In yoga the other day my teacher told me
to invite my fear to tea;
perhaps then it could tell me why it has been so strong and so constant
for such a long time
And so I made a space
in quiet meditation
where I set the table and laid out my favorite tea cups.
I brewed rose-scented black tea, my favorite,
and offered a cup to my companion
asking
politely,
"So why are you here so consistently?"
Sipping its tea slowly and thoughtfully, fear's cup clattered to the table in epiphany...
It looked me in the eye and cried,
"I am trying to save your life!
"I bring to mind mountain lions so that you don't get lost in the woods
I make you blush so that dangerous strangers cannot get too close
I know the things that lurk in the night
And the noises in your heater that will cause a fire...
I have seen centuries of pain
and eons of cruelty!
In every moment
In all of your lifetimes I have been here
trying so hard to save that beating heart
I am devoted to
.
and
.
every
.
time
.
I
.
have
.
failed."
We both sit silently for a while now, fear and I...
For me, it becomes a matter of cultivating compassion instead of wanting to push madly,
understanding the good intent behind the stream of words I still cannot always decipher from instinct....
for fear, it becomes a matter of simply understanding that it will lose me
again
.
and again
.
and again
.
unceasingly.
For all things it is true that love means letting go;
even the stuff we most wish to shed
may, in its adoring, cling more tightly
to our breast.
