on writing the thing you're afraid to write

Enlightenment is absolute cooperation with the inevitable

—Anthony de Mello

I come here, as I sit at my favorite cafe in order to write, to the point of needing to write the thing that I’ve been avoiding.

I must show up fully, every time, and that often means I need a lot of space for the build-up.

Today, I open the proposal for a new book, and it all drops into my gut, where I often feel the medicine, the presence, the energy, the sacred flow move in near-overwhelming ways.

We think we write books, but really, they write us, taking us on their journey, bringing us into their stories, their realities. Often, I go willingly. But sometimes, I hide a little, waiting to be ready, if that’s ever really possible.

So when this happens, I know it’s time. Time to begin, time to go, time to trust, time to do the work that calls me to it.

I write, and as I do, I stop to take deep breaths. I sit back against the booth and tears well up in my eyes because this is it, the thing I do in our world, the medicine I bring.

I couldn’t deny it or run from it—I will always be found.

So I write more, but as I do, I feel a little overwhelmed. I open my phone, check social media, try to go somewhere else for a moment, because I am afraid—

afraid of the power of the words

afraid of the energy’s flow

afraid of the medicine’s potency.

A young man walks into the cafe wearing a shirt that reads

Art will bring light and change the world

and I want to hug him, to know his name and story, to scream yes! across this tiny room where people gather for all sorts of reasons—don’t they know?

Can’t they sense the medicine moving, the waft of sweetgrass, the presence of art in the atmosphere from me and everyone else here to create, that does, indeed, change the whole world on a cosmic level?

They dance and remind us to dance, to move and to sing, to give and to practice sacred imagination, to trust the medicine and energy gifted us by the tender fierce Universe that forms and teaches us each day how to show up.

I take a few more deep breaths, return to this document, and ask that if I burn up from the medicine that flows through me, I at least get to dance in the hearts of those gathered here before I make my way to the sky.