This post was originally published on Luminous Leanings on December 10, 2020.

Some things just can’t be captured in prose. I sat down to write a post on “How to accept yourself more fully” or “How to stop judging your wandering mind or aching body” or something like that. What spilled forth instead was the following poem.

May it serve your homecoming journey into the truth of your wholeness, your enough-ness, your intrinsic worth and value. May you be reminded of the value of your experience, exactly as it is, every time you allow a little pleasure to seep into the cracks of your awareness.

You don’t have to rein in your wandering mind.
You don’t have to always be containing it, curbing it, controlling it.

Let go of the notion of a perfect mind.
Whatever you are resisting or rejecting in your own mind is a part of the shared human experience.
Can you instead invite curiosity, empathy, and compassion for these aspects?

Let go of the notion of a perfect body, somewhere out there.
When you stand in meditation, feeling every nook and cranny of familiar, chronic pain.
When you grasp at a fantasy that – one day – you will be whole.

One day – these pants won’t feel as tight, these bones won’t ache so much, this story of not enough will be a long-forgotten memory.
One day – this mind will sit and stay when directed, won’t look away from the task at hand, won’t long and ache for something different or more.
These are fantasies, a drug of the highest potency and magnetism.
You are already whole.

This is both your experience and the human experience.
This resistance is here to teach you something.
Connection? Compassion? Understanding? The truth of how things are.
Do you have the courage to be with it?

Your wandering mind is on a journey.
When it’s sore and tired of the constant control,
it’s best not to thwart it, hamper it, or delay it.

Free it of its cage every once in a while – as you glance back and forth
From the screen of to do’s toward the gently falling snow outside your window –
Turn your face fully toward the snow.
This resting in its beauty, the fascination and worship and mystery in its presence –
This is worthy. This is nourishment. This is meaningful. This is life-giving.

We can afford ourselves moments of timeless pleasure, steps outside of linear time, they go on and on forever and ever in all directions.
We can be trusted with these shards of eternity, these moments of bliss –
Moments? The word falls quite short of capturing what is unending.
For once glanced, once enjoyed, once savored – is forever a part of us.

You belong to what you long for.
The breadcrumbs on the trail to Future Self are leading you home –
Not home to some perfect, idealized version of yourself who has it all together and never breaks a sweat,
But home to who you truly are.
Pick up each crumb, savor it, and feel more complete, more enlivened,
Come home to your wholeness.