Look at all you’ve carried.
The whispers of angry voices.
The sensations of sadness in your being.
The remnants of pain inflicted long ago.

Notice the weight of your past,
alive and well in this room —
waiting, hoping, praying to be released
in a community of loving peers.

What does it feel like
to have made it so far,
to have done so much
in the face of so much suffering?

How did you do it
while carrying so much
with so little support,
refusing to give up along the way?

Have you taken a moment
to honor that little one
down in the well,
treading water to serve you?

Have you taken the time
to feel what lives
beneath the surface,
waiting to finally be heard?

Perhaps today is the day
that old way of being
can finally be laid down
and allow you to rest.

When it finally lets go,
the emptiness that emerges
will feel like dancing on
the edge of a black hole.

If you sit with it long enough,
the younger you will come home;
trusting they are finally safe,
the search for what’s possible begins.

The courage it will take to become
the leader you’ve always longed for
is nothing compared to
the courage it took to make it here today.

On the other side of the dark abyss
is an unbearably beautiful future;
the life you sensed waiting
for you to arrive at last.

An original poem by Barrett Brooks