We are after all but animals....

we are after all but animals and to quote the brilliant mary oliver we "only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves". we are all doing our best, seriously, for real. all learning at different paces in different styles with different unique strengths and weaknesses alike. we all have bodies, all of us. bodies that do these stunning, gross, amazing, inconceivable things. we have these bodies that walk on two legs and hold us up and breathe and break and bleed. we sleep, we drool, we eat, we drink, we fall, we get up, we fall again, we get up again. over and over and over again.

it's outstanding really, if we were to stop and think of all the things we do, the things we survive every single day.

there are days, maybe today was one, where to get out of bed, to even open our eyes feels like the hardest thing in the world. and then to make it out the door in a million degree heat and do burpees and wallballs and rowing and running all before 9am seems even more ridiculous. but we do it. and then we go to work and we plaster on a smile and we wish beyond wishes that it wasn't a fake one. but today, no today with the full moon and the all of the growth afoot, as much as we love and we mean deeply love the people we are smiling at we can't. fake. it. anymore.

and that's ok because we are just an animal. and we are an animal that thinks and wonders and analyzes and can't help but question if we should have gone to that party last night to see that guy that we think is oh-so-cute and charming. we are animals that wonder what other animals think of us constantly and compare ourselves over and over which is why sometimes it is just so hard to make it out of bed in the first place.

but thank god we did because when we're not watching, or constantly picking apart at the animal nature of our humanness we connect, we laugh, we get real and honest. we get heard by each other, we listen to each other, we get quiet with each other, we get loud with each other. we cry and it feels good. we scream and it feels good. we laugh and it feels good. we flirt with that cute guy and it feels oh-so-very good. we play back gammon and win and we play again and we lose. we wrap our mouths around food that tastes good and we do the next thing at our jobs and somehow notice that it's an amazing thing to do.

and we walk in the sun with our best friends and drink coffee and feel every single thing. we feel the full moon pull on the water that makes up 80% of our bodies, it pulls us as it waxes, infusing us with energy and movement inspiring us to act, to create, to live out loud. it pulls us as it wanes, asking us to go inside, to nurture, to still, to listen in the deep silence. it affects us so because we are but animals living loving lasting in this world.

and though we are animals, it is up to us not to fall into the traps of animal ways. it is up to us to care, first for ourselves and then for others. it is when we truly get this and live it with every breath that our animal nature can be truly accepted, appreciated, nourished, loved. then we will stop betraying each other, beating each other, raping each other, killing each other. how could we at that point when we are no longer threatened by each other, no longer scared? how could we when we recognize each other as each other because of not in spite of our differences? all men, all women, all races, all sexual preferences, all beliefs and opinions... how could we? we couldn't. we wouldn't. we would live in a much more open space then, we would let our animal bodies love what they love peacefully and without judgement. and that field out beyond right doing and wrong doing would be the world.

idealistic i know, and tonight it feels far away but miracles are always right around the corner and....a girl can dream can't she?