Listen. Let your voice fall truly silent, that velvet soul tones might speak. The tiredness you feel is a signal of the will rushing, when the spirit wishes to be still. There is a light in you now that has its own logic, purpose and place. You are not its creator. Learn to respect it with a serious sincerity and an easy joy. Trembling beneath your skin is the wisdom, peace and completeness you long for. But you are a little addicted to the thrill of the chase, the fierce edge of your want. Slow your steps to the pace of your heartbeat. Match the fullness of the moment with the fullness of your attention. Why do you scatter yourself like a startled flock of birds? There are better ways to move through the day. Consider the sleek coherence of the jungle cat. Unhurried even when moving her fastest. This too can be you.

A small and metaphorical hole in your sleeve steals your attention. Leaves little for all the threads that are still brilliantly holding the rest of your life together. This would not be an issue if your attention to the hole conducted itself usefully, if it located the nearest needle and thread and set to work repairing the rent. Instead your attention sees fit to play the role of a professional mourner, one of those women called in to village homes when someone has recently passed. The expert keener will beat her breast, and wail loudly, enacting a theater of grief, pitched to bring complex emotions to the surface, designed to sanction the scream stirring within the numb and newly shattered heart– to scream in its place, that pent-up pain might feel a slight release. This can be holy work. But what your attention forgets is that in the villages, after a respectable period of lusty lamenting, the professional mourner dries her tears. She straightens her sari, enjoys a steaming cup of coffee and a hot meal. She returns to the rest of her life with vigor and interest in all its still working parts. The gaping hole of loss is still part of her fabric but no longer its centerpiece. But you my friend permit every small tear to snare you entirely and with no clear end. You lament far too long– and over far too little! You think this is a form of dedication, but really it is just petty and unprofessional. Don’t be so incessantly seduced by every tiny imperfection in your life. Don’t sit and stare at the ripped places, like a person who will not leave the graveyard, even after the spirits have moved on and are dancing elsewhere.