me lessons. Her older sister started the process and her younger brother keeps it going, each of them teaching me in unique ways. Just like her sister, neither is my little girl anymore but both will always be My Little Girl. My son will always be My Boy, no matter how big and strong he gets. That’s the thing about being a Dad. As we get older we had better get wiser, or we will simply cease to exist. It’s also true of being a human. Sometimes we’re frail. Sometimes we’re even pathetic. Yet we are blessed with the power to learn lessons, to effect change in ourselves, and to change the world in our newness. We are fucking powerful that way, and sometimes…well usually…all we need is something to love to show us the way to greatness.

Rise! Dear Heart…

March 30, 2022 / Tom

The floodgates have opened. The writer is back, his heart in tune, his soul awakened, and his growl nestled firmly against her breast. He has survived for this moment, and in honor of his survival a prose is born for those who are fighting for their own. He is in this spot because he willed himself to live, and he will never let those he loves shrink from the battles they have at hand.

For those who are struggling, who are facing battles unparalleled in their existence, he hears their growls as well. Even if they can’t yet hear that sweet sound, he hears it echoing in his own past. He knows and he hears, and soon his heart beckons them onward.

“Rise, dear heart, for you are loved and you are needed.”

The rains pour on the battlefields of our existence, making slick, muddy work for warriors climbing to the summits of their lives. Yet they must climb. They can never quit. They may rest and they may crumble, but they will rise to meet the challenge.

We must be vigilant, for each other, and not fail to reach our destination for a lack of effort. We must find our tribe, those pure hearts in tune with our own, who will push us forward. Those beautiful souls who sing our song and give us shelter when we need to rest. Such love is not romance, it is human and such power is not fickle, it is divine.

“Rise, dear heart, for though I cannot walk this path for you, I can walk it with you.”

Push, and walk hard, but know that if you call I will come. If you ask, you will find my hand reaching through the smoke and it will not let you go. I dare not pretend you cannot do this on your own, but know that you need not be alone as you face the storm. No matter the distance, I am here. No matter the reason, I am beside you.

I am no stronger than you. I have no superpower. You are everything I am, maybe even more. Yet in the ebbs and flows of this life I will carry you when I am strong and your are not. As I am able, I will lay with you in your despair and hold your broken pieces until you are able to mend them. Perhaps each act of such love will be returned, and perhaps not. The gift is in the giving, and the gift and the giver are one. Life itself demands nothing less of warriors.

For now know that you are cherished, you are needed, and you are not alone. You will have us at your back and you will not face the demons alone. We are so blessed to watch you rise, dear heart…

The Frightening Beginning

March 29, 2022 / Tom

Often the hardest part of a story is the beginning. There is an awkwardness in the uncertainty that makes the first words hard to come by. The writer sits and stares at the page, the pen quivering in his hand, hoping for something miraculous to be born. A breath, a pause, and then a sudden dive into an unknown sometimes more frightening than anything he has ever experienced. He leaps into the realm of his soul. It is there he must come to terms with who he is.

He must jump, however. Sometimes the ledge, though appearing secure, is a much more frightening place to be. That very thing that inspires him scares him, yet it is the very thing that gives him life. That inspiration is the air he breathes and the fire that gives him warmth. It can also strangle his faith and turn all he longs for to ash.

In that uncertainty lays a truth, a truth much stronger than the reality found in the security of the ledge. Through weathered skin he feels the tingles of warmth that bely his deepest desires. In eyes made both clear and blind by time rests a cynic and a poet, and though the words ring true in the sight of her beauty the quakes shake him to his core. It is time.

The Poet

What is a poet without his pain? What is wisdom without the cynicism that flows between each lesson shelved within his heart? It is in all that he is that he gives all that he has. It is the inspiration that drives him onward and the sight of her that awakens the truth within him, and the touch of her hand that causes an oath to be reborn within his heart. He has no choice save to recoil or to jump. He trusts his instincts as he takes the leap forward this time.

