Have you got a cup of tea or something ... because this is a tender read.

...... need I ask how you are today?  Like me - I think maybe you're all the things at once. And you've probably been at least three or maybe even 20 different people this week (today!?), and will be someone else again later on. 

We're doing this 'thing' day-by-day aren't we. Also: if this 'thing' is crazy and scary and sad and too much for you, sending love and whatever else you might need. The permission to cry, or not cry, or ask for help, or give help. Or just do nothing at all and not feel guilty. 

For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone.
The shell cracks, it's insides come out, and everything changes. 
To someone who doesn't understand growth it would look like complete destruction.

—Cynthia Occelli

A few weeks ago I was on the edge, the brink. Ready to walk away from my family, my home, throw myself to the winds and become the wild woman I am. I spent a whole day - two days - crying. Tears just falling out of my face, I couldn't hold them in. I did nothing more than sitting in the garden; thank you garden and tiny little plants for holding me up. 

I was cracked wide open. Broken. Scared. Unsure. Questioning everything about my life. I was so afraid. And bored and really.... so many things all at once. I think some of you might know this feeling. I thought this was bad - being broken like this, being so exposed that I couldn't stop. 

I know and live by the knowledge that being raw and vulnerable is my strength, but this was different. This was like the depths of everything I've ever felt. I had never previously considered that being broken is actually a good thing - society tells us being broken is bad, that we need to be fixed and mended and put back together. But since last week, and since talking deeply, I've come to realise that perhaps being broken is what we all need. 

To not climb the highest peaks, but instead allow ourselves to fall to the lowest valleys. We must allow things to completely fall apart. And as happens when the Universe provides what you need only when you're ready to listen - this podcast episode is what I listened to.

And while life has given me a lot of broken heart-moments, and a few tear-me-apart moments, I'm not sure if previous to now I've ever gone to the very depths of the oceans in the way I did this past fortnight. And I'll be honest, I don't want to be mended - even in the beautiful way of Kintsugi, I want to stay cracked and broken, because that is how I will continue to grow. Like a little seed I have to let go of the fear of letting go of my shell. To cast it aside in order to stretch out... removing layer upon layer. 

Since that Friday, when I was at the very edge / bottom / end of all things I knew life has been a little strange. Everything is being felt even deeper and bigger than before - like I'm expanding quietly, gently. In the way that I've been needing to. 

This isn't to say that life has suddenly become easier or better, or any of that. But - in my understanding, when we get to "something" it doesn't mean things become super amazing afterwards, instead things continue on as they were..... same but different. We're still holding the gift that is our box full of darkness (thank you Mary Oliver).

I don't want a light to see into that darkness, it's ok enough to just sit here holding it, feeling it, stepping into and appreciating what it also gives me. I'm not even sure it's about the fact that having darkness makes the light brighter and nicer; it's simply that I know I can hold both darkness and light inside and outside of me. And that is good too. Maybe it's that space between the light and the dark where I am sitting... where the sands shift a little each day, where there's that slick and shimmer that disappears when I try to catch or hold onto it. 

I feel so grateful that my life is such that during this isolation / lockdown / immense grief of the world, I have been able to spend time with self and family, and the grief / joy / hardship / happiness of that. The pandemic that has hit people with death, heart-wrenching grief, perhaps immense pain, financial hardship..... it did not affect me in this way. But that is not to say that I should feel guilty about this....  that during this time I was able to become broken and move past the fear that that might have previously induced in me. 

I would love to continue this conversation with you, if it's meant something to you. Are you broken, or breaking, are you trying to sew yourself up or cast aside the shell and find the quietness within the broken. 

With gratitude for what you gift me and for what the world has gifted me, for speaking with someone today about what our mother's gifted us, and how we can gift something to our own children. And what all this might mean. 

love & light & darkness, Ellie xxx