may you never turn your face from the stories that you are made of—all the small stories that beg to be told, that ask you to throw them wide open.

do not beg to be heard. do not beg to be seen.

see yourself with your own kind eyes. listen to yourself with your own welcoming ears.

may you never turn your face away from your own life, perhaps saying quietly to yourself:

‘this is too plain. this is too ordinary. this is not worth the telling of—i am not worth the telling of.’

when you find yourself in rooms where you are not welcome and let me tell you this: the word ‘tolerated’ is not enough, then promise me you will rise up, stretch yourself as tall as a sessile oak, arrange the mistletoe in your hair, and leave that place for good.

if you cannot find another room in which to root yourself into, then build one from your own rib bones, and leave the door and the windows wide open. others will come.

you will be ‘people‘. you will be ‘home‘.

what i am really trying to say is this:

‘may you never leave yourself for anybody else.’

if you leave your own life for somebody else, it might take you a very, very long time to find your way back. already you are everything that you will ever need. be patient with everything that is still growing. be kind to everything that is slow-curled and dying.

you are enough.

{a mantra stitched in gold, on soft Irish linen}