Fragility & Strength

This morning I was listening to the podcast “On Being” with Krista Tippett. An interview with Xavier Le Pichon.

It's the fourth time I’ve listened to it. More like drinking it. It, satisfying a thirst in me for the truth that has set me free. Xavier Le Pichon is a geophysicist. He’s a spiritual thinker and has lived his life in intentional community that centers around individuals with mental challenges. He speaks with so much grace about his life, raising his six children with his wife, within these intentional communities, where the ‘’weakest’’ members of the tribe are what and who the whole community centers their lives around. He speaks also about plate tectonics – how the earth, in areas where it is most rigid, it is most likely to quake and brake.
 
So, what I love about it – the frailty of mind, the frailty of body - it’s just like the frailty and softness of heart. In my life, when I put what I saw as the ‘’weakest’’ part of me, my grief, at the center of my life, my life kinda blew up. In a really good way. My circle and quality of friends improved. My happiness deepened. My joy overflowed. I took grief as my lover and let my lover have his way with me. Makes me smile just thinking of it. Right now, as I write. I chuckle. Grief – a really good fuck.
 
We’re only as strong as our weakest link – so no matter what we say about how we want to be or feel or think or love, we can’t follow through with it, when we’re not awake to all our parts; especially the painful ones. Grief isn’t something we have to put our lives on hold for. It is part of our lives, the rhythm of our heartbeat. Our lives keep growing and shining as we move through grief and embracing it, changing everything. Acknowledging it and letting it breathe. Taking time to feel it and love it – seeing when it rears its head and welcoming its roar.
 
The roar of my grief has been isolating at times but mostly uniting. Uniting me to myself, to my heart, my strength, my wisdom, my feelings, my hunger for life, my honesty & integrity, my perseverance, my friends, my family, my creativity, ingenuity, courage, and so much more that I continue to discover every single day.
 
Today, I invite you to breathe into the place in you where your grief has been sequestered off. Or if you love it, if you’ve claimed it as your lover, then make love to it. Right now. Have yourself a really sweet lay. 

The interview: http://www.onbeing.org/program/xavier-le-pichon-the-fragility-at-the-heart-of-humanity/101