Ocean of Sky

Sounds True recently published a new, expanded edition of Inside the Miracle: Enduring Suffering, Approaching Wholeness, which gathers twenty-eight years of my writing and teaching about suffering, healing, and wholeness, including thirty-nine new poems and prose pieces not yet published. One of the great transforming passages in my life was having cancer in my mid-thirties. This experience unraveled the way I see the world and made me a student of all spiritual paths. With a steadfast belief in our aliveness, I hope what's in this book will help you meet the transformation that waits in however you're being forged. The following piece is an excerpt from the book.

Ocean of Sky

The cloud shelf drifts toward what still seems possible and the trees throw up their arms wanting to follow and the Brazilian singer in the iPod is pleading with me to give up all that drags my heart. Now the sparrows out of nowhere dart in all directions like the tail of a sparkler set off in the beginning. And the singer a continent away sings. I don't understand a word but feel him like a brother, like a voice wanting me to wake, like a secret spilling from the lips of a forgotten god. Oh, we've made it to another fall. The wind swirls in and out of all my regrets. We are alive. We are alive. We are alive.

A Question to Walk With: Describe what trait most enables you to endure.

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