Healing

 There are places I've been that are hard to revisit. My brother's grave, for example. I struggle to visit where he's buried. I have places I go where I leave my pain behind. Where I heal as I visit. Where the warmth of freedom fills my entire soul with flames of wholeness. It engulfs me completely. I would go visit regularly to feel the burning sensation of the refiner's fire changing, molding, and healing me. I took a long hard break from this healing place of mine. Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that there were too many people taking up space. My little personal healing space. 

I went through some old notes that I found of the times I'd visit it. I wrote "My faith lacks hope. My knowledge lacks belief. My doubt overrides truth. My brain lacks the memory of that time I once had hope in my faith, belief in my knowledge, and truth once trumped my doubts. I want to live like the river... It has no doubts, it is sure to get where it's going and doesn't want to go anywhere else." And a quote by Heraclitus "No man steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." And another quote by someone I didn't write down "There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where non intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in it's roar; I love not Man the less, but nature more. Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished."

I have now revisited that soul restoring place twice in the last 5 days. I visited it a little differently, but felt my heart fire up like it once did. I had memories come back of the very confusing times that I was searching for answers. As I take some time during lunch to document another note of that encompassing feeling of the enthusiastic blaze that overwhelms my soul, I am at peace. The softness of my heart rate settles deep and my breathing is slow as it's thoughtfully controlled. The contentment of the unworried and untroubled thoughts pacifies my entire being with ease. 

I love the experience of chaos into strength and clarity. And just like the river flows and we are all ever changing, there is one who doesn't. God.