Sweet honey in the heart

a dark night, a happy birthday, and choosing to stay alive

Last Christmas I got to a place of not wanting to be alive. If you’ve been there you know what that’s like, and if you haven’t, I pray you won’t. I’m venturing to share this for one reason: perhaps my story will bring support to someone else. Please meet it as the offering it is.

I don’t know how many “dark nights of the soul” one gets in a life, but in the darkest days of last December, that’s where I found myself. Or rather, lost myself—spinning in the panicked anxiety of a trauma-altered body-mind.

2023 brought shocks, losses, displacement, departure, and an experience of being suddenly unanchored…all while descending deeper into the life-altering wilderness of The Change (aka perimenopause). I am committed to Life and Love, but it was a difficult time of survival circumstances and I was at a loss as to how to find my way through. Thankfully, I have wonderful friends, a very wise mentor, and a daughter who needs + deserves the love I’m determined to be. So thanks to a great generosity of grace, my contribution of courage, and knowing my reason for staying, I’m here. Birthing a new life and re-birthing my self.

Precisely six months after that “rock bottom” I am on the other side of the continent, hands in the red clay of North Carolina, cultivating food and community with good humans. I am gradually landing—back to the earth, back into my body, and back into my life. It’s a hard road but my path has been blessed and June was a time for celebrating and being celebrated. This life. My life. This deeply arduous, profoundly beautiful, incredibly messy, and absolutely miraculous life.

We’re living in intense times, folks. The world we’ve known is crumbling and a new one is being born. We don’t know what’s coming and the process is messy. I’m not the first and won’t be the last to experience this structural collapse with every cell of my body. Hold onto each other. Love each other well. Cultivate your capacity to do so. As the wise ones have said, “the time of the lone wolf is over.” We get through these times together, friends.

And then we celebrate. Everything we can. That we’re here. Alive. Together.

The path is not easy but it is holy. I give thanks for those who walk it with me and that I am growing so much kinder to myself along the way. Compassion changes everything. I pray this for us all.

And if you’re exhausted by the chaos and pain of this world and don’t want to be here, I see you. I do not judge you for wanting release. But please stay. We need you. Let someone safe know what’s going on and let them love you. Remember who and what you live for and stay for them. Together, we can do this. And we must.

---

🎶 I believe poetry is a song that is meant to be heard as well as read. A poem is a journey for the senses as well as the mind. I invite you to sit back and experience me reading this one to you. You can listen here:

Sweet honey in the heart

My cup is full. Birthdays
are such a wonderful excuse
to shower someone with love.

I delight in the sweetness—
so thoughtful and lavish,
of those who light my life.

Near and far, they’ve poured
their generous hearts
into this day.

As evening falls I bask in the golden glow 
of loving words, thoughtful gifts, 
sweet treats, delightful songs.

Such tender care and bright wishes
remind me of what I lost contact with
last year: the preciousness of my life.

Once upon a time I heard a blessing:
*“long life, sweet honey in the heart”*
and decades later, I feel it—

the fullness of a nourished heart
that has grown sweet again
amidst the bitter pain of living.

Sweet honey in the heart flows 
like the slowed-down ease 
of long summer days.

It glows in deep golds and ambers.
Tastes like a busy communal 
harvest dance turned into sustenance.

Sounds like the steady hum 
of those who spread the love songs 
of flowers and gather nectar home.

Preparing for bed, I savor the love 
that fills me with the hum of gold light
and it dawns on me:

This may be the year that 
this homesick heart
comes home to herself.

—Kai Madrone

June 25, 2024

Enjoy honey. Recover loudly. Walk each other home.