What If, Just for Today

What If, Just for Today

What if, just for today, we were present, fully, with ourselves?
Our body, our breath.
The sounds around us.
The sun’s gentle warmth on our skin.  
The breeze of morning’s arrival.

What if today, we were present?
For the grief… that arose.
The place where truth survived.
The stories we ached to forget.

What if today we were present with our humanity?
The cycle of life.
Birth. Growth. Death.
Beginnings and endings.
Our light and our shadow.

What if today we were present for love?
Its power, its source.
Its depth, healing, and possibility.
To love all beings equally.

What if today we were present with peace?
The peace within.
The peace around us.
The peaceful warrior within us.

What if today we were present with joyful delight?
The sound of children’s laughter and play.
Silliness and shenanigans.
Awe and magic.
The wild innocence that lives within the heart of the child.

What if today we were present with our Sacred Rage?
The anger that has informed us.
The fire it ignites within us.
The action it begs us to take.
The action it begs us to bury.
The energy it longs to cleanse.

What if today we were present with hope?
The hope that plants seeds of possibility for tomorrow.
The hope that opens new doorways.
The hope for humanity and all our ways of being.

What if, for today, we could be present for it all?
To be fully human.
To be present with the full scale and range of human emotions.
To feel it all as a privilege.
To be present for it as a gift.

What if we valued anger and rage as much as we valued joy, peace, and play?
What if today we embraced all our humanity with unbridled compassion?

Is there a place within us where the full spectrum of human emotions can be appreciated as the wisdom it truly is?

Photo by: Adelfina Dashina