A Story.

Life is so full and plentiful.

Sometimes you think you’ve emptied it of its contents.

That you’ve traveled the pages of your life’s book. You know the footnotes, you know the detours the stories take.

You’ve labeled each chapter and lived it; you’ve molded and formed to each letter of each word on every page.

And you say, I’ve done it. I’ve walked the paths. Here is what remains.

‘This is what I have to show for myself, for my life.’

Here are the results of all the things I’ve tried. Here in this field is where every beautiful thing came to life and here is where it subsided again.

And the field is empty.

– –
I looked at my hands, they were empty too.
– –

I sat down to do a tarot reading for myself for the first time in a long time. I had tried before, I would lay down the cards and then sweep them back into the deck without reading.

This time, I looked closer. I began reading the story, one letter following the other.

My perspective changed. Not from what the reading was saying, but in the act of reading itself.

I thought of the components of a tarot reading. It says, here is this person in their life, and here are the storylines happening currently in their life.

I realized that the page turns again. Within the empty field, paths begin to emerge from underneath the grass. The story doesn’t end.

Always a person, within a life, full of letters and words and chapters of story.

“But I thought this was the end?”

The story doesn’t stop writing itself. It slows and speeds and slows again. But one letter is surely to be followed by another. One word stretching into the next.

– –

I think that every once in awhile, we have to renew our contract with our soul. We remember why we’re here, even if the ‘why’ is only a feeling. We remember the fire that burns inside. The desire for Discovery of Self.

A question is asked, “will you rise?”

Will you stand again? Will you remember yourself? Will you remember the light within that wants to be discovered, to be spoken, to be experienced?

Every contract renewal is a solo journey that draws a path from the depths of darkness into the emergence of light.

The light says, “Look this way. Keep coming. Don’t look back.”

Every completion is an awakening. As though the sun is rising inside our hearts rather than the sky.

– –

I looked again at the field. The glare from the sun obscured my view. I blinked and squinted by eyes. I looked down and saw my feet resting on a path. Around me was lush, tall grass and a dense forest. The trees loomed overhead and I saw the blue of the sky beyond the tree tops. I spun myself around in a circle, searching. The deep, moist air of the forest seeped into my lungs. I breathed in deep.

How I’d missed those trees.

I peered through the vegetation and became curious. Where does this path lead?

I brought my palm to my chest and pressed down.

“Are you ready?”

I smiled and said, “Yes, please.”

With love <3,

Heba

Come Home to Yourself

I thought it was about time to write a blog titled with the tag line of this page.

Come Home to Yourself.

I’m finding that today, it means something different than my original intent.

Today I mean to say, you can come home to the safety within, even when you’ve traveled far away from there for too long.

For a period of time, I felt like I’d disappeared. The parts of me that liked to laugh and be silly. The parts of me that felt worthwhile.

I’d walked through hell’s valleys for too long, and my skin seemed to be stained with ash and sut.

I wondered if I would ever be myself again, or if a ‘new me’ would emerge.

I’m coming together as old, new, and weathered and refreshed all in one.

I remember the aching in my bones as I dragged my body through those valleys. I also feel the life inside those bones, rebuilding and remembering joy and vitality.

My personality is awakening, witty banter emerging from within like a newly erupted spring.

And I think, ‘Oh, there I am.’

I’m coming home…

To my personality. My fun. My playfulness.

Finding importance in the trivial things in life reminds me that I’m alive, I’m a ‘me’.

I’ve never been more grateful to care about silly things. Which barrettes to wear today, whether my outfit was put together well.

I’m coming home with stories woven into my flesh of where I’ve been, how I’ve healed, and with new eyes to see the world.

I’m thankful for these eyes, and this flesh, and all the parts of me that are coming together to rebuild and reawaken.

If you’ve been away for too long, make your way back home. Slow or fast, whatever works. Home is waiting for you. The parts of you that are full of wonder and joy are alive and well. They’ll welcome you with open arms.

And I’ll see you there.

<3,

Heba

I Am Not Myself [A Poem]

I am not myself,
I am the echo.
I am the echo,

Awakening
Revising
Revisiting
Reimagining.

I am not myself,
I am the gathering

     of that which has come before.

I am the echo

     of remembering.


The mutitude of layers

     of remembering.

