Being Transparent...

This week has been a week.. To all that is good, holy, solid and full of incredible amounts of depth and grace I pray!
I really don't even have words to tell you the truth. I am feeling EVERYTHING in ways that I have never felt before. Even as I write these words my physical and emotional response in mind, body and spirit are struggling to wrap themselves around something that I truly don't think can be attained just now. I think what can be attained right now, for me personally, is to just feel it all and hold fast, pause... in doing that it makes me super uncomfortable but what I am noticing is that being uncomfortable is part of all of this too.

I am holding a spiritual space for the state and health of our world, country and humanity. Holding space in prayer, by listening deeply, by creating a safe place for anyone to share or process their own feelings. Being a vessel for others, feeling compassion and witnessing where they are at with true empathy, not with words, talking, advice, guidance or fix it plans, this can get really heavy but I feel it is just as important as what is happening on the front lines in our world right now. People need and want to be heard and seen, and we need to see, listen and acknowledge their pain at every level. We can all do that. This is where I will begin by being transparent and vulnerable.
There is so much grief, fear, despair, anger, violence and anguish surrounding everyone that the vibrations of our entire world are shifting. I don't mean that in a loopy wild hippie kind of way, I mean that in the most authentic and truest witness of all that is encircling us, it is palpable.

Many of you know me personally, some as an acquaintance, some from wherever our paths have crossed, maybe some of you are reading this for the first time and want to know more about this lady, maybe some could care less and that is all good, but however this lands and whomever is wanting to know more, this is my clear and present self, transparent and vulnerable, an offering of sorts. I'm going to trust my intuition today. Bare with me, I am treading water too.

I am a woman. A person of deep organized and holistic faith. I am a teacher and guide for others with their mind body and spiritual wellness. I am an herbalist. I am a writer. I am a healer. I am a maker. I am a partner, mother, daughter, sister, neighbor and friend, a native Mainer. I am a 20 year veteran Navy wife. I am an "A Unit" to my husband's law enforcement family, dispatchers, brothers and sisters in blue and just this week, a mother of a brand new law enforcement officer/sheriff deputy.

There are no colors in any of these roles, identities or labels if you will, but the later one makes my whole self surge in its entirety with fight or flight response for love and concern of my own tribe and family. What a time to begin I thought as my son drove into the fire, following in his father's footsteps and the desire of his heart. Yes, I thought again.. what a perfect time to begin. He will be the new standard, the new foundation we are all crying for, taking all that is good, in the midst of witnessing all that is intolerable, tragic and archaic, learn a better way and bring it home to our communities. This is my prayer.

I don't do drama. I hate gossip and I try very hard to not run with the nuttiness, talk without action and I do my best to hold fast when everything around me is out of my control, I am a pretty simple person, but I too want to be heard and seen. Witnessed. Acknowledged. Not in the social media circus kind of way or big, loud extremism. I want to be seen in how I navigate this shit storm with what we have left after each day, as a family, a community, small business and after every 10,12 & 14 hour shift is done all while holding fast to what we value as families, as a state, country, world once this war torn time is behind us. I want to be seen in how we will begin to heal each other.

How will I begin? Today it will be in my silence, in my prayer, in my invisible action. I believe that sometimes my inaction, not to be mistook as apathy creates a safe space and balance for others. Those others numbed by their essential duties, those others that have to go back into the fire everyday.
I couldn't do what they do, in the front lines on that level, but by being here and "not going there" I create a pause and place that is not angry, hostile or grief laden but one that steady, healing, supportive and full of love. I believe that is essential.
I am a privileged white woman from a small town and island on the coast of Maine, but I am an anchor in this storm. I am breathing kindness and I am love in action. I am here, I am listening and I see you too.

"and the greatest of these is love..."
Always,
Denice