april 26 . This is Letting Go

Fear.

Loneliness.

Pride.

     Let go, 

           Let go, 

                  Let go

        Ain't nothing gonna

        break my stride.

Let go, 

      Let go, 

             Let go

       The tug of your body

       standing behind me.
Let go, 
      Let go, 
             Let go
      The silence that's left
      in the wake of memory.
Let go, 

      Let go, 

             Let go

     The voiceless line.

     Those misplaced beliefs.

Let go, 
      Let go, 
             Let go
                    Guilt.
        Melancholy.
  Grief.
Let go, 
         Let go, 
                  Let go
***
The prompt today was so appropriate after the meditation I did this evening.  The prompt is "more than 5 times" -- take that how you want.

I want to include that meditation from tonight.  It is taken from Jack Kornfield's The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindess and Peace (which is definitely on my to-buy list).  I would also like to link to one of my favorite poems at the moment, Marge Piercy's "To Have Without Holding."  (And can everyone else giggle with me that this links to the polyamory society?  It's the little things in life, you know.)  And now, without further ado, part of Jack Kornfield's "A Meditation on Letting Go"...

Letting go is the path to freedom. It is only by letting go of the hopes, the fears, the pain, the past, the stories that have a hold on us that we can quiet our mind and open our heart.

We do not need to fear letting go. We can trust the courage and vulnerability of our heart to meet life as it is; we can rest kindly where we are. As we let go, the tender ground of honesty, healing, and love will carry us through the ever-changing world.

[...] To let go is to release the images and emotions, the grudges and fears, the clingings and disappointments of the past that bind our spirit. Like emptying a cup, letting go leaves us free to receive, refreshed, sensitive, and awake.

Letting go is not the same as aversion, struggling to get rid of something. We cannot genuinely let go of what we resist. What we resist and fear secretly follows us even as we push it away. To let go of fear or trauma, we need to acknowledge just how it is. We need to feel it fully and accept that it is so. It is as it is. Letting go begins with letting be.

[...] Let yourself sit comfortably and quietly. Bring a kindly attention to your body and breath.  Relax.  Let yourself be settled in the ground of the present.

Now bring into awareness the story, the situation, the feelings, the reactions that it is time to let go of.  Name them gently […] and allow them the space to be, to float without resistance, held in a heart of compassion.  […] Feel the benefit, the ease that will come from this letting go. Say to yourself, Let go, Let go, gently over and over.

[…] Sit quietly and notice if the feelings return. Each time they return, breathe softly as if to bow to them, and say kindly, I’ve let you go.

[…] Gradually the mind will come to trust the space of letting go.  Gradually the heart will be easy and you will be free.