Lucy Grace

Notes for being human

Unclench
your fisted heart
and let it break.

Just let it.

Open
every door of yourself

give over deeply,
grant entry to the pain

to seep or soar,
to drip
or wave

through every mistake

every longing,
every wish

to belong,
somewhere.

Let
your heart
break,

know deeply
every open artery

every breath
every broken capillary.

Because the real tragedy

is only ever
leaving yourself.

YES.

Life in its wisdom
wants to be felt.

So open

every
single
cell

every moment
wants to be deeply,
wholly allowed.

The greatest intimacy
is offering up your body

For life
to live, itself.

(Much harder, more nuanced
than it sounds)

Turn no visitor away
– whether joy or suffering –

Make deep love
to them all,

listen
to the whispers calling

“let it in,
let it ALL in”

a broken heart
is only ever-more

awakening.

*

When I speak here of a broken heart, I don’t mean the romantic kind (only).

Life has a billion ways to belly us.
And deep magic occurs, when we let ourselves be broken open.

The supple union,
of suffering, faith and wisdom.

When we think about all the bullets we catch, and bury, in this miraculous life. Tiny moments, subtle encounters, big knowings.

Healing, meeting, trying, not trying.

The question always seems to be the same:
are we opening, or closing? In this moment…this moment…

How intimate with every part of life can we stand to be?

The mediocrity. The mundanity. The hurt. The subtle – and overt – brutalities.

As well as the miraculous, the joyful,
the magical and the hopeful.

When I need sound healing

I bathe in cicada hum.

When I need ministry
I let the grass lavish
it’s deep devotion
upon me
and the dew
drip its sermons
right into my heart.

I anoint my feet
in puddles and I
praise mud.

I was never alone.
who am I fooling?

I was fathered by mountains,
mothered by ocean

I was taught by landslides,
and caught by the woman
I became, during them.

Stars serenade me
with their chorus of hallelujah’s,
offer themselves up
as pin-pricks
of wonder and guidance
in the darkness

Trees salute me, stand
guard and strengthen me
offer their wisdom
– if I’m listening.

I am.
all existence.

My friends are rocks and
praying mantises, I thread
their hearts through mine, like
an endless chain

Let the sky teach me loyalty
to warmth AND shadow
– the humility of hail
and the sanctity of

change.

*

And through it all

love.

Ablaze
from magma – up

through the soles
of me

I give the Mother
my body, for colonising

we are
ember and water,
– all at once

we are
so
deeply
loved

just like this
with our limping, broken
hearts – full of fear

We are
and are
and are

sacred mess.
perfect process.

For this and another
thousand reasons

we are
blessed.

Impact

I try to be
as unbusy

as I can be.

Business,
hurts me.

Leaves
no time
for receiving

no space
for a breeze

to waft through

and stoke
the embers
in me.

I need air around me.

Silence
to bow

before
crickets chorusing.

Stillness
to allow

wisdom to
root-in

deeply.

Why
we insist
on believing

that wholeness exists
in adding,

is beyond me.

Subtracting
is deep life
love-making.

Savouring.
Marinating.

Let culture
keep its busy

it’s not importance:
it’s impotence.

Everyone spread so thin
they forget the “I am”

the wisdom
of pleasure
and silence.

I’ll be outside
listening to trees
teaching

on the intelligence
of dew
and matter.

I’ll be
inhaling deeply

the gnosis of
butterfly wing flutter.

I’ll be opening
filling

RECEIVING
ether.

Before erupting
as Her fire.

*

Only then
will I burn
through town

ignite streets
disperse crowds,
take signage down.

move paper – reverently –
from one side of the
factory, to another.

DO.

Wholly.
Completely.

Before
unbecoming

fire.

Before returning
to

being
(ember)

The only prayer

There is a flow to life
that we must follow

a place where the mystical
meets the mundane

the profound collides
with the profane

where every butterflies wing
points the same way.

And we can read the runes,
pull another card,
scry our lives, all we like

hoping for a different roll,
of the same dice

but we DO know.
We know Graces whisper.
Beckoning us on journeys
we wouldn’t choose.

Breathing us things
we would rather unknow.

And so, we will

go

dancing
or dragged.

*

Every day
the same prayer:

“take these hands,
this heart, these lips
for your work,
your words, I am
wholly yours”

and yet, still
I can grieve

the things I’m asked
to release.

I suppose then,
there’s only one prayer
I ever need to know
and that is

“please
show me how to

let this go.”

Summer Ashram

We don’t need
to dress up our spirituality
in fancy language

Sanskrit might as well be
cicada hum

church is apple blossom
and watermelon

choir is a chorus
from a bank of summer flowers
worshiping sky

our sacred drum is
wailing children
stomping sand

i am,

and am,

and am.

I get my sermons from slugs

I am schooled by
sea-glass, and the alchemy of
lifetimes of broken hearts

I am
more than human.

and if I can’t trust
when I’m scared

then how can I say I trust?

If I can’t love – here –
when things fall apart

then I can’t say, I truly love.

If peace inside of me, relies
on peace outside of me

it’s not peace.

I am
majesty, and algae

I am “spirituality”

no robe needed
no green smoothie.

no building
no costume
no “channelling”
no “download”

no archetypes
no exclusive circles

no animal skull/fancy dress/skin drum
can emulate, or replace this

we are
and are
and are

limitless.

