POEM: All Is Forgiven

I've been working on finding forgiveness in my heart

Dear Friends,

It’s Friday and I’d like to offer you a poem. It’s been a time of much reflection and transmutation over here. I am humbled and I am relieved to be given the gift of revelation. It’s courageous to apply yourself to the clearing of karmic patterns and I am fortunate to have been taught how to do it by some of the best. My art, especially my poems, are part of the healing work. When I publish a poem, I do this in the hopes that it will reach you energetically in just the spot you need. They are medicine for me and I offer them as medicine to whoever needs them.

This morning I woke to the gentle presence of forgiveness ready to enter my heart. I have my own history of perceived wrongs and actual wrongs (I don’t want to sugarcoat it). But, I also have the capacity to integrate and move on. It’s taken me a long time to get here—where forgiveness is not just an idea, a concept, or a thought…but a bodily release, a true unwinding of the karmic bonds, an expansion of the heart, an offering of blocked energy back to Source.

It’s so new and alive in me this morning I don’t yet know how I will feel differently—though I know I will. The paint is still wet on the canvas, as they say. But, there was something so raw and beautiful in the freshness of the moment that I wanted to capture it and offer it to you like the beautiful, urgent, subtle thing it was for me. Maybe it can speak to a latent readiness in you, too.

Schuyler

NOTE: There will be a live ZOOM reading of this poem by me and a group discussion about forgiveness on February 5 from 8-9pm EST. It’s open to all. Come!

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POEM: All is Forgiven
January 19, 2024

Relax, little one.
You’ve been angry for a long time.
You’ve been hurting for longer.
And it keeps you from seeing the beauty
And it keeps you from being able to connect
Really connect.
You’re tired. I know.
You’re tired of reaching out
and not being met. 
You’re afraid of one more rejection.
It could undo you.
That’s why 
you push me away. 

Well, I’m meeting you now.
You can rest with me.
You can lay down your weapons.
Take down the defenses.
It’s safe now. 
You don’t have to hold a grudge 
anymore.
I feel you 
like a fluttery butterfly
right here on my chest
In my chest
Would you like to fly?
It will finally happen:
what you were born for.
The freedom you were made for
is still here
never left
and is ready to scoop you up,
lift those wings 
and take flight.

What does it feel like? 
Forgiveness? (You ask.)
It feels like the end 
of holding onto something so tightly 
you forgot you were holding at all.
It feels like the unraveling
of a knot at the center of your being.
It feels like a melting
in the deep freeze of your emotions.
It’s not a forgetting,
but it’s the end of keeping score.
It’s the fingers of empathy 
prying open the heart
to let compassion in.
It's the beginning 
of understanding
that the perpetrator of the hurt
was hurting, too.

Actual forgiving 
opens a door into a new world
where your needs can be met
not by “them” or “that” out there--
But, in here.
In the cave of the heart
where a light so bright 
it’s blinding to look at
burns inside you
steadily.
And a well so deep
and full of clear water
replenishes you
eternally.
Here you can have counsel
with the whole heavenly host
and even the holy ghost
about everything
your heart ever wanted 
in this life and beyond--
and you will be heard
and you will be received
and you will be warmed by the fire
and you will be cooled by the water
and you will see in the light of their illumination
and the mirror of their reflection
that your needs
are naturally quite simple.
And you will know 
beyond a shadow of a doubt
that they will be met
and you will also know 
just how to meet them.

Actual forgiving
comes when you feel confident 
that you no longer have to protect
your heart
your body
your thoughts
your beliefs
your turf
your ideas...
that you no longer have to
erect walls around them.
Because you know 
for the first time, for certain
that what truly belongs to you
cannot be tumbled down.
Can never be shaken, bent or broken,
shamed or made wrong.
And that we "own" almost nothing at all
We're just borrowing 
from the Universe anyway;
putting a life on layaway.

The day forgiveness comes,
it sneaks into the room on tip-toes...
barely perceptible
another morning routine
save for the presence of gloom
(a funny calling card)
as the distraction of habitual action 
falls away.
On this morning,
just before the forgiveness comes,
there’s a sobering realization
that you’re tired
of doing this to yourself--
That maybe there is no way 
to even the score;
and even the act of trying
is a distraction
from the joy of flying.

As the dawn breaks
over the melting snow--
a dawning awareness
also breaks in you: 
It’s time to be free.
Something must change
and it’s you who hold the key.
The fortress you erected
as your defense
is the very thing that makes you think
you have something to defend.
You’ve been the prisoner 
and the warden
for way too long.
It’s time to go. 
It’s time to move on.
All is forgiven
when you begin to see
that the way things were
is the way
they had to be.

~~~~