Surrender

Photo by Darius Bashar on Unsplash

From The Way of Passion by Andrew Harvey: “The Divine beloved is doing nothing except burning in total Love, waiting for you to become total Love.”

The danger of raising your hands in surrender

is the utter exposure of all your tender places --

the pulsing veins in your neck,

the soft bundles of nerves under your arms,

your belly below the angled safety of your bottom ribs.

The beauty of raising your hands in surrender

is the utter power in all your tender places.

Let the wind get knocked out of you

see it travel away from you on currents outside your body,

wrapped around your body,

become again part of you

carrying with it the voices and debris

of everything that rides the invisible currents of being.

Inhale.

Ground glass and metal that slices and burns,

followed -- miraculous -- by alchemical balms

that heal beyond healing.

When you raise your arms again, surrender,

even the still healing skin of your belly

softens,

a nest of leaves and twigs and rain-soothed moss

to hold all that you love

in the angled space below your ribcage.