*

There’s no guru, but
your own breath

so don’t kiss my feet
and feed me sugar

let’s lie in the long warm grass
and worship

all the light we cannot see,

together.

Kairos time

I open my full hands
before Kairos

Say that holy name
and
trust

I lived my whole life
on a whim and a dime

– on Gods time

found solace and
wonderment

in the light that lives
inside the darkest quiet.

Freedom isn’t knowing
all the steps.

Freedom
is how naked
I’m willing to be
as I walk them.

This
holy emergence
needs to drop skin and
listen. if I’m too busy
demanding, I can’t hear
what wants to happen.

The composition is faith.
the lesson – always
love.

We can read other peoples
sheet music, and force
ourselves to follow it

or we can burn
the script and

dance.

I lay awake for hours last night watching my daughter sleep – the night before Easter chocolates, she’s so excited.

I found myself asking God (call it consciousness, great spirit, Allah – whatever) “how can I ever possibly love her enough? You’ve set humans an impossible task.”

She’s so open and pure. Every parent knows, we always fall short of that. Our own beautiful, bumbling humanity gets in the way, no matter our hearts.

I think of God as my dearest friend. I found myself chatting away. “Who has been the human that has loved the most?” I wondered.

I pictured some obscure, simple man or woman in a hut or house just deeply, quietly being love.

Loving trees, loving water, loving birds, loving children, loving people. No fuss or fanfare. Walking so lightly on the earth that each step was thoughtful. Energy going toward not harming. Within community. Within family.

I wondered about their human struggles. Living alone, it’s easy to maintain equilibrium – if we’re really here, and we are really willing to be in close proximity to other humans, that’s where we meet our humanity most deeply.

“Spirituality” or “being love” has moved out of caves, off isolated hills, or ashrams and into the womb of us.

Can we do it here, in the streets? Even amidst a riot? (Think 6 year old jacked up on sugar all day).

Was Christ the most loving incarnation? I once read a channelling with Christ (and it’s very rare I read things like that) where Jesus spoke about “himself” and said that Christ was not his highest lifetime. But an unknown woman that lived “after” was.

What is it to love as deeply as possible? To let the love we are, move through us completely.

I turned these thoughts over.

Grace plays such an important role in love. She teaches that. Forgiveness. Of “other” and “ourselves.”

Giving over.

And so we walk on.

We rise in the morning. Brush teeth tenderly. Watch the window for dew and kingfishers. Make the porridge. Tend the flowers. Scrub the floors. Metaphorical and physical.

We listen. Let butterflies, moths and seasons teach us. We forgive ourselves our own humanity. While revering it deeply. Look to the sky, and wonder.

Perhaps the greatest act of love is truly finding joy in the sacred ordinary – not as a concept but an experience. Miraculous things that we mistake as simple things when we take them for granted.

Like grass all around us, growing. Or our children, eyes wide under the moon. Blood spilling between our parted legs, food growing under our careful hands. The person we loves deep familiar form pulling us in.

Dust and dew and the odd moment of true connection and understanding. Our breath misting cool air, the wintering of our own hearts – usually right before they burst into brighter spring.

Waking in a night to match my breathing with hers.

Pulling her to me. Trying again tomorrow.

The gift of each other. Dancing us more and more deeply into love.

I’ve had many conversations lately about how and why we choose to give. Or choose not to.

Most of us are good hearted people, doing our best to be of service to our families, communities, friends. But many are worn out and not sure when it is “ok” to say no or give to ourselves.

There are so many messages in the world about “selfless” giving.

How we serve, what we serve – who, when and why.

When is it “ok” to draw boundaries?

Where does the line between selflessness and selfishness blur?

As we’ve moved around these discussions I keep coming back to the same place – intention is everything.

If we are giving from a place of fear or need (“will they accept me, love me, keep me”) that energy imbues the act.

If we are carrying the “disease to please” or a martyr complex or myriad number of other imprints or patterns that can lead us to support people from a place of seeking (I want approval, I want validation, I want to earn my right to belong, I want to earn love, I want to be “good” or good enough) – basically “I want, I must, I should” – then our capacity to support authentically will be deeply limited. And we’ll be drained fast.

The person receiving will also feel the energy of fear or resentment or entitlement in the giving.

When I’m clear on my intention and give from a place of wanting to BE love, not get love – everything changes.

For the other, and myself. Because that intention also includes being loving to me.

We are each our own eco system – and every environment needs balance to thrive.

So we know to give deeply and unapologetically to ourselves when needed.

Then we give from overflow. And move in the world from overflow.

Then I’m very clear on my boundaries – my “no” is easy to find. And it’s the deep power and authenticity that lives inside my yes.

Discernment is key. As well as robust dedication to the truth of us.

Am I seeking or giving here?

Am I doing this to be love, or to be loved?

One letter makes all the difference and imbues our movements in the world with such clear open hearted no-strings-attached sober, yet full giving, that we all come away blessed.

When I’m giving from this powerful place of choice, my heart is open, love flows truly and freely – blessing both me (as it travels through my cells first before leaving my body) and the other.

From this place, it’s simply – me giving to me.

We become love moving, and what a joy it is to have that opportunity.