imagine yourself here. what do you see? smell? hear? this is your space of solitude. your space surrounded by all that one can find in nature. you’ve come to contemplate…what? find something to connect to, to love. these waters are you, the clouds adrift across the sky are your clouds. this is you, you are this.

within you lies the beauty of a thousand sunsets. within you lies the stillness of a million lakes on a windless day. within you lies the truth – that you are beautiful beyond words. even your ugliest parts are worthy here. because they’re just parts; not the you you.

breaking the surface of the water we find the inner, unseen depths. the stories gone untold, the ones working so hard to bob to the surface. again and again we push it down. that’s okay. one day we’ll part the waters and lift the story, wet from years of submersion. we’ll place that story on a blanket, wrap it in our arms, pour love and warmth onto and into it, and then listen. maybe it’s only a few short words that have been longing for voice; maybe it’s an epic tale that wraps and winds its way around us. either way, it’s our story. it’s us. and it needs our voice. it needs our attention. it needs our love.

and when you look up across the stillness of the water, you’re different. you know now that you can never go back. and so you paddle on, keeping your story held tight, giving it all the space it needs to just be. it can rest now, and, having listened without judgment and with compassion, so can you. that’s all it takes.