When you ask

I will kiss you

the way you want to be kissed

my lips 

petaled passages opening you

lightly

to your shadowed heart

bursting with sorrow.

Day after day I will come

and shake you softly

and hold you when you weep

tears streaming into the ocean of all sorrow

until you perceive at last 

the depth of that sea.

Then, I will not leave you.

I will walk with you everywhere

like a mother or a friend

wisdom and compassion

the only things left

as you let living 

alter you

with its kiss.

-Julien Longo (From The Logos Sophia)

I was speaking with a friend today and she shared that someone close to her is suffering with a chronic illness and is going to die from it. My friend is going to spend a week with this woman. How should she behave? What will they talk about? Can they speak about the illness? Can they speak about death?

How do we stay in the moment with the painful truth that someone we love is going to leave us and not by their conscious choice?

I don't have the perfect answer, but the question seems an important one to share, and discuss. For me, the key is to love, love, love. What else can we do when we live as these bodies--these wild and crazy teachers that are dragging us, kicking and screaming, all the way home?

I was alone on a sunny shore

by the forest’s pale blue lake,

in the sky floated a single cloud

and on the water a single isle.

The ripe sweetness of summer dripped

in beads from every tree

and straight into my opened heart

a tiny drop ran down.

By Edith Sodergran (1892-1923) (Finland)
tr. by Stina Katchadourian/ Book: Women in Praise of the Sacred