It is the poetry that gives him wings and carries him as he plummets toward whatever is his fate. He could have stayed safely perched “up there” but something demanded he just…fall. She smiles and the words come to him. She speaks and the letters all make sense. Perhaps this is the moment where it all rhymes and suddenly he will find her in the clouds, his prose never more beautiful and his soul never more rewarded. Time will tell if those words read like Rumi or like Poe, as all inspiration shows us the truth eventually.

He is just the poet but she is the word, the ink, and the spirit that guides his hand.

The Intention

In the flesh, he is but a man and she but a woman. Yet in the essence of all things that mean nothing, they are so much more. Universes are born on their aspirations, worlds are built on their dreams and wonders are created in their desires. It is here he holds back his words, and she her heart, until something finally sets them free.

That is the frightening beginning. It is a space birthed in the hope that something that has been never been can somehow exist this time. Time, the enemy of all mortals and things made to die, is given relevance only through the fear that perhaps this time will be no different than the others. The intention of he that is but man and she that is but woman is that this time all that is hoped for, dreamt about and wanted will exist for both. When just a man and just a woman meet in the dark, it is the darkness itself that becomes a mortal memory.

When both the poet and the soul behind his work jump into the abyss together, time transforms from a fruit they feared to pick into one whose sweet nectar cannot be wasted. It is in the trust that they find their harvest, and in the leap that they find their trust.

It is there I find myself, a poet seeking the right words, softly whispering to that sweet intention that she will know that truth through prose written in the clouds. While he is but one side of whatever will come, he is still one side of that promise. It is that side he gives his attention, walking slowly alone with his thoughts until that smile awakens him and that touch tells him all he needs to know. While there is uncertainty in that frightening beginning, there is also so much hope.

The Threat of Our Lives

March 25, 2020 / Tom

I heard a rumor. I heard we need to be locked inside. Why, I could not tell you, but its what I heard.

I don’t see any threat lurking outside my door. There isn’t a man with a gun or some foreign army dropping from the sky. In fact everything looks still; the stillest I’ve seen things look in my life. I see neighbors helping neighbors. There are couples holding hands and laughing as they walk their dogs down the street. They are laughing and enjoying each other in ways I’ve never noticed. Perhaps the distractions of convenience were the threat everyone is talking about? People certainly seem closer to each other now that they’ve become less distracted. It can’t be that bad.

One can’t help but notice how quiet the streets seem. I look out at the major thoroughfare and notice there aren’t that many cars. I’ve heard from many that the air is cleaner, that fewer cars driving to work and school and for their Sunday drives has cleaned up the air. Perhaps air pollution was the threat everyone is talking about? Certainly the cleaner air is safer for us all. Yeah, that could be it.

Not in my town, however. Someone told me that our air quality is still pretty low. According to what the science says, it has something to do with those fracking sites that dot our neighborhoods and the gasses they put out into our air. Maybe those wells are the threat we all need to run and hide from? Certainly breathing in those gasses can’t be good for any of us. Yeah, maybe that’s it.

An email just arrived from my local supermarket. Apparently they are running short on plastic bags and we all run the risk of not having plastic to put our groceries in. Would I happen to have reusable bags to bring instead? I smile. Of course I do. Maybe now I’ll see a lot less plastic bags floating everywhere I look. Perhaps we will not have those hard-to-recycle-easy-to-find-in-the-ocean bags not killing wildlife in the near future. Maybe those bags where the threat? Could be a possibility.

I have been, as many of my neighbors have been, working from home lately. Seems my employer didn’t really need me at the office. I can do everything right from the place I live, and I can still do it pretty well. Now, imagine if we invested in working remotely wherever possible? I wouldn’t have to drive to work every day. Perhaps that air that has gotten cleaner would stay clean. Maybe there’d be a lot less car accidents. Perhaps our cars would last longer. Maybe, just maybe, we could be a lot more productive and a lot less miserable in traffic? Perhaps outdated work methods are the threat? It’s worth considering.

