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Again It Rears Up, This Familiar Worry

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 6, 2026| Leave a Comment »


 
 
Again it rears up, this familiar worry
that I am not doing enough to protect
and honor this world and all who dwell in it.
Worry slithers around my chest and constricts,
writhes in me as if my belly has become a bed 
of slow moving snakes, all of them hissing, 
You should be doing more. Somehow
I had not let myself see they were here. 
No shame there—of course they love to hide,
preferring shadows to sun, and now,
this morning, I see they have multiplied—
as if the cobra of perfection and the cobra
of fear have mated, mated often, and now 
there’s a vast quivering inside that will not
be ignored. I have read you should never attempt 
to touch, catch, provoke or kill a cobra.
I imagine it’s the same with worry. 
What it needs from me is not to tame it, 
not to destroy it, not even to soothe it, 
but to give it space, to keep myself calm, 
and most importantly to not pretend it isn’t there. 
Oh worry, I see you. Of course, you make me 
uncomfortable. I see how you live in a den 
fashioned of tenderness and love for the world 
so great I want to be in service. All my life 
I’m learning to make room for what I can’t control. 
All my life, I am learning to trust 
how even the unwanted is necessary, 
how it maintains the balancing of the whole. 

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