I used to think that love was outside of me, to be found in the approval of others.
The search only left me longing, a hungry ghost roaming the ends of the Earth.
I thought everyone else was whole and complete and I was fractured, fated to forever fall short, wracked with imposter syndrome for life itself.
Slowly, painfully, I woke up to see the light within me; the spark in my heart where magic lives.
By magic, I mean the ability to transform fear into love by divine grace, without my knowing how.
Trauma cracked me open and I stared into the raw, open wound.
I pulled away bitter vines, I pried up nails of anger that were deeply rooted in my boarded-up heart.
I weeded and seeded, tended and waited, slowly, slowly…
My heart became a fertile garden, a lush paradise, a green Eden where compassion blooms abundantly.
Now I rest assured that I am love embodied, the same love which is the creative source of the universe.
How could I be anything other than the fruit of the tree from which I sprung?
Even when I fight with my husband to the point that knives of emotion seem to leap from my veins, throat, and eyes, I return to rest on a throne of love, my inextinguishable core.
My heart is a lighthouse sending greetings to those in the know, and illuminating a beacon of hope for those still in the search.
Sage Burner Poetry 