Stepping Over the Flowers
Begin by finding a quiet place. Let your body settle.
Let your breath arrive.
Now in...now gone...
Let the weight of the day begin to soften.
Inhale gently. Exhale slowly.
Now in...now gone... Let the breath remind you:
you are here. You are alive. You are free to choose your way.
Inhale gently. Exhale slowly.
Now in...now gone...
Begin with stillness. Let your body settle into the quiet architecture of Now. Let the weight of memory soften, not vanish. Let it become part of the terrain we will walk.
Inhale gently. Exhale slowly.
Now in...now gone...
Inhale... Exhale... You are here. You are alive. You are free to choose your way.
Now, walk with me...
Not on polished stone or manicured path, but through a field that remembers. The ground is uneven.
The war - not yet a solid memory.
The air carries the scent of ash and blossom. This is a place where sorrow once slept. And still, it blooms.
You walk beside someone who has known suffering.
Great suffering. Their gait is heavy. Their eyes scan the horizon for what was lost.
All that was lost.
Anything that was lost.
You walk slowly. Not to delay, but to listen. To feel the soil speak beneath each step.
Inhale gently. Exhale slowly.
Now in...now gone...
Ahead, a flowering tree leans into the light...
reaching toward the sky, fragile, luminous, unbroken. Its branches are thin as ribs. Its blossoms - fragile, trembling - are the colors of forgiveness.
The scent of forgiveness...
From parched and thin branches
Some petals drift to the ashen ground.
Catching sunlight, falling to blackness
Dead butterflies, lives cut short.
Innumerable, miniscule, delicate flowers here have recently snowed.
Breezes shift petals into slight dances.
Color paints the Earth beside this tree...for a time.
Your companion, walking beside, crushes blossoms underfoot.
Perhaps taking pleasure in the power over life.
Perhaps numb to violence.
Perhaps self obsessed and thus unaware.
Perhaps unforgiving as fragrance is released into the crying air.
Perhaps - To answer cruelty with cruelty. To echo the violence that shaped him.
You arm extends -
Wordlessly directing your companion to pause
To consider
You stop, too.
Once your companion considers you, offering a broken gaze your way - You step forward.
Carefully
Slowly You step over the fallen flowers.
You say, not with judgment, but with clarity: “Suffering does not give us the right to destroy. It gives us the responsibility to choose. To become more human, not less.”
Pause here... Let this moment settle in your body. Let it find the places where bitterness has taken root. Let it speak to and soften them.
You are not what was done to you. You are not the echo of harm. You are the one who steps over the flowers. Who sees beauty and does not trample it. Who chooses tenderness, even when life has not been tender.
This is the heart of meaning. Not in what happens to us, but in how we respond.
Inhale gently. Exhale slowly.
Now in...now gone... Feel the freedom in that choice.
You may not control the field. You may not erase the past. But you can choose your way through it.
You can choose reverence. You can choose compassion. You can choose to step over the flowers.
Let this be your practice. Let this be your vow.
Inhale gently. Exhale slowly.
Now in...now gone...
When you are ready, return to your breath. Return to your body.
Return to the world - not untouched, not pristine - but still blooming.
Offfering your particular fragrance
To the World...
Thank you.
