I was saying grace over my egg, cheese, and bacon breakfast sandwich one  morning reading a book called Realizations by my friend Bill Guillory and I had some realizations of my own.  As I sat on the park bench eating the sandwich in this little country town I thought about how mysterious it was that I found myself there in the first place.  For a moment I glimpsed my entire life and then it hit me that I have been so many places in my life, met so many people, and loved so much.  And yet there is so much room for more.  Realizing this I committed myself to living with my soul wide open no matter what.  That is where the poem below came from.

Soul Wide Open
From this day I’m gonna live with my soul wide open.
No matter how many times my heart has to get broken
No matter how many times I have to die and come back
Living less than who I am is like a train that’s off track

We’ve been taught to live lies, close eyes, be blind
Afraid to look within because we done lost our minds
But I just found mine, gon’ clean it off spit shine
From an eternal space now I choose to bend and break time

Forget about the past
Who can prove it anyway
Keep my focus on what lasts
And live to see the final day

Not the one that’s about judgment
But the one that reveals the Real
Where all souls open up
And we live the love we feel

This poem is for every friend who feels like they have to hold themselves back or are held back by chains to the past or fear of the future that make us feel undeserving of the love that is our birthright. Maybe you never received it from the people you assigned as the ones to validate or approve of you, but love is in no short supply. It is everywhere, because you are love. If you doubt it, I dare you to go to a mirror right now and say, “You are beautiful, I love you, and I am glad you are here.” If it is hard to say ask yourself why. If it is easy to say, you’re in a good place. If we don’t love ourselves how can we expect it from others?

You can learn more on the above statements by checking out the post Coming Out of the Dark.