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A song I’m loving:
For Gale— God’s wink. Thank you.
It’s tempting to keep to myself. To slowly become a teeming symbol representative of the things I wish I could express, change or create instead of expressing, changing or creating them.
Someone rests inside a sleeping bag made of shedded skins. A bright still life perches on the windowsill.
I feel deeply burrowed into many selves that are no longer who I am but keep me warm as the ice thaws, anyway.
Like how when I am generously wrapped in the many layers of my blush pink bedding and silk pillows upon opening my eyes. The comfort I find here, on a cold Monday, invites me to stay, stay, stay. A princess of simple pleasures.
The day asks me to do something different. It asks me to greet my new self and the mystery ahead. It implores me to begin. To stretch. To look out the window and find the first beautiful thing that catches my attention. It asks me to prioritize nourishment and replenishment before I pour into other cups.
It asks me to trust the urgency I feel just underneath my collarbones as a forcefield that keeps my dreams close and protected— and my inspired action imminent during this season of rest.
How not to let the urgency trick me into believing something false? Like that it must all come together at once. Or that the journey has to make logical sense. Well, this is a side quest all on its own.
It is tempting to fall for urgency’s trickery, because if I fall for it— it will stop me entirely from moving forward. My princess brain would prefer me to stay exactly where I am, because it knows this place well. Here, I have familiar answers, patterns and loopholes.
On the flip side, there is a wild rebel lioness within me. She is the one who selected my destiny long before I could begin to utter it. She understands that the urgency I feel has everything to do with the Mission. That the Call is about trusting in the ancient breadcrumbs in my heart. To me, the true purpose of urgency is the song that it sings on repeat to remind us of what we know in moments where it may be easier to distract ourselves or pretend to forget. But this doesn’t have to mean: drop everything and change it all at once and light it all on fire and find sense in this place immediately!
Yes, trust requires swift action. But if you distrust your own rhythm in the face of impatience or eagerness, surely suffering will follow. Faith requires a steady hand. The prerequisite for knowing is right action despite what one might feel or believe in the moment.
Right action asks me to activate self forgiveness for the pieces of the puzzle I have yet to discover or lean into.
Knowing asks me for Great Change and Great Change requires self forgiveness. This is the missing link. The one I have been looking for.
As the warmth of March comes to peek its face through the dimness of winter, I feel a shift.
Where I am headed, every part of me is welcome. Where I am headed, I am whole. The shattered, the reaching, the bitten, the biter. All of it. I am learning that resistance, anger, sadness, grief, apathy— they all get to come with me. I do not have to rid myself of these visitors first in order to practice existential courage. It is safe for me to exist deep in hibernation and dream of belonging to the brightness of the day. I can kiss both.
I am the star, the night sky, the hours upon hours before morning, and the bird that wakes me with its song of spring. How I long to be like the animal who just knows its present moment is perfect, purposeful, porous. It does not question the dissonance, the resistance or the tension between itself and what it will become come summertime.
It does not fiddle with what it is tasked with. It simply knows and trusts its moment. It knows when it is time to emerge, to sing, to nest, to migrate.
What are you doing today? Someone asks me. I realize in that moment that this means that I have been given a life. A life that belongs to me. A life that continues to wake me each and every morning. No matter how familiar today might feel to yesterday, it is necessary not to become accustomed to the gift of life. We’re not promised tomorrow. Despite what the world, our peers, culture and society may have us believing and pretending— there is no right way to be or do.
Instead, there are many. How to live a life? I opt for curiosity. I opt for courage. I opt for really great questions. I opt for love and romance, the kind you can taste in a buttery croissant and the golden light of solitude spent carefully tending to my sacred heart. I opt for the hands of the divine being bigger than my own.
If you ask the internet: What is existential courage? It will tell you:
Existential courage is the willingness to embrace the uncertainty and potential meaninglessness of existence, choosing to live authentically and responsibly in the face of life's inherent challenges and anxieties.
I don’t need certainty to have existential courage.
All of life is uncertain. Nothing is promised. Promises are made but things change, and the terms and conditions of those promises change as we do. Understand how precious a life is. It is no small thing. And it is incredibly rare for any of us to be here right now. All of us have beat odds, and more than once or twice.
The sweet honey of life is found at the intersection of existential courage and free will. We first must come to accept that there are many things in this life that we cannot know, cannot change, cannot undo, cannot know. On the same tree, on a different branch– exists another truth that hangs over our life. It shades us from the impromptu aggression we may bump into here. We have free will. We get to choose.
Yes, the responsibility of total freedom is large. Sometimes it feels like it grasps at my throat, weighing on my torso. With a better look, I can see that what I sense and feel in truth is the field.
The field of potential where absolutely anything can happen, and it always begins with a choice.
The beauty found in this sentiment is immense, and it can be profoundly simple, too. You can feel the difference of living this embodied truth at the grocery store. Let your curiosity take you to an aisle you might normally overlook. Go slow and get curious. A new fruit waits for you. And you don’t even have to know its name or where it comes from in order to taste its juicy nectar.
Or, take it to the next level. Speak to that beautiful human. Dare to act on your most impossible dream. Do one thing differently tomorrow upon waking up for the day. The next time that someone asks you about your day– stop with intention. Realize you are inside of one. Or maybe it is inside of you. How bizarre and totally fantastic.
There’s a saying in Spanish that goes: vives poco si lo piensas mucho.
It translates to: you live very little if you think a lot about it.
It was never about knowing that a certain decision would be the “right choice.” There’s no such thing. Instead, it’s about practicing free will. It’s about practicing choice. It’s about practicing being in the body and moving out of love, and not fear.
It’s about acting from the place within you that has a question, not the place within you that is trying to preserve you, even though we can be grateful for that place, it is not the place that wants you to grow your tallest so that you can touch the sun with your fingertips.
It’s about knowing, feeling, and believing that you can trust in your own ability to prevail, wherever you may land.
I’m not interested in playing it safe. Safe is often just bubble wrap, anyway. The fragile and light filled thing exists just underneath it, so, I might as well dabble with the full spectrum of existence instead of choosing to stay put in the shallow end where I already know damn well that I can touch.
With love and a ladder that reaches towards the light, Pau xx
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your words are like everything wow
Beautiful words that touched my soul in all the right ways today. Your words are inspiring as ever, Pau ♥️