Someone just told me that the waterways of Venice and many other areas are the cleanest they’ve been in recent history. I’ve heard nature is recovering some lost territory, getting closer to shorelines and coming up rivers they haven’t been in ages. I wonder what kept them away, and what they saw as a threat they needed to quarantine from? I wonder what is different now that rivers and streams and oceans are becoming cleaner. Maybe it’s the same thing that threatens the planet? It has to be worth discussing.

I’ve been going for hikes and trail runs. I stay away from people because, after all, I heard there is a threat out there. I have to keep a distance from others or I can face getting sick and dying. Yet I see more people out in nature than I’m used to. It’s a good thing nature gives us plenty of space to roam so I can still keep a distance and not have to lock myself in a box. I can’t help be amazed at how many people are outside with their families, walking, laughing, enjoying the cleaner air. Amazingly, there seems a lot less trash floating around even with the larger numbers of people. Maybe it’s the lack of trash bags. Or maybe its the fact that people are starting to like things cleaner. One can only hope.

They tell us it is a virus that is the threat to our world. It’s hard to imagine that something I can’t see, or smell, or feel, or taste can be so threatening to the planet. Especially when I see so many good things happening in spite of this virus. Neighbors helping neighbors. Couples holding hands and laughing with their dogs. People out in nature and not trashing her. Waterways getting cleaner. After all, I can see my friendly neighbors and those happy couples. I can smell the cleaner air. I can feel the good intentions of others, and I can taste the cleaner water I drink. Am I really more at risk today than I’ve ever been?

I do know is that people are dying because of this threat. That saddens me just as the death of people from air and water pollution does. I’m saddened by forced quarantines but not more than I am by the voluntary quarantines we’ve been placing ourselves in. I’m saddened by the threat of this virus, but not more saddened than I am by the threat of our trash, our pollution, and the distractions we create from each other. We’ve quarantined ourselves from ourselves, and lost touch with the very thing that makes us unique. Maybe we needed something to teach us what the real threat is and that after this virus subsides, we can put some effort into ending that threat. Perhaps that threat is Us.

If it is a threat to our planet it is certainly a threat to each of us. We are a major part of this wonderful Earth and once we realize that the greatest threat we face is not just an external virus but the virus of our thinking, perhaps we can find a cure and a vaccine for that as well.

I honor the moments of my life of which I have little control. I’ve learned to use those as opportunities to discover the best of myself. I cannot end this virus, or the threat it presents to those I love and those I’ve never met. What I can do, however, is use it as a way to discover something I did not know before and to use that discovery to better my life. That way, if I survive, it will not be a waste of life and loss.

Perhaps in that way the threat is not a threat at all. Perhaps it is just a lesson.

Action Breeds Confidence (Warrior Prose)

March 13, 2020 / Tom

We are, my friends, in scary times.

In my life I’ve noticed that there are two types of occurrences in each and every experience. One is what we can control and the other is what we can’t. In challenging time I’ve learned to focus intently on what is within my control and much less on what I can’t. I’ve learned that action breeds the confidence to relegate fear. Inaction allows the fear to fester and can render us useless. I’ve also found that fear is often nothing more than a lack of confidence.

Here are some examples of what I mean.

Boxer’s Dread

I used to box in my younger years and I feared losing and getting “beat up”. Rather than be hamstrung by fear, I would train harder and push my body and training beyond what I thought I could handle. I wanted to be better conditioned, better trained and better prepared than my opponent could ever be or, at a minimum, believe I was. That confidence not only rid me of fear, but had me actually stir crazy while waiting for the fight to happen.

I could see my opponent in my mind and see him working his ass off to beat me. That vision would cause me to increase my intensity. I could not imagine losing to anyone because I was not prepared. If they were better than me it was going to be a contest of skill, will and preparation. They were going to have to bring their “A” game.

Fear in the Fire

In my time as a firefighter, fear was an ever-present companion. Firefighters die and get severely injured doing their thing and it happens quite frequently. I’ve lost four friends in the line of duty and have never met a more courageous person than a firefighter. We all know what we’ve signed up for, so fear would be there as a constant companion. Our trick is we learn to use fear as another tool we carry and not as something that prevents us from action.

