July 11 Daily Entry -- My multitudes

First I tell my body to be calm. I breathe in and out. I imagine sparkling rain washing over me, washing the tension from every part of my body.

I talk to my cells. I tell them I love them, I know they are there, I feel them, they are safe.

I connect with the larger world. Like the cells in my body, I am a small part of a larger world. Everything I touch is me. Power and information flows from my head to my toes, my body a conduit between heaven and earth.

I expand. I take in everything around me. The water laps on the shore. The birds dive into the water. A rabbit hops to the rocks along the water's edge. The children play in the bay, the adults watch from the shore.

I am all of them.

My whole life I have been taught to be small. I am supposed to be slim. I should not take up space. I must never be an inconvenience. My needs do not matter. It is best if I fade into the background as if invisible.

When Walt Whitman said "I am large and contain multitudes" I thought, "that is fine for him, but how unseemly for me. I don't want to expand into the world, messy and visible. I must contain my multitudes."

But now I see. Why would I want to be small if I could be large. If I could see it all, touch it all, be it all.

I am the children in the water and the adults on the shore. I am the fig trees standing guard and the birds drifting in the breeze. I spread, slowly, calmly, deeply into time and space. I am everything and nothing and I am safe and at peace.

Now the others are small. They worry over trivial things. They use words to attack, but those weapons are powerless against me. I am the rocks and the sea and the air that they breathe. They cannot judge me nor can they hurt me, for I know what I am.