A sample of Ceremony
Ceremony
Poetry & Prose
Brianna Wiest
Thought Catalog Books — thoughtcatalog.com — New York • Los Angeles
Copyright © 2021 Brianna Wiest.
All rights reserved.
Published by Thought Catalog Books, an imprint of the digital magazine Thought Catalog, which is owned and operated by The Thought & Expression Company LLC, an independent media organization based in Brooklyn, New York and Los Angeles, California.
This book was produced by Chris Lavergne and Noelle Beams. Cover art and typesetting by KJ Parish. Special thanks to Isidoros Karamitopoulos for circulation management.
thoughtcatalog.com — shopcatalog.com
Made in the USA
ISBN 978-1-949759-33-4
The light does not choose who to shine upon
it beams, it radiates, it spreads to every open space
all of the grass on the entire earth
does not have to compete
for the rays of sun that nourish it
there is enough for every blade
all the billions of them
and that is the lesson
The grasses don’t stop growing
because they fear wildfires
or the stomping of wild cows
if it comes, it comes
you can’t hold your breath wondering,
what if I fall from the edge?
what if you never see the view?
which question do you want to haunt you?
Fearlessness is the willingness
to love the things that you will eventually lose
which are all things,
even the blood and bones of you
The healing is not the destruction. It is not the day you know it is finally time to uproot your life. It is not the moment you tell someone they are no longer welcome, it is not the hours you spend decluttering, it is not the minute you walk away. The healing is how you gradually allow your soul to drip into your days again. It is how you show up more fully now that the debris is cleared, and the roads are unblocked, and your life is once again renewed and refreshed and freed. It was never about whether or not you had the courage to light fire to what was, it was whether or not you were willing to plant a seed in its place, and to grow what was always meant to be.
Other people are not
here to love us
in the exact way we
think they should
they are here to set up
a healing ceremony
at which we learn how
to love ourselves
Just because it wasn’t forever
doesn’t mean it wasn’t
destined for you
The real love story was always you and you. It was how you walked alone and learned what you needed to carry. It was how you began to see through your own eyes, and not someone else’s. It was how you began to dig joy out from beneath your cynicism, how you slowly built your desires into form. It was how you learned what you like and don’t, and what you came here to be. The real love story was always how you opened your heart to yourself.
When you are in a rebirth, you don’t know you’re being reborn. All you know is that something inside of you is dying. That is the only thing that feels real.
It feels so real that it makes you believe it will go on forever. It feels so real that you begin to distrust everything you thought you knew before. It wraps itself around your mind until it’s the only thing you can see. All there is to do is accept it, and wait while it gradually eases. Despite your disbelief, will always ease.
When you are in a rebirth, you aren’t reborn just once. It comes in waves and layers. You let go and then you let go a little bit more. Without even realizing what is happening, the new pieces of your life begin to emerge. You stumble upon the things that feel so right, you almost wonder if they’re too good to be true. You don’t let yourself settle into any certainty. Slowly, you begin to see what must go, how the world around you must now change to match the changed one within you.
Eventually, you find yourself standing firmly within all you feared would never come. One day, you wake up on the other side. It is at this moment that you must remember the truth you forgot at the beginning: we didn’t come here to suffer, we came here to grow. When we resist the elements of growth—when we are too attached to what must pass—we end up stuck and longing. The truth is that life will change, and we will eventually harvest every seed of effort and love and truth we ever planted. When we ask to greet a new horizon, we have to learn to embrace the journey that will get us there.
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