Fear drove me to constantly be educated on the methods, technology, and science of fire/rescue work. I would train, study, train, and respond. Those efforts bred great confidence. While I could not control everything on a fire/rescue scene, my end would not be due to a lack of preparation.

The fear was still there, but I was able to use it to hyper focus on the skill set I had developed. At no time was I limited by my fearful companion. Action had bred confidence and confidence put fear in its place.

A Stroke of Action

Fast forward a couple of decades when I found myself in an emergency room having an ischemic stroke. I believed I was going to die or, at the very least, be incapacitated. I had lost control and strength in my limbs and was blind. Swallowing was a challenge and I felt that nothing was ever going to be a same if I was able to survive.

While lying there on my gurney waiting for a CAT scan, I decided on settle down. I began to meditate. In that state I could feel the dizziness, the weakness, and the fear. I also could feel something else; a calm and it spoke to me. Not in English, but in a language that spoke directly to my inner intelligence.

“You are on this ride, and there is no getting off. Enjoy it, learn from it, and use it. You know what you need to do, so do it. The outcome is not guaranteed, but you can be an active participant in getting there.”

I did know what to do, and I decided to do it. I needed to trust my inner self and disregard what others told me. In the process of healing, whatever that meant, I had to become an active participant and not just an observer.

So I employed everything I had always employed. I approached even the most menial work with joy and intensity.

The first mission was get my sight back. I would visualize my eyes working again and the neural pathways being rerouted. The pain was intense as I would open my eyes to check my progress but I even approached that with joy. Soon, I was able to see again and although I still have some trouble with my eyes, I am nearly fully recovered.

Learning to Walk Again

When it was time for me to learn to walk again, I would actually laugh at myself. This amazed my physical therapists and they would often ask me how I kept so positive.

“The last time I learned to walk I was too young to remember. I think its fun to act like a two-year old again. Besides, if I learned once I can learn again.”

I would visualize walking and work at it. Within a few weeks I went to walking with a walker, having two therapists holding onto a gait belt, to walking (then jogging) in the hallways. I would challenge myself in every way I could (I would walk endless laps in a pool, the waves challenging my balance). My balance took a while to recover, and I still have some issues, but I’ve learned to deal with them well.

In dealing with any issue I face I find that improvement always follows. If I approached them in fear, I could expect to do nothing but sit in my own swill.

The actions I took in this challenge kept me positive and out of the muck that fear would have created. Each time I would hear the voice of fear nibbling in my mind, I would do something to counter it. Action always was the antidote and it still is.

The question to ask yourself when in the presence of fear is “What can I do?” and never let the answer be “nothing”. Then do it and see what happens.

Warfare, Home and the Journey

January 13, 2020 / Tom

“Life is warfare and a journey far from home.” ~Marcus Aurelius.

What do you think when you read this quote? Do you think of places you’d like to visit? Where is it you’d like to go?

In Stoic circles, many suggest that this quote was advising travel to faraway lands, while others say it is evidence that the Stoics were travelers who sought adventure. I wonder though, can it have a much more meaningful connotation, one that directs us more inward in our own journey?

To me, stoicism always been an inward process that radiates outward. I see much of philosophy as inward activity generating an outward expression. Stoicism has become the inward displaying itself in the outer world and is a catalyst for who I wish to be. It is not, for me, so much a way of life as it is a way to life.

As I see it, this quote seems to have more to do with inward warfare and that journey we all undertake to varying degrees. It has less to do with traveling to exotic locations and more to do with traveling inward to places I rarely go; those places that scare me yet seem to have such influence over my life.

To understand what I mean, let me start with the second part of the sentence.

“…and a journey far from home.”

What is home to most of us? It is a comfortable place where we feel secure. We can lock our doors and close our windows if need be. We can walk around our space naked without judgement. The choices we make are ours, and we can live in a way that pleases only us. It is our safe place.

