Sarah Blondin is a free newsletter. If you love it, consider supporting it financially. For $5/mo, you’ll gain access to “Folding In” journal entries, poetry and the occasional live group meditation gathering. My work here is reader-supported, hence the lack of ads and sponsors. Thank you! I am so happy you are here!
A quick reminder: ‘Sit with Sarah’ is in a few weeks!
For as long as I can remember, I have hungered for warm rooms filled with soft voices that ask, "How do you feel? And where does it hurt?" I have longed for slow, mindful conversations and comfortable listening ears. I have yearned for rooms and gatherings designed to warm and embrace the heart. ‘Sit with Sarah’ is my attempt at creating a space for a need I have always had. A need all the ‘looking’ ones share. This event is meant for resting open, knowing not one bit of your softness will be harmed. It is the hug we've always needed from the world and one another.
You can click here to register.
«Listen to the Audio Version for the unabridged reading with guided meditation.»
I saw a man once, waiting at a bus stop, wearing a faded brown trench coat, standing in a shaft of light pouring between two weathered stone buildings. His eyes were closed, and his hands were open like bowls catching the sun. I quietly watched the mysterious and beautiful display of what looked like prayer and praise on the side of a busy downtown street at 8 o'clock in the morning. After a few moments, he opened his eyes and, seeing me watching, told me we receive vitamins from the sun, best from the skin of our palms. I had never heard this before and couldn't know if his words were true, but I loved his story and how he wore it in the tawny light. I loved how he stood, unabashedly receiving what he knew was good. His story sounded like a person in love with their body and life, spending careful, deliberate time connecting with and absorbing what is naturally given and most often unnoticed. The story he was choosing to govern his life at this moment was the kind of story that makes me feel wide and generous. It doesn't have to be proven or fact. The stories I long to live in and besides are the ones that, when heard, make my body feel like it is blooming. I imagined a world where everyone believed this man's story about the sun and stood, eyes closed in the early light, on every street corner and doorway, drinking sunlight with their palms. What a beautiful thing to behold, a world pausing every morning to receive.
Whether aware or not, we are made of story, which means we are also storytellers actively participating in creation. We must be wise and artful with what lines we contribute and what stories we carry into every room. If you were to crack open the door of our beings, you will hear the tune of all we've been through and the tales we have told ourselves about it. You could sense the sounds and the atmosphere we matured in. We are each walking around with a muffled song under our skin. You can hear it faintly if you put your ear close enough.
When our innocence inevitably meets the wounded, we absorb the sound, the feeling, and the story of the particular wound. Our experiences can cause tremendous suffering. But it is not what we go through that is problematic, even if entirely painful; it's the words we use and the story we tell about it that often causes repeated discomfort long after the moments pass. We swallow pain like stones until we can find a way to spit them out and croak our story, hopefully, one that serves our body and the life that will live through us. We must confront and actively work with how we hold and perceive our life. The thing with writing a new story or healing the stories we have inside is they need to be allowed and invited into the room with us. We must see them and admit how they are influencing everything we do.
