Let the Light Shine Through

“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” - Leonard Cohen

I do not “bag peaks.” Sure, I take them with me, but never in a bag. They are etched into my muscles, scars on my skin, breaths taken and pulled from my lungs. Exhaling control, inhaling connection. Exhaling ego, inhaling humility, vulnerability. Exhaling the want to capture the experience, inhaling sensing it, living it. I don’t cross peaks off my list as something else that must be done. I am undone by them. I am cracked, shattered open by them. Parts of myself rather, are crossed off by them. I do not bag peaks, I am flooded by them.

I was walking along the river. Lodge pole pines creating an archway of trail; their cones starbursting beneath my feet. Crunch, crunch, crunch. We must drop parts of ourselves to be crushed, cracked, crunched open. Leave new seeds to feed, root, bloom, and grow. Out of brokenness may arise a new wholeness. The water of the river jumping, swirling, spraying off rock. Water never rushes, it goes at the precise pace it means to. Going quickly but never hurrying. There is ease in the water, a delight in movement, in perpetual motion. Blood flow of the mountains.

I thought I was broken, needing to be fixed. Needing to be patched up, not fit for consumption. I am not a thing to be consumed. I am not a thing to be bagged. I am the mountain. Sharp edges demanding patience and focus, forging a path to perspective and insight. I am the rivers. Playing, swirling, eddying out. Perpetual rest in movement. I am the trees. Rooting, grounding, branching. I am eroding, flowing, dropping pieces. I am cracking open not to be fixed and placed back together in a mosaic of experience and self. I am cracking open so I may not only hike this trail, but blaze it for others to follow. I am not broken in need of fixing. Nor am I entirely whole in need of breaking. I am the mountain, standing tall, delighting in the sound of wind, the touch of water, eroding and creating cracks. Creating new pathways for light to pour through.

How might your cracks be thresholds and gateways for light?