Friends and family,

About 15 months or more ago, I meditated over a weekend with 10 other brave souls for about 16 hours in total silence. I experienced a sort of mental and emotional breaking down, questioning what really existed inside. Searching for the essence, in a sense.

In a similar way, our country is going through its own deep meditation. We are fighting with our government, peacefully protesting for change, asserting that #blacklivesmatter, and crying out for equal treatment and care when we experience violence and trauma.

I want you to know how my individual experience of meditation might relate to the current meditation our country is going through. In the end of the meditation, I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude, hope, and love. I thought about AND FELT how much I have been loved in my life and cared for by all different types of people.

The silence and meditation is really really really rough, because whatever was inside had to reveal itself, even partially, and then come up and then out.

I know the funk, pain, and confusion, is heavy in our country –maybe the funk was always there but I had a clogged nose, maybe I was only getting a little whiff now and then. Funk is funk no matter how you try to slice it.

I know and believe that there is no other way through. The good thing is that I barely remember the pain and horror of facing what I had carried within and only now remember the love, the overwhelming love of how many people carried me through the dark and light moments of my life.

Peace and blessings,
Brian Ragsdale, brianragsdalewriter.com,