when pain is great

When the pain is great,

 go with the pain. 

Let it take you. 

Open your palms and your body to the pain. 

It comes in waves, like a tide, 

and you must be open as a vessel

 lying on the beach—letting it fill you up, 

and then retreating leaving you empty and clear.

 And with a deep breath

 (it has to be as deep as the pain) 

one reaches a kind of inner freedom from the pain,

 as though the pain that you experience 

were not yours but the body’s. 

The spirit lays the body on the altar.

~  Anne Morrow Lindbergh