I’m learning to love myself…

Through loving the way I experience life through my senses

through loving the texture of the velvety purple ear of a plant I recently learned was called Wandering Jew- tradescantia

through loving the fragrant waft of rose gardenia when I rub the leaves between my fingertips and then inhale

through loving the way my breath has grown deeper over time, through time, and beyond time

through loving the way my mind makes connections and synthesizes stories and information in ever expanding ways— when harnessing it’s forces toward the creative over the destructive,

(we are still learning this one)

through loving the pain that flares up in my right sacroiliac joint, where the sacrum and the pelvic crest connect at a grand conjunction of energetic movement up and down the spine, reminding me that I too want to move up toward the sky and down below ground simultaneously, in the same moment

through loving the tears that well up when meeting anothers’ tears and the shared nod that we are made up of salt water and blood

I’m learning to love even my voice when it quivers with something pressing to say but then the words don’t quite come out in the order I wanted them to

I’m learning to love the lineage of people from whom I’ve descended, their flaws and their fears, their flight responses and their dreams of a better life

I recently had the word Beloved etched in into a tree of life tattoo inked onto the center gallery between the shoulder blades, a living memorial to that day and to this very life, because

In learning to love myself, I’m learning to see myself as the Beloved, divine, the universe in ecstatic motion (as Rumi wrote)

I’m still learning that one

so may these words be my prayer