Rooted Joy
Mayra,
I shared your rooted love with a someone who needed its touch.
He’s been walking through personal trials.
Letting go of childhood troubles,
and the shell they formed to survive.
We sat by a river,
reflecting on where he’s at in life.
I stayed mostly silent,
but the space between my brows
decided to respond.
A woman approached. Someone I know from the studio.
She sat down with us.
Her name is “Joy”.
But that afternoon, she wasn’t just herself.
She became a mirror for the one who needed it.
She spoke in parable about her life a she sees it.
All the forces “out to get her”.
I let that be the medicine.
Not my words.
Not solutions.
Just reflection.
Later, I noticed how all the trees in the neighborhood
were shedding their bark
like wise old snakes,
slipping out of uniforms that no longer fit.
And in that evening the sun was set for ceremony.
I had him pick his favorite piece of bark from the ground.
He found one layered within itself:
an outer piece, sheltering another.
We met again by the river,
a candle lit,
a fresh pot of your cacao.
I asked him why he picked that piece.
He said, “Guess.”
I smiled.
“Because it’s us.”
He smiled back.
I felt the warmth of what it really reflected:
the soul within the hardened shell.
But I didn’t need to say it aloud.
I lit the candle,
poured the cacao,
and told him why I love this ritual:
“If you boil cacao, it burns.
It must be brewed slowly,
at just the right low, steady heat.
Before drinking, when you smell it,
the mind says “sweet”.
But the first sip is bitter.
Only through patience
does the sweetness emerge.
Not through the senses,
but from beyond.”
I told him we were sitting together in ceremony of “Joy”.
Not the fleeting joy that comes after the fire,
but the joy born from within it.
The kind that rises slowly,
steadily,
like warmth from the heart.
He opened up again.
I met him with few words.
We drank the sunset.
And that was enough.
Thank you for being part of that moment.
-Love