Stoics seek balance and in that balance, home is a necessary space. Yet, as with any place of comfort, staying too long at home is a waste of living. While spending time under the blankets in bed is wonderful on a cold winter’s day, it ceases to be a healthy way of living if we stay there too long. We need the discomfort of getting out of bed into the cold, and we need the outdoors to truly feel alive.

That is what I believe Marcus meant with he said, “Life is…a journey far from home.”

Many of us search for those comfortable areas within. Some of us choose to stay there, often for too long. Inwardly speaking, life is a journey far from the comfortable spaces we’ve discovered. Life becomes, instead, the journey away from our comfort zones into the relative undiscovered and uncharted territory of what makes us uncomfortable.

I will rephrase one of my original questions to reflect that notion.

“Where is it you fear to go?”

When I answered that years ago, I also decided that is where I had to go if I wanted to heal and live my fullest life. That took much in the way of the first half of Marcus’ sentence. It took warfare.

“Life is warfare…”

Many will misconstrue Marcus’ meaning when they read the first half of this quote so, invariably, they will be led to the wrong location for the second half. I don’t see life as a inevitable war outside my mind, but I could certainly have experienced the persistent warfare within my mind. Now we may battle those external forces that wish to push us outside our safe space, but that is just the outward expression of the battle being waged within. My truth has always been that when someone pokes at my internal fears the demons always rise to fight. My reaction to those who challenge me is often the reaction my mind has to it’s own journey.

Fear, as most of us know, can be one helluva ruthless bastard. It’s likely why many of us shrink from even the idea of challenging it. Especially the biggest beasts who we’ve ignored with such skill that they often need not even awake to defeat us.

Yet, if we truly wish to live, we must engage in warfare to beat back the beasts that keep us locked in our homes. We must fight them, defeat them, so that we can journey deeper into ourselves. That journey is not only the expression of life but opens up the trail toward living. When we no longer fear going outside our safe spaces we can unlock the door and journey to places beyond.

If life is warfare and a journey far from home, then living is the prize of victory. There is always a difference between life and living and that difference is usually expressed in the balance we must fine. Living can be both the swaddling under warms blankets and it can be the warfare we engage in to enter a winter’s landscape. Balance is in finding the right times for either.

Random Thoughts

January 7, 2020 / Tom

Today, a moment in time.

Tomorrow is just a dream.

Yesterday only happened in my mind.

Today is yesterday’s tomorrow and tomorrow’s yesterday. Yesterday, today was just a dream. Tomorrow, today will have happened only in my mind. I realized just now I need to stop wasting time thinking about such things. Today is too important to squander, tomorrow never comes and yesterday cannot be changed.

Cliches…ugh. Sometimes I can’t see the forest for the trees (see what I did there?).

I want to hug you. I feel you beside me but when I turn to touch you my fingertips find only dust. Perhaps this is my mind playing tricks on me, tormenting me for wanting something beyond my control, or teaching me to let go of wants and replace them with reality. What I want is out there, what I have is right beside me.

Now, how to make what I want all that is right here.

Dammit. I’m back to yesterday.

So much I would change. Not because I want to change yesterday but because I want to change today. I wish things were different. I wish life was easier and that I was aware of the luster in the treasures I had found.

Actually, I wouldn’t change a thing. I’ve been blessed with the wisdom of a wild experience and know I can rise above just about any challenge thrown my way. Life does not become easier in the absence of challenge. It becomes easier in surviving them.

Thinking about yesterday creates such confusion. That confusion, however, guides us to a clarity of truth.

There is nothing like knowing someone who is the beautiful mixture of heart, soul and humanness. It’s even better when you love that someone and you get to quickly forgive their imperfections because of how fucking perfect they are. They toil, they quake and they are afraid but mostly they are loving, supportive and more courageous than they will ever likely know.

Treasure those moments when you can just sit back and watch. Those tears clouding your eyes and the joy in your heart are often all you ever will need to know about life. It’s not pride you feel in those moments of clarity; it’s pure admiration.

