I am not sure if it is the upcoming full moon that has me feeling like one big ball of emotions, or if is finding out that my mom is having a heart cath surgery in the morning with a possible stint if there is “enough blockage” to warrant it.

Or, are my emotions grounded in the fact that her legs are swollen from the fluid collecting around her ankles, from her circulation not working properly, while knowing she is not feeling well?

Are these the reasons this hauntingly beautiful song on such a visceral level has me weeping as I replay it?

It comes as medicine for my soul, for now.

Or is my weeping from the news that my childhood friend is having her “other” breast removed tomorrow morning from cancer after she thought they were done cutting into her?

She walked in the Breast Cancer Awareness parade in Kentucky last week, dressed in bright pink like so many other survivors all over the country. Though now she speaks to the sentiment of living like a fighter again, rather than a survivor. She seems not yet out of the woods. She’s plain tired of giving more, as she said on Facebook, “I give up,” meaning, all that does not serve her anymore, so that the positive, “what is good can come in,” and yet she has another surgery and will have to postpone other therapy until after they take the other breast.

Am I sad when I listen to this song because I heard that Mom’s surgery is going to be on the same day as my friend’s, and that we will pray for both of their lives on the exact same day? Or is this sadness also connected to the pending possibility that I may need to stop teaching my regularly offered yoga classes in Kalamazoo because so few students show up to practice?

I’ve invested years in expensive trainings to stay on the pulse of things in the yoga world, even made the pilgrimage to India, so that I could help bring the ancient ways of healing to my students, myself, and yet still sometimes things, no matter how much we try, want, wish, or pray upon, some things are just not meant to be.

We’re not meant to live forever, and the only thing that is constant is change itself, and yet even in knowing that, it doesn’t make it easier just because I can stand on my head and teach others how to, or how to use a Neti-pot during allergy season.

When faced with our mortality, and our loved ones, we come face to face with all that we are.

This melody about a worried songbird singing into a forest speaks to my childhood, to my heart tonight, to expectations, humility, and ego. To my being fatherless, to my profound connection to my mom, and to my distant, though still close at heart, childhood friend, as we  accept our fate and its unpredictability.

I am full of changes, both good and scary ones, in flux, in limbo, and also approaching very grounding times in my new (old 108 year old) home, and yet this lyric of a worried songbird, signing into the forest, calls to my spirit as I light candles, drum, pray, for whatever may come, of me, and of us all. This song a yoga student of mine, who has crossed over into family now, sent me it as comfort.

I play it over and over, how hauntingly beautiful the melody is, at how I can relate to it. We all can.

I am indeed as my Mama called me all my years growing up, Kristabird. I sing now, and every day some, and I call out into the forest, worried, afraid, and though a yogini, a yoga teacher, possibly about to change her relationship to teaching altogether, I try to practice equanimity, though sometimes it’s the act of moving into our fears, to feeling those highs and lows, the pains, and heart aches are what serve us best.

Sometimes its truly these acts of fearlessness when moving into our pain, that help to lessen its hold, while deepening our character, and offering us the opportunity to experience our deepest and most soulful journey together within our interconnectedness.

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Ed: Bryonie Wise