Together

A meditation on the illusion of separateness

We are not two sides of a coin

We are a trillion identical parts in infinite variety
orbiting in and around one another

Pushed together and pulled apart by forces we understand
as much as water understands the pitcher that holds it

There is no inside or outside

There is only together
There is only together

There is no master, no command and control, no divine hand
extended from the hem of a golden robe to guide us

Love and hate, joy and terror are not levers or switches
but wheels, perpetually spinning us around and apart

And back together because even apart

We are together
We are together

Sunrise over Atlanta, the city of trees.

This week I don’t have the energy to write all the things I’m feeling when I wake up and scroll through the news to see what new, fresh horrors have unfolded overnight. There’s not been a period in most of our lifetimes where hatred and meanness were so publicly celebrated and the divisions between us so pronounced.

It seems everyone with a voice, channel, or platform is bent to the work of reinforcing the lie that there’s only one true way to be human and that difference equates to danger. This lizard brain response reduces everything to a binary and yet nothing in the natural world is so tidy, so black and white. Sit and observe the transition between night and day and try to pinpoint the exact moment where one becomes the other. It can’t be done because, like all things, it’s a continuum.

I’m not so naïve to believe we can all just set aside our differences and love each other, and it may even be too hard to ask that we endeavor to truly see each other the way we want to be seen. But I don’t think it’s too much for us to learn to accept each other— to accept that we all exist in this pitcher together. If you’ve read this far, regardless of your politics, I hope you’re as tired of all of it as I am and maybe you’re ready to make some allowance in your heart, in your life, for all people, but especially the ones who don’t look, act, or think like you. Either way, thank you for taking the time to be here.