I am the awakening of right into wrong,
And wrong into right.

I am the witness.

I am loss. I am birth.

I look into the experience, as I am.
A wave of endless memory.
I watch with pain trembling in my bones.

I am the witness.

I am the memory of suffering.

I am suffering, desiring to heal itself.

It says, “let me look again, with new eyes. Let me understand again, with a renewed heart.”

I am the broken, seeking to stand again.

Splintered wooden legs, striving to be remade.

I am the light of the sun, laying its warmth upon the earth.

I am the shadow, the cold of fear and emptiness.

I peer into life, I am nothing.

I am the retelling of a story. I am the weaver of new memory. I am the witness.

I carry the sorrow that’s come before, heavy on my spirit. I carry it close to my heart.

I look into the world through the sorrow of memory.

Shapes of pain and shadow erupting into form and dissapating. My sorrow reminds me of the memory from which I was born into this world.

My sorrow says “this is how we saw the world”.

I think of those that came before, that saw the world colored with darkness.

I say, “I see you. I understand.” I carry their weight as I look with my own eyes.

I see what they saw, I see fear. I look again.

I feel what they felt, I feel pain. I look again.

I see strength where there was silence. I see hope where there was emptiness.

I stand, exhausted. Pen in hand, shakily writing a new story. One small sentence, in a book that has no beginning and no end.

One small sentence at a time. One small re-write. One revision. One re-envisioning.

My voice is small, amongst the raucous cries of the past. My pen is small. My sentences are small.

My voice is small.

And yet, I’ll stand. I will witness.

Underneath the weight of generations of memory, I will write.

With every rewrite, a small path begins to open. A way. A chance. An opportunity.

Shadowlands

I walked the perimeter of the park, my body felt heavy, my mouth was agape, and tears awkwardly streamed down my cheeks as I stumbled down the dirt path.

I felt unpossessed. A body wobbling forward, lost of itself.

I said to myself, “I don’t know what to Be. I don’t know what to think.”

And then I suggested to myself, “Then just be nothing. Be the air. Be presence. Be empty of thought.”

I said, “Ok.”

I continued forward. Walking with my unpossessed body. Frankenstein footsteps jolting forward beneath my torso.

I looked out onto the river and I kept breathing. Mouth agape, body feeling heavy.

I let my eyes follow the curves and splashes of the water as it rushed foreward, graceful and full of itself.

I followed its path.

*Down this way.*

And so I went.

Inhaling, exhaling. Breathing pain and agony. I was the rusty, heavy, iron chains dragging in the mud behind a pickup truck.

Inhaling, exhaling.

The path turned to the right, at the mouth of the river.

I stopped to take it in. I stepped onto a wooden platform and looked across its width. I let the weight of my body sink into the wood.

And I stayed.

I melted.

Like metal sitting too long in a hot furnace.

I took a deep breath and I felt lighter. I remembered…

‘These are the shadowlands.’

I’d been walking through the dark patches of inner turmoil and misery. Entangled in confusion and loss. With nowhere to go, and no sense to be made.

Don’t turn back.

Body heavy, misery scraping along skin. Breathe. Keep walking. These are the shadowlands. And they must be walked.

Just up ahead, the light returns. Don’t turn back. Stay with the breath. Just up ahead, the light returns.

Just up ahead, you’ll remember. Just up ahead, the light is ready and waiting.

I broke away from the mouth of the river and returned to the path. My feet felt light. My body held itself upright, breathing deep and sure.

We’d made it out.

Another trip through the shadowlands. And here I am, whole again.

Here I am, remembering that I’m on purpose. I’m part of a breath that is much larger than my understanding. I am lit from within by a flame that’s vaster than the universe itself. I am home, and I am whole. It can’t be any other way.

The air I breathe is the most nourishing, here in this present moment, where I am on purpose. I am held by the earth and known by the trees and the birds that surround me.

Because we are all on purpose, right here and right now. Lit by the same flame. Breathed by the same breath.

Don’t turn back. Walk until you are home again. Home is always waiting.

With Love,

Heba ❤

The Folds of Mystery

[A Love Letter]

I am a seeker down to my very core. I’ve followed the path of intrigue down the darkest passages of misery, thirsty for understanding and knowledge.

