When life slices you right open,
Raw, tender, and fully exposed.
Unexpected, spontaneous, and ‘unprepared’.
No time to let in, or attempt to block out.
Simply showing up – unannounced, without ‘permission’.
Bold, clear, unavoidable,
Choiceless, optionless,
Life appears.
Sliced wide open I breathe the air,
The air of raw exposure.
Exposure to the raw tides of life.
Exposure to the grittiness of pure humanity.
Exposure to the raw aliveness so vivid and so clear.
Feeling the tides pass through every cell,
Making it’s way through like a domino spilling down the chain
Fiercely tasting the presence of life as it moves.
Cracked raw, no filters to be found.
No doors closed, no smoke-screens to protect,
Just life in all its raw brilliance.
Nowhere to hide, nowhere to run, nowhere to escape.
Nowhere to “go” but with what’s here.
Ahh, the gift of life.
Life moving.
Just as it does, just as it will.
Cracked wide open,
Wide open, to all of life –
Beautifully raw.
Beautifully exposed, open, available.
Oh the preciousness
Just, simply, life …exactly, as it is.
Carole Griggs, Ph.D/c, 2012