Use your imagination for a moment.

Imagine you are watching TV. Who do you want next to you keeping you warm? Where are you? That’s the person you should be with and that is the place you should be sharing.

I wrote an entire chapter to my new book while in the shower this morning. I love when that happens, and it’s even better when I finally have the chance to write it down. Someday.

The Ghost Beside Me

December 18, 2019 / Tom

A ghost sat beside me, rocking slowly on the small, wooden chair. In the steely silence I could hear only two things; the rhythmic beating of my heart and the creaking of that chair. I hear no breaths, no gusts of wind howling just outside my room nor sounds of discarded leaves being thrown about by autumn’s fury. I can only here Death sitting in that chair, slowly waiting for it to be my time.

My eyes had been blinded by the rage of life, my brain injured by the loss of blood. I needed to see, to stand, to walk among my loved ones again. In my blindness I could hear so many things once forgotten. I could hear the smile of my children. I could hear the laughter that came from deep within them. I could hear the sight of a flower blooming in the sunlight, and I could hear the sounds of winter thawing. I could hear the sound of a smile, of a loving glance, and the rising tide of an ocean a thousand miles away.

My body could no longer steady itself against the invisible strings of gravity. The sense of touch I had taken for granted had now changed and, with it a truth I had always depended. The security of all I had known vanished in a breath, replaced by something I was told was “a new reality”. It was a reality I had never requested but had no choice in accepting.

On an opposite side of the room sat another ghost rocking slowly on another chair. There was a warm light pulsing rhythmically with each movement, and a sweet melody vibrating in a heavenly tempo. I could feel the bliss of Life caressing those parts of me left darkened by the stroke, the want of life pulling me out of the numbness. There was, in this moment, a choice to be made and a path to be taken.

I felt no fear in this choice, only a surrender to the reality, swimming in the knowledge that had no control over my circumstance. In that surrender, though, rose a feeling in the numbness, a truth that shouted to me that while control had been lost, I could regain it. I could control my choices from that moment on. I could choose Death, or I could choose Life, and I could ride the wave toward either end. Death offered me a final surrender. Life offered me the challenge I was born to accept. Death seemed easy. Life seemed all-too-difficult.

I chose life, and in the shadows of that night I found my vision. In that unsteadiness I found true balance. In that challenge I found a love of Life, of living, and asked Death to wait his turn. He seemed to smile in return having played his part in the dance of Life.

Death knows, though, that my choice is a temporary one, and that one day he will extend his hand and I will have no option but to take it. Life, however, knows something too. She knows that circumstances arrive, and within them comes a litany of choices. Life knows that she exists in the choices we make within the experience, and she knows that those choices determine to which degree we can enjoy her company. We can either make choices that have us dancing with Life, of we can make choices that have us existing until the hand of Death grabs us in a grip from which we cannot break free.

I have discovered in my own time that Life offers us liberation in the choices we make. Liberation is born in the struggles of our time, and Life is realized in the sweat and blood of our liberation. True living is liberation, and liberation exposes us to the glory of true living. They go together like yin and yang, important ingredients that cannot be separated and are as necessary for one other as the beating heart is to breath and breath is to the beating heart. Fear is but a shackle we have placed upon ourselves, and love is the key that can set us upon a gratitude spawned from great Living. There is great liberation in appreciating the Sunrise whose memory may be all I have one day. Loss shows us the way to gratitude, and gratitude shows us a way from loss. We can be so liberated in sharing gratitude not just in what we have, but for what we have lost.

So whether it is struggling to keep upright when your brain is unable to keep control, or hiking a trail among the beasts of wild and untamed nature, or just getting out of bed to face another day, the challenge itself offers great opportunity for liberation. We can liberate ourselves from the confines of a bed in our dizziness. We can liberate our bodies from the delusion of safety within our unnatural box. We can liberate ourselves from the dread created in the lack of fulfillment. We are the choosers of our own path.

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