Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘canyon’

After I Fell in the Canyon of Grief

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 7, 2026| 5 Comments »


 
we discover that falling in the canyon is our initiation
—Mark Nepo, “The Life After Tears”
 
 
I didn’t land. I fell and I fell and I fell.
At first as I plummeted, I feared the landing,
imagining an imminent crash. Then,
I fell through nights and middays. Fell through
kitchen floors and highways. Fell through
birthdays and Saturdays. Fell until the sense
of groundlessness was so familiar it no longer
felt like peril. I don’t know when I stopped falling.
There was no splat. No splash. No crushing of bones.
No sense of arrival. In fact, I am not certain
I am done with my falling. But I do know now
the falling is not something to be feared.
Not that we grow wings. This is not about flying.
It’s about falling. About meeting the gravity
and feeling its force and letting it carry me
in ways I have never before let myself be carried.
Now I know that the canyon of grief is
just another name for living the fullest life.
The reward for the falling is to no longer
expect a reward. The reward of falling is to
learn to not resist the falling. The reward of falling
is to feel how grace falls with us as if holding
our hand, like a teacher, like a friend.

Read Full Post »

Design

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 30, 2025| 11 Comments »


 
 
Imagine the self as a canyon in the making,
   once solid, and then, ongoingly,
     made more spacious, shaped by water,
 
by wind, by forces beyond its control.
   Whatever is sacred, I feel it in canyons,
     these earthen temples to surrender—
 
such holy architecture
   with their deep and ancient silence,
     with their steep and crumbling walls.
 
How sacred the angle of light
   as it enters from the rim and slants
     through the belly of air.
 
Sacred, too, the shadows,
   like those most secret parts of ourselves
     that never see light.
 
When I think of the self as a canyon,
   it is easier to believe I, too,
     can be made more spacious
 
through surrender, the shape of my life
   an ever-changing record of where I resist
     and where I release,
 
oh this practice I am still learning
   to trust, this erosion of self
     into reverence.

Read Full Post »

One Marriage

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 15, 2018| Leave a Comment »

 

ever conversing

the canyon and river—

one carves,

one contains,

one sings,

one resonates,

summer, winter,

sun, rain,

both endure

both change

Read Full Post »