Guest post: “Finding Sanctuary Within This”

 

This is an excerpt from a book my friend is working on. She shared this writing with me after working on some art for my office space. With her permission, we are sharing it here today. Enjoy! Her words will ring true for so many of you!

 

October 20

This is just a glimpse of a corner. A corner of pain. A corner of wrestling.  A corner of beauty discovered. A corner of beauty uncovered. 

The corner of beauty here all along, yet beauty not seen. 

 

A friend asked me several months ago, somewhere in the heat of summer, to make a sign for her. We met in her new office space that she was in the process of creating. On that day I was overcome by thought.  All of the inferior thoughts I have ever had about myself were raging, bubbling like a hot spring to the surface of experience. I was unable to contain the emotion, the energy in motion. I was not meant to contain it and so it bubbled out. 

 

This friend was so gracious.  She listened mostly. She didn’t try to tell me anything different than I believed, she just listened.  We do need reminders about truth, we can share our perspective. It’s just that, as we all have likely experienced, no amount of speaking your own perspective or telling truth beyond those thoughts felt will convince anyone differently. 

 

That too has to be our own insight, our own seeing . . . bubbling up suddenly from the inside out.  This is the only way true change of perspective happens. From the inside out. No diet, no plan, no ten-step solution will ever create lasting change.  Ever. 

 

And this is life.  The nitty gritty. The messy middle.  The filling up and the emptying out. We try to control it and we cannot.  We attempt to channel it and we cannot. We work so very hard to contain our pain that the pain consumes us. We are not meant to keep our energy within us, we are created to express it through our lives lived. 

 

This corner of a sign created represents one thing.  Connection. Connection to what is going on from the inside out.  Connection with the experiences I was having. Connection to the thoughts I was having about myself.  Connection with the innocent wrestling and pain that were created from what I was thinking. 

 

This corner represents connection with beauty.  Beauty uncovered. Beauty discovered. Beauty never lost, just not seen.  Not beauty in a product but beauty through the process and within the person. 

 

This corner of the sky represents connection with beauty here all along, and beauty now seen. Writing this reminds me of a very favorite song of mine from the musical, Pippin’ that I sang with a group in college . . .

 

“Rivers belong where they can ramble

Eagles belong where they can fly

I’ve got to be where my spirit can run free

Gotta find my corner, of the sky”

 

The sky is always here, always holding us.  And we are simply free birds finding our way around it through living and expressing.

 

The river of life in you rambles.  The Eagle in you belongs where you can fly.  You’ve got to be where your spirit can run free, you belong in (any corner of) the sky.  Set yourself free. To discover and uncover the beauty here within you and within the sanctuary of  life. 

 

-excerpt from Finding Sanctuary Within This

 . . . a year’s memoir of LAFing my way through life one day at a time.

Currently being written by Cyndy Larsen from September 2019 – September 2020

3 thoughts on “Guest post: “Finding Sanctuary Within This”

    1. Susan Gleeson

      It is very heartfelt which is why I love Cyndy so much. She shares her heart wherever she goes. Such a blessing to call her friend!!

      Reply

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