The Waking Hours
“Shut your eyes so you can see
The beauty in the mystery
Walking in shadows
Light inside your bones
Wandering your way back home.“
The beauty and infinite possibility that lives in the mystery of every moment after this one is one of the most profound lessons I’ve learned on my healing journey.
It’s spoken so beautifully in these words from Matthew Perryman Jones in the title track of his stunning new record The Waking Hours, out this week.
I spent so many years of my life carrying the heavy burden of “never,” trying to make peace with things I just didn’t get to have.
The truth is, though, with very few exceptions such as someone no longer being on this planet - and even there, hell, I don’t have all the answers - we simply cannot know that something will never be.
The mystery of every moment after this one means that with very, very few exceptions, we just cannot know that something is impossible.
And since we cannot know that something is impossible, by definition, it is possible ... As are a million other wonders we can’t even conceive of yet.
We just do not need to carry that heavy burden of “never.“
This is a life-changing discovery, and it’s the beauty of mystery.
The truth is the things we like to think are forever are just not.
They are just not.
While this truth is jarring in some ways, it is fucking miraculous in infinitely more ways.
It means that the things that look or feel or even are impossible in this moment, can become possible in an instant.
I have watched it happen, over and over and over.
I’ve had so many dreams come true since I began embracing every single thing I love and intentionally focusing on what I have and want, rather than growing the void of what’s missing.
Whatever we focus on grows, and takes up nearly our entire field of view.
There are certainly still moments I focus on what’s missing, and I have shed endless tears as my heart drowns in longing and grieving. I’ve been in that space this week, actually, feeling the crushing weight not only of what’s missing in this moment - or rather, what I believe the fact that it’s missing means about me - but also feeling every abandonment and loss I’ve experienced in my life.
Shedding those tears when they show up is so vital.
Also vital, though, is sorting out what’s true ... Whether we’re grieving what’s truly gone and feeling what truly is in this moment, or whether we’re grieving a story we’re telling about something that isn’t really true in this moment, or one about forever which we cannot possibly know.
Overall, though - at least when I’m awake and paying attention - I focus on dreaming and on what I want, and I’ve watched so many of those dreams materialize around me.
Nearly all of them came true by surprise in a moment.
A little over year ago, I woke up one morning from a vivid dream.
In this dream, Matthew swept me up to dance.
I was completely panicked, looking up at him in terror and saying “But I don’t know how to dance!”
“Neither do I,“ he said, twirling me around the floor.
“All I do is take the next step.“
I woke up stunned at the profound wisdom of those words in that moment, grabbing my phone to jot them down, something I’d never done in my life.
It was just unimaginably powerful for me.
Then … I randomly heard from him that day.
Let me just tell you, he is not a person I hear from.
He is not a person I had EVER heard from out of the blue, before or since that day.
I was absolutely speechless when what he sent me spoke nearly those very same words.
Just take the next step.
It takes my breath away to this day.
His new record out this week contains so much beauty and wisdom, as is always found in what he breathes into the world.
None of the words of my healing journey you’ve read here would exist without the space created by the words and melodies of his wandering steps.
These are indeed the waking hours, and I am unimaginably grateful.
Your heart will thank you.