Embodied Threads

A gathering of goodness from this month

Fellow Wayfinder,

As this month draws to an end, I’ve gathered a few offerings from my recent work, threads that might meet you where you are. Together we’ll move through creative ponderings, a new meditation, an excerpt from the private podcast, and a question offered by a course member, with the intention that something here helps you rest into a sense of peace that doesn’t depend on circumstances.

Let’s begin with a reflection on creating like no one is watching.

On The Creative Life

Out in the distance, a whale breaches the still horizon. Her white underbelly flashes against the dark sky. No one else sees her. But I lift my binoculars and catch her unselfconscious joy—her spinning, heavy body lit against the dusk, her sheer delight in her own aliveness.

So too must we create: from the fullness of our expression, even when we feel unseen. Even when our offering feels distant from the eyes of others. We do it for the love of what we are, and for what moves through us.

We breach the stillness again and again with our ungoverned joy.

We are not here for the eyes of the world, but for the quiet urgency of our own wild.

Advice For Writing Poetry

• Be brave enough to be boring. Be strange enough to be yourself.

• Write as if no one is watching. Then edit as if everyone is.

• Let failure be part of the compost. Nothing is wasted.

And above all—

Write not to become a poet, but because you already are one.
The rest is remembering.

New Meditation

Whole Minded

Sometimes, we need to use a different word to let Grace in. In this meditation, I explore 'presence' as another name for Self, Oneness, and Reality—so we can deepen our somatic experience of the undivided now. Whether you're seeking peace, clarity, healing, or a sense of belonging, this inquiry invites you to rediscover Wholeness - not as something to achieve, but as something that you already are.

You can listen to the meditation now on Insight Timer

An Excerpt

The Wilder Path is You (listen to audio)

I often think of that sleepless night. Two restless children. How we bundled them into the car before dawn and drove into the forest with a small iron pot and a bag of oats. In a clearing, we lit a cookfire, poured milk from a coke bottle, and drizzled honey over the steaming porridge. Four spoons dipping into the blackened pot. The autumn leaves softening our weariness. The cool dawn air gathering us up. The smell of damp earth, forest becoming soil, soil becoming forest.

That day, I saw it clearly: like the fallen trunk that sinks into the maw of moss beneath it. We are more, not less, when our bodies return to the fecund imagination of this conscious earth. When the forest, or the sea, or the fire folds us back into itself…

❀ This private podcast episode, along with a prompt & practice, will be out on Thursday, 31st July - join us ❀

Question & Answer

Taken from a question posted on the 7-day guided meditation course, W(hole)ness.

Question:

"I’ve carried a deep sense of being broken since childhood, shaped by early labels and painful experiences. Now in my later years, I long for peace—but find myself burdened by thoughts of unworthiness and grief, especially from the estrangement with my daughter. I want to be free of these painful stories, to look in the mirror and truly accept myself as I am. How can I be with what feels so deeply unwanted, and find grace and joy in the time I have left?" From Amy.

Answer:

Dear Amy, I feel such tenderness for the pain you've held through childhood, through motherhood, and now in these later years that you hoped would bring more peace. Beneath all the layers of your letter, I hear a quiet, honest question: How can I be with what is deeply unwanted, and not be lost to it?

This question is deeply human, something we all meet at some point in our lives. The estrangement, the ache of being unseen, the old stories of defectiveness, they live in the body, in the nervous system, in places that were once too young to understand and too soft to defend themselves. They are not evidence of your failure. They are the imprints of a life lived with an open heart.

There is something that can change the course of your inner life, if you allow it. It has changed mine, and continues to for many who come to this point of simply wanting to live the time we have left in deep, quiet wholeness.

And that is this: don’t try and fix what feels broken, but take all of it into your arms and hold it with as much love as your heart can offer.

This means gently turning your attention away from the mind’s stories and placing it in your heart. What does your heart say about needing your daughter to relate to you differently? What does your heart know about the word “defect”? Does your heart need you to change before it can offer love to you? Does it require this ache to disappear before it welcomes you home?

This is the turning point—not in getting rid of the pain, but in learning to sit beside it with a vast, loving presence. A presence that isn't trying to improve or solve, but simply willing to stay. This, to me, is the true experience of wholeness. It’s what allows life to shift in its own time, without our control. It's what makes peace possible even when the situation stays the same. Freedom may not mean the sorrow vanishes. But it does mean you are no longer at war with it. You become the one who can remain. The one who does not leave herself.

Let this be your gentle practice now: To return, again and again, not to the one you wish you were, but to the one who is here—tender, tired, real, and still full of love.

With deep care, Sez

You can find the course on my website or on Insight Timer

Quote

Holding love without asking what you love to be different. That is what true love looks like. A heart that holds itself up to all, and is itself the transforming quality.

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