When We Must Endure

When We Must Endure

By Sarah Blondin

She smiled today for maybe the first time. She found a sliver of joy in the challenging place she was in.  A bit of joy in the stretching thin like a deer hide hung up and pulled taught between two branches, placed in the sun, the weather, there to endure and then to be made into something stronger, more malleable, everlasting.  She smiled because she understood she was becoming more solid in beauty and being. All the more beautiful to the touch and senses.  She understood she was going through the time-consuming process of transformation from soft hide, useless unless cured by the sun and weather.  Undergoing change of form, crystallizes; born one thing and becoming another.  There is a place that only one can arrive at, only to lie down and surrender.  There is a place where prayer is your only comfort.  There is a place where me must be cured by the sun and weather and this is not an easy place.  Moments where we feel we are being overdrawn are rare.  There are places of great shift, and change and rebirth.  Only a few of them in our lifetime, if we are so lucky.  There is glory here, squinting your eyes in the sun bracing yourself against the wind, tethered between two branches, skin taught.  Tight against the forces that reel around you.  You are being transformed.  If you listen closely you will hear your soul is actually singing.  How beautiful, your souls great call to growth.  Birth is no easy process.  We are forced against our will to leave the comforting warmth of our mothers’ soft womb.  We are pushed and squeezed through a tiny opening, spilling into another reality. At the mercy of our new environment, we learn to find our own source and to align with our own heartbeat.  We are soft skinned and vulnerable.  We must move forward, grasping onto the helpful hands that reach out to us. We go from small to strong and learn to stand on our own, and there are times in our life where we must endure in order to be born into more wholeness.  Times in our life where we must wait out our great storms of unknown, traverse through unfamiliar landscape.  Wait, in quiet submission and surrender.  A major part of the learning, is in the waiting, in the complete surrender.  We must withstand the slow process of discovery and unfolding.  We must patiently wait for our learning to be uncovered; our path revealed. A major part of our learning is to smile in the storm, in the stretching thin.  For eventually, something of great value will be given to our soul.  This is the place where depth grows, where the root is established.  Where the tree of your life grows more rings in age and wisdom.  Where you are challenged to grow through hard weather.  Where you either grow into a wise ancient tree or stay a seedling.  Instant gratification or reward does not live here.  The option to leave this place does not live here either.  This is where nothing is revealed quickly.  Where the greatest challenge and growth lives.  Are you there now, dear one?  Are you exhausted from pushing against some unseen force? Are you tired from trying to force an end to where you are?  Are you tired from trying to run forward into more peaceful pastures and a more comforting place?  Are you waiting out a storm within?  Does it feel as though you cannot bear one more moment of it?  If you are here now, in this place, may I ask that you take a moment to lie down.  Open your arms wide along your sides, legs limp.  Open your sheltered heart, stop curling against it.  Open.  Open, dear one.  Let yourself be tied between two branches and rest here, and close your eyes and breathe.  Feel all of the weight lift from your tired bones.  Feel the pressure release from your chest and let your breathing make you buoyant.  Let go.  You cannot rush this process.  The amount of weather you can endure is directly proportionate to the amount you will gain.  Weather rises in fierceness and crashes into your shore, and then it subsides.  The only thing we can hold onto knowing is that it does recede.  Allow yourself to not be in control and you find relief there in that idea.  For you are not in control and know that something beautiful is taking place.  You have already made the greatest journey from your mother’s womb into the mercy of this wondrous life of yours.  You have already said ‘yes’ to the great mystery.  Lift your face to the sun, the wind, the hail, and smile.  It is in your favor.  Do not rush this place, for you are in the time-consuming process of great transformation.  You are rising.  You are growing more malleable and more strong.  You are growing more wild and beautiful.