“I cannot say where it lives, only that it comes to the heart that is open,
to the heart that asks, to the heart that does not turn away.
It can take practice, days of tugging at what keeps us bound,
seasons of pushing against what keeps our dreaming small.
When it arrives, it might surprise you by how quiet it is,
how it moves with such grace for possessing such power.
But you will know it by the strength that rises from within you to meet it,
by the release of the knot in the center of your chest that suddenly lets go.
You will recognize it by how still your fear becomes as it loosens its grip,
perhaps never quite leaving you, but calmly turning into joy
as you enter the life that is finally your own.”
Jan Richardson
King Edward Street Chapel 