Delicious 36
Opening the third path.
In honor of turning 36.
*I wrote this and then realized it had a familiar ring to it: Wandering Star ~ Rohini, The First Free Women: Poems of the Early Buddhist Nuns
The third path opens up like the rainbow between two sides.
It’s the river that powers through the gorge.
It’s not two roads diverged in a yellow wood - it’s something else entirely.
It’s the pool of blood between cut skin, which heals and becomes an unexpected mark that you now carry.
The sensual, passionate, creative, intuitive, raw, painful, animalistic, beauty is already in us to get us there.
All we need to do is step into it and be embodied.
The third path comes when you face your grief and feel your body.
Hair raising, skin tingling, heat in your belly, heart pounding, tears running down your cheeks and the thumb of someone to wipe them away, palm cradling your face.
Heart to heart hugs and interlaced fingers.
An inkling and a calm before the storm, and the courage to honor it.
Rowdy cheers and laughter that give you no choice but to inhale deeper.
Acknowledgement that you are alive, and together we arrive in celebration.
The third path is unexpected.
It’s the surreal moment.
It gives pause and feels so right.
It’s “huh.” “It could be like this.” “It is like this.”
It’s a possibility maybe you didn’t even consider, couldn’t even dream, didn’t dare to believe.
It’s all the intention, hard work, sacrifice, and denunciation of convenience, violence, and ego, poured into a well of hope.
It’s when you say “nope” and create something completely different that is more aligned with you and your values.
Your life force energy taken back and woven into what your DNA actually craves.
Through a dark night or many, through dances with death, through rejecting what is known, through being alone…
The third way is a blossoming opening, and it may not arrive how you expect.
However you arrive at it, whenever you do, however you feel it -
Your experience is your own.
And you’ll know when you’re there, when your life feels deliciously yours.
