Achingly Beautiful Grace

By Heather Fraser

It is early evening as I write this, and it has been a searing hot summer day. My daughter has been gone visiting with her father and won't be home until later this evening.

I find myself both grateful for the time I have to myself, and mildly uneasy at the approach of evening with no child at my side to cook dinner for or to pour all my love into.

I admit it. In this moment I am feeling lonely. Who can I give all this love to right now?

And so...I pick up my pen and give it to myself, and whoever's going to read this one day.

It's taken me a long time to figure out that when I write, I love. When I write, I honor who I am. When I write, I feel expanded and filled up.

This little pang of loneliness, just before sunset, is my achingly beautiful grace.

I feel this way when summer is ending and the leaves start to change colour. I feel this way sometimes when I drop my daughter off at school and have to let her "go it alone" out there in the big, bad, world of Grade 6 middle school. I feel this way when someone I love with all my heart is not near me and I cannot reach out to touch their face. I feel this way sometimes when friends I've held dear move on to expand more fully into the depths of their Being. I feel this way when a dearly loved pet becomes ill or passes away. I feel this way when a flower I've admired for days bows its head and silently drops away. And I feel this way sometimes even when the sun begins to go down.

What is this feeling...this achingly beautiful grace?

It is Love, and letting go.

It is the feeling of my heart experiencing beauty, even in the letting go.

And we do have to let go...

In every moment of everyday, letting go is so necessary, for it allows us to empty out, to not become attached, to feel and move on so that we can be filled back up again in the next moment.

This achingly beautiful grace is what I feel when I learn to let go of beauty, when I learn to let go of love — knowing that when I do, the next moment will be even fuller, ever more richer and deeper than the one before it.

This achingly beautiful grace teaches me that there is nothing I need hold tightly to...that when I open my hand or open my heart, what is released multiplies.

And so it goes...

As the sun begins to make it's descent behind the hills, I realize that the little pang of loneliness I was feeling was a gentle reminder to let go of attachment...to my daughter, to the people I love, to a safe routine, to taking care of...

This feeling...this achingly beautiful grace, is really both love and beauty simply noticing each other, giving thanks to one another, and saying goodbye till the next moment arrives.

And it always does...if we are noticing.

Copyright 2010 Heather Fraser — www.sacredscribe.com You may make copies of these articles and distribute in any media as long as you change nothing, credit the author, and include this copyright notice and website address.

About Heather Fraser

About Heather: Heather Fraser has given up all professional titles, labels, definitions, and any illusions of specialness of who she thinks she is. She now lives in a state of what she likes to call The Beauty of Being, where she is transforming and empowering lives through the art and practice of simply being one with life.

You can contact Heather through her website at www.sacredscribe.com