I’ve learned that in my ability to read so deeply, lies also the fountain of my undoing. Side by side, like two sides of a coin, stand my greatest strength and love and my most pronounced misery.

The breath between is what saves me. And that breath is called, “choice”.

I stumbled into this world, my heart belonging to spirit. I listened inside the words of prayer and felt into the sound of rushing water. And there I could hear the breath of life itself. I was a devotee to energy, to the rising and falling of spirit’s breath.

I would say, “yes, I’ll follow.”

The loud sounds of society and complex relationships constantly hammering at my door of peace and devotion. And as I turned to look, I saw demons and angels twisting and turning inside of those I loved. I saw pain glorified and love trampled like a line of ants charging across a busy sidewalk.

My peace was not welcomed and my love was irrelevant. This world seemed to love pain. And so I followed. I obliged this desire for pain. I said, “I’ll follow this pain, I’ll align with it – as it calls.”

Ever devoted, following the passageways of fear, self-hatred, confusion, and disharmony. And inside, my love still bloomed. Its flowers pushing up against the inside of my world, desiring to break free.

“I see you, Love. I’ll find a way to bring you here.”

I traveled for years and years, searching for a place where my Love could live free. And I found the perfect place. Carefully and lovingly cultivated air and land. I scooped its soil into my hands and breathed in its air, as deep as I could. I was home.

Inside the folds of colors and shapes and words, there was the silence of Choice.

Just beyond the reach of my reasoning and my ability to collapse waves into words, there was peace. The space of silence. Inside the folds between the motion of following, and the rising of energy. A space. This space says, “breathe.” It says, “here.” It says, ” – – – “.

And in this, ” – – – “, is me. The breath behind choice. The witness. That which Is. It is unmoving. It stands in silence and breathes in the glory of the present moment.

It’s as though you dove inside of a singular moment of a hummingbird drinking sweet nectar. Where time slowed into a place where it became non-time. Un-time. The untying. And nothing else existed besides the Experiencer experiencing sweet nourishment.

And the bird is not a bird, is it the “I am”. Set into the environment of “Now, this.” Participating in the act of “Together”.

This place cannot be understood, but it is the place from which vision emerges. It jumps into experience from This Place like a grasshopper off of a trampoline. We see the surge, but we cannot see where it came from.

We can rest into this space, this space beyond words and understanding. We can relax into it, but as we reemerge into the world’s specifics, we take on something else. We move into Choice.

The bed on which life’s concepts are expressed, is the bed of the unknown. It is the non-space from which vision springs forward into meaning.

We’re not meant to go into this non-space to discover the specifics of this life. What we’re supposed to be doing, who we’re supposed to love, what we’re supposed to look like. It is not meant to be the place where life-meaning is created within the confines of concepts and stories.

This life-experience is where meaning is created. This is where stories are told. This is where concepts are realized into shapes and color.

Relaxing into the non-space helps you remember this. That you are not anything that you think you are. You are nameless, genderless, faceless, and you desire for very little. And you aren’t meant to stay in this nothing-less of identity. You’re meant to choose Life and all the specifics that come with it.

You do not choose with mind projections. The veins of choice are hidden. You can only uncover Choice moment by moment. In the quiet place between stimulus and response. Where you observe the happenings of life, as well as your response to them.

And moment by moment, bringing breath into that response to life. Not fixing, not forcing, not coercing or planning. Rather: looking, feeling, breathing, listening. And from this, that jump or surge of Choice will come to you.

This is how you discover “who you are”. Eternally known as, “who you choose to be”.

You do not know who you choose to be. So let go of trying to paint the picture of “you”. You cannot. You can only discover who you choose to be, moment by moment. Erupting out of the folds of mystery.

I am a seeker down to my very core. And when I touch up against this place of mystery, this place that collapses all of my tools and vehicles for understanding – I blissfully retire my charge. My mission of understanding softens and liquefies in the presence of the majesty of life.

And I’m so grateful. So grateful to discover, solve, and understand and grateful to let all of the wisdom rain back into the seas of nothingness. To return it all to the majesty and mystery of this great, unknowable experience.

“Thank you for the mystery that you are. Thank you for letting me peak behind the veils and then let go of everything I think I’ve learned. What a beautiful blessing it is, to find the most beautiful pearls in all of the world’s waters, and then to let them all go again. This is love.”

With Love,

Heba

❤