When Wound Becomes Portal

This weekend felt like one of those rare moments when life reveals its many layers all at once.

A reminder that joy and grief can exist in the same breath.

After more than a year in the making, I moved into my new home.

There is so much gratitude in that.

A sense of arrival.

A feeling that something I have been moving toward for so long is finally here.

The pursuit of home has reached a new chapter, and the beginning of what feels like an entirely different season is unfolding.

And at that very same time, I am moving through grief.

The loss of my grandfather.

The passing of my beloved meditation teacher, Lorin Roche.

Two animal clients crossing over.

It feels like standing at the threshold between endings and beginnings.

Tender.

Powerful.

Expansive.

Life has a way of showing us that nothing exists separately.

Joy and sorrow are not opposites.

Love and loss are not opposites.

They are woven together in the fullness of being human.

Our invitation is not to rush past what hurts.

Not to immediately search for the lesson.

Not to force ourselves into acceptance before we have fully felt.

The invitation is presence.

To allow the waves of experience to move through us like wind moving through the branches of a tree.

Lorin taught me this through his work with meditation.

He spoke about experiencing life fully - tasting all the flavors of being alive.

The joy.

The grief.

The wonder.

The uncertainty.

All of it.

A moment of challenge does not have to be the place where we close.

It can become the place where we open.

Where we discover a deeper relationship with ourselves, with love, and with the mystery of being alive.

When life feels tender, or tremendous - or both - I remember:

I am alive.

I am here.

I get to experience this moment.

The ability to grieve is evidence of love.

To feel loss means my heart opened enough to receive something precious.

And beneath all of it, there is something eternal.

Something steady.

Something connected to the same life force moving through everything around us.

So whatever season you are walking through...

Whatever is asking to be felt, honored, or witnessed...

May you allow yourself to be fully present with it.

May you let yourself experience the majesty of being human.

May you create space to meet yourself exactly where you are, with presence, compassion, and support.

With love,

Annaliese

“There is a place in the heart where everything meets.

Go there if you want to find me.

Mind, senses, soul, eternity, all are there.

Are you there?

Enter the bowl of vastness that is the heart.

Give yourself to it with total abandon . . .

Once you know the way

the nature of attention will call you to return

again and again, and be saturated with knowing,

'I belong here, I am at home.”

Lorin Roche, “The Radiance Sutras”