Hi, and welcome. Thanks for being and becoming with me. None of this would be possible without your help. One way to support me, if you’d like, is to become a paid subscriber of my Substack, here. You can also buy my book, here (or, become a founding member and get it for free, here). Find out more about my work here, and let me help you with yours, here. I appreciate you. ❤️
I bought a Mahogany + Vetiver candle for my room.
That’s what it’s called. And underneath —
the subtitle, if you will — reads Discover Your Om.
I didn’t see that until tonight but sometimes,
in the mornings, when I’m sitting in front of
Jesus and Mary (they were less expensive),
I do, in fact, “Om,” and I wonder if Sawyer
(Preston’s daughter, age 11 —
however the hell that happened)
hates that noise as much as she hates
the smell of this candle, and wonders
just what in the world this human is doing
all smelling bad and making weird sounds at 5 am.
(On the way to the United game,
her sister told me that “Moaning is sus,”
and I don’t know if that has anything to do
with my Oming but I agree with her and I didn’t
keep the conversation going.)
Anyway, it became clear to me that
I didn’t have a choice anymore about whether
I was going to sit and dragon-breathe my way
to consciousness in the mornings.
I bought the damn thing at a grocery store
because Mahogany reminded me of Ron Burgundy and
it made me laugh and whatever does that is worth
lighting on fire. Vetiver reminded me of
how much money I spent on DoTerra
at one point in my life. In hindsight,
it was worth every penny because
it meant something to someone I love.
You know? I’ve got my beef with Jesus
just letting us all figure it out as we go,
like, “Yeah maybe God did want a bunch of
spokespeople to Lord him over us,” or maybe
he was just doing midrash with the boys.
Maybe Love never fails. Maybe
you’ve got a choice and maybe leaving
ends up being the only
good, true and beautiful option.
After all: he seemed to think so.
Maybe our departures let us know that
Nothing is never not Present, and
Emptiness is fertile with possibility.
When I change the “O” to a “V”
on my out-breathe, it vibrates down in
[not in-to but in, From] the cavern
I’ve been carrying in my chest, and
bounces off the walls, and waters the sediment
in my abdomen — where the soil keeps hardening
in the wake of all the absences
we pay back and forth to one another.
It shifts. It’s not much, but it feels tectonic.
(And, you know, Prilosec helps.)
I have to keep believing in the Ground.
So I light my candles and I make my sounds
and when I find Will Ferrell in the Emptiness
and he makes me laugh, I say “thank you.”
And when I find a softening, I
never, ever hold back the tears.