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I sat by my canyon’s edge, watching the morning light carve new stories into the rock. This place holds everything—the weight of time, the hush of presence, the silent echo of what has passed. I used to think healing was about climbing out, escaping the depths. Yet I have learned healing is not about leaving. Healing is about inhabiting.
Metta, the first of the Brahmaviharas, is often translated as loving-kindness. Not the kind requiring effort or approval, rather the kind simply existing—like the sun rising, like breath filling my lungs. I have found it in small, unexpected moments: the way a squirrel pauses to watch me, the warmth of a cup resting between my palms, the quiet recognition in a stranger’s eyes. Love does not always announce itself. Sometimes, it is as subtle as a leaf drifting downstream, as steady as the rock beneath my feet.
Karuna, compassion, lives in the canyon’s crevices, where the rain collects and nourishes life unseen. It is the willingness to sit with suffering, to say, I see you without turning away. My body remembers pain in a way my mind often cannot. The aches, the tightness in my sternum, the tension woven into my fascia—these are stories written in places I once ignored. To meet them with compassion is to say, You do not have to carry this alone. And when I extend that same presence to another, when I hold space without rushing to fix or explain, I feel the canyon breathe with me.
Mudita, joy in the joy of others, has taken longer to understand. It is not comparison, not measuring my own happiness against another’s. It is the rising tide lifting all boats, the way sunlight touches every peak without reservation. I have felt it watching a friend step into their own power, hearing laughter ring out across an open field, witnessing courage unfold in real time. There is no scarcity in joy. The more I celebrate with others, the more I find waiting for me.
And then there is Upekkha, equanimity—the river moving with the land, neither resisting nor retreating. It is not indifference, not detachment, rather the deep trust allowing me to stay present without being consumed. In the canyon, I have learned control is an illusion. The storms will come. The winds will shift. Yet if I can stand, breathe, and let the current flow through me, I do not break. I remain.
Ubuntu carries these truths in its bones.
I am because you are.
Not as something to be proven, rather as something already known. The canyon does not exist in isolation. It is shaped by wind and rain, by the footsteps tracing its ridges, and by the silence holding it all. And so are we.
Ubuntu is not a concept I observe from a distance. It is the marrow of my existence, the unseen force reminding me my life is woven into every other life. When I reach out, I do not merely touch another—I meet myself. When I witness another’s joy, I do not just celebrate them—I expand. And when I acknowledge another’s pain, I do not stand apart—I soften. Ubuntu is the breath between us, the space where I see and am seen, where I give and receive, where I exist not as an isolated self, rather as a note in the greater song.
We Are Because 🫶🏼 We are the space between breaths, the hush before the dawn, the echo of a bird’s song carried by winds that have touched every shore. 🌊 We are because we belong, not as threads alone, but woven— the hand that lifts, the shoulder that bears, the laughter that ripples outward like rain returning to the sea. ❤️ Metta—a warmth that kindles without asking, without weighing, spilling open like sunlit petals, softening even the hardest ground. 🫂 Karuna—the arms that steady when the road turns steep, the voice that whispers, I see you, when the world would rather look away. 🤗 Mudita—the rising tide that lifts us all, joy unbound by borders, rejoicing in the flourishing of another as if it were our own bloom. ⚖️ Upekkha—a river that knows how to curve with the land, trusting the path, letting be, without letting go. 🙏 Ubuntu whispers through the marrow: I am because you are. Not a name, not a face, but a current, a rhythm, a home where gratitude kneels and knows the ground is sacred. 🧘🧘🏻♀️🧘🏽♂️ And so we walk together— not ahead, not behind, but side by side, heart by heart, breath by breath, hand in hand in the great turning of the world. 🪷 13.3.2025
There was a time I believed mistakes defined me. I carried them as burdens, evidence of my inadequacy, proof I was not enough. Yet mistakes are not tombstones. They do not bury me. They do not mark the end of my story. They are part of the rhythm, the turning of the page, the necessary notes in a song still unfolding.
I have stumbled more times than I can count, fallen into crevices I did not think I could climb out of. Yet each fall whispered—
50 mg of Mistakes
😪
I carved regret into my ribs,
mistook survival for silence,
held my breath where truth should live.
Stumbled forward, backwards,
tripped on lessons I refused to name.
Yet each fall whispered—
not failure, rather flight,
not ruin, rather rhythm.
Mistakes were not tombstones.
They were stepping stones.
😰This is why I write, why I share my stories, and why I reach out my hand. Because we do not walk alone. Because the breath between us matters. Because somewhere, in the hush before dawn, in the hush before breath, we already belong to each other.
We are because we are.
Glad to have you walk beside me.
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