Radical Acts... Waxing poetic.

...Because the radical act is to be happy. To follow your heart. To connect to people and love them even if they're wrong about stuff, and if they don't love you back when you're wrong about stuff, what do you care? Love them anyway. And then remember that true love doesn't enable and you don't have to put up with disrespect in the name of love, and love will sometimes be from far away...

...But back to following your heart, and how hard that actually is, and the navigation of the rushing white waters of the river of your life, and how much energy you really have and thinking about your heart now AND then, not to future trip but simply to let go of everything and honor the self and that might include honoring the niggling doubt not because it's true but to allow yourself to investigate all those feelings and explore...

...and being willing to stand out and apart sometimes...

...and still connecting to people, the people who matter, and you might never get to know until you are five hundred and thirty seven years old, and what the hell is the point of any of it anyway?

...and being willing to then, after sitting with all those feelings, not in the head per se, but in the heart, purely, and in the body, and in your blood, and in your toes, and as you cradle a child (or in my case, a pet), or touch the rough ridges of a tree, or pray before your deity, or bow your head because you are still a human creature and such creatures do experience fear and welcoming it as a friend you get to care for because she is dying of cancer rather than shun her and ignore her because she is dying of cancer seems the more loving response for everyone, and especially for yourself...

...after all that...

...when the time is right (and how will we know?)...

Take the risk.

All of this great humanity,

this is the radical act that we are being called upon to take,

not false, fake, presentational happy,

the endeavoring, and the failing, and the endeavoring once again,

allowing all of life and saying,

maybe I don't fit,

maybe sometimes I do,

but this day is mine.

I shall lead, I shall follow. I shall offer, I shall receive. I shall weep. Laugh. I shall dance badly, and I shall sing well. I shall listen, listen, listen to the silence within, listen, listen, listen to the words as you are speaking them. I shall listen to the music and the starry starry night. I shall come forward with my hands open, asking for more, for reasons, for help. And then those hands open shall be ready to work, to build, to pound nails and plant seeds. And the seasons and the beatitudes and the tides and the turning and this is the stuff of life and we are born and then we die and every day we die again and let this take your breath away so that you may join the heavenly choir. Temptations sing... oh, glory, jewel of the nile, childhood things, wonder, mystery, discovery, all making things like taxes tolerable, all things like the power bill and heartache tolerable, tolerable, tolerable.

The options are yours, then. Will you allow life to be radical, or tolerable?