Thanksgiving 2024

Sunny and cold on this day past Thanksgiving,

and I’ve been pondering the meaning of It All.

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My life has changed drastically these last three years,

and most definitely for the better.

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I didn’t hit rock bottom when Spirit knocked me on my ass,

but I could see it from where I was lying, feel the

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dark matter pull of like towards like, a force stronger

than gravity, offering me this choice:

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“Unplug your ears and open your eyes, face the trauma

you’ve been racing to avoid, a losing effort,

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or I pull you off that ledge and let you roast a little.

The decision is yours.”

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I surrendered in that moment, which was the only thing

I could do, and then I surrendered some more, and

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surrendered some more, and I’ve been surrendering

ever since. I reckon I’ll be surrendering right up

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until my last breath.

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In the empty space vacated by wrongheaded thinking

and erroneous ideas about my life, my family, my Self,

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in the work to forgive and self-forgive, I feel hard-won peace,

more fragile some days than others, but unmistakable nonetheless.

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An alien feeling, after living so long with

an unregulated nervous system, and sometimes the

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old patterns arise: Am I worthy of this? Do I deserve this?

Who am I to feel this? Who am I to even want this?

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Whatever ‘this’ may be.

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And when I feel those questions, I’m grateful for the chance

to surrender again, the chance to remember I’m not that

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person anymore, not that fearful man, not that terrified boy,

grateful to love those aspects of my Self the way they

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needed to be loved, and weren’t, by flawed partners

or flawed parents, or my own flawed Self, not so long ago.

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I stand with all of you now at the edge of the unknown.

My old friend Pluto sits at zero degrees as of this writing, ready to

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give us the choice to be our best, or be our worst, in the days to come.

I know my choices: to tell the truth when it needs to be told, to love

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in spite of fear and divisiveness, to remember my healing is a spiral,

not a line, to be grateful for even the hard times, for they are the

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crucible of my being. And through whatever may come, to counter

despair

with surrender to grace,

surrender to truth,

surrender to love.