To those of you beautiful human creatures out there who’ve ever floundered, take refuge in these medicinal words: it’s all so disruptively normal.

The Divine dust storm is part of your journey as you continue to spread your wings, and know that beauty and grace are birthed out of profound chaos. We are not beautiful because we are perfect, we are beautiful because we are willing to stumble. And rise back up again.

I wished I could have told her that just because something isn’t being used, doesn’t mean it’s useless.

Some of the books I had gone home for had disappeared.

I wished that night that my bedroom had been at the back of the house-how the moonlight reflected on the water became a wavering lamp, a beacon of hope, movement in a still country.

And as I lay there in darkness, underneath the cut-out canopy, I wondered: must everyone wear this dress?

I too wanted to get married someday. But subtle, and strapless. With enough room for the words of my shoulder blades to breathe.

Books and words are our lifelines, reflecting our souls back to our Selves with clear, unobstructed vistas and expansive views. Words resuscitating our heads and hearts when they grow foggy and dim. When the journey makes us weary. When being given lined paper and writing the opposite way just isn’t enough.

So when those printed books and inked words you were expecting aren’t there, remember: they were reflecting back parts of you that recognized yourself in them. Your unique music is always pulsing in your veins, flowing up from your feet. And like my yoga teacher said in class yesterday as everyone laid on their backs in savasana, my heels pressing up against the baseboards, all of us facing the room’s four white walls, sometimes our ears just have to be willing to listen in order to find the doors back to ourselves, the doors hidden within the walls in our worlds.

Inhale, Exhale, Inhale.

And if you need to, let your sigh of frustration for what isn’t as you expected rise up and out of parted lips, and know that it is your most primal need being met, a piece of you releasing in order to Rise.  Freeing up space for you to drop further in. Into yourself. And to touch down into that exonerated freedom of what it feels like to be connected more deeply with the music of your own Soul.

As you are broken open by life, brought down to your own 2 penitent knees, know that your Soul is growing so big it could fill this room, making it even easier for it to lead you where you were uniquely meant to go.

My fellow seekers, when the terrain gets rocky, slow your two delicate feet down and focus on your footing. Stabilize in order to steady yourself as you Rise. Know that you aren’t alone. And remember, above all, when you’re feeling lost or lonely in your life’s sojourn, look up: the words are written for you in the purple night sky, above the backdrop of buildings. After all, the sign by the fire escape is always right. The one that says: in case of emergency, follow the stars.