Image, Jamie Rosenberg
When a gold record arrived with my own name on it last month, I hung it up in the house without really knowing what it meant. Arriving in Brooklyn to celebrate, I google “what’s a gold record?” to find out what it actually means.
Given by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), these designations represent the number of sales—500,000 units for gold, 1 million for platinum, 2 million or more for multiplatinum.
Realizing how many of you have streamed, purchased, felt this track in your bones, the creation of “Don’t Leave” on the first Flow State album in collaboration with Paavo Siljamäki of Above & Beyond gives me hope.
This piece is about our inner relation; the safety and comfort of our own attention amidst the most difficult situations. While it’s part of a larger, longer poem, this particular track has apparently been listened to the most.
Lyrics:
This is your simplest serene state of listening
And this is the state you were born to bring
Take one deep breath
Welcome home.
Welcome to the voice of someone you know you've met.
Sense this stillness,
Plumb the interior depths.
This is how you inhabit that place within yourself that is always at rest.
And when that knowing slips again into restlessness, doubtfulness,
sensations of inner discomfort and unsteadiness…
To varying degrees, all of us have felt this.
Take one deep breath.
The question becomes, how can we swiftly move through those
moments of forgetting with real expansiveness?
Can we relate to ourselves with more openness, steadiness?
We seek an inner conversation that brings a sense of safety,
an inner relation that allows for the most vital healing release.
Breathe.
And with this one deep breath, you are safe,
you are listening, you are seen, you are home.
There is no shame.
And you were never alone.
On this final evening of a delicious visit in my home city, the training ground where I learned proficiency in self-support, I’ve shared a few thoughts about this time that might be useful to you in the video below, with my gratitude.
Paid subscribers, our next virtual tea is on August 12th. Details to come.
Bowing, a bit tired, deeply thankful.
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