Letter from Nichole ~ Feb. 6, 2008

I thought you all might like to read the latest letter I received from Nichole...please go to http://www.freeheartfreemind.blogspot.com to read her weekly postings from prison. She is transforming...opening....healing!
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Anakha,

Last night I received a big envelope from Gene. It had his blog along with yours and the comments from Gene, David and Delayne. I sat down on my bunk, took a deep breath and before the words were even read, a tear fell from my eye. I didn't wipe it though, I just let it be a part of me in the moment. I sat there a moment later with my eyes closed taking another deep breath. I exhaled and opened my eyes. I read Gene's first. The re-cap of my "judgment day," sentencing day. Was hard to read, but good also. I need to know my part in this world. What memories I am leaving, what my presence in other's lives is effecting, building, giving, taking receiving.

When I got to yours I stopped and breathed in and out. As I started reading I could hear your voice, see your face...wishing I could. I felt so many different emotions from your words. Love, forgiveness, hope, dreams and awakenings jumped out at me. I was being told in a sense..."wake up Nichole, I am right here, I am not going anywhere, don't run from me, I will always love you."

Anakha thank you for taking the time to share your experience with me. I know I am not alone in this. I still wish I was physically there. Rewinding back a few months would be great. Sometimes it feels like a movie. Have you ever seen the movie "Click" it has Adam Sandler in it. It's really funny. You should rent it. In the movie he can stop, pause, rewind, fast forward. Some features could be good right now...LOL.

I am going to write about what I need, want in regards to our contract...but I don't know how you want it so will start with this:

I need to be called on my bullshit.
Structure
Hugs
Humor
A shoulder to cry on
Encouraged
Sometimes a good shove when I am shying away from a good time
Yoga and running
I need to get a degree
Help with the following through with Isaiah
To know how you think, feel, about potentially bad decisions or situations you feel me slipping into
Lots of advice

I probably have more...so I hope we can start with that. See how it comes together.

I am sending you the canteen order sheets so you know what that looks like. There are two of them. I wish you could see the shoes. They are really cute...pink, black and white Reeboks. How great is that. You know me and my pink! I am missing that and chai tea from Starbucks. I can't have a chai tea until I get to minimum. One year. Wow. Guess what you don't get paid for 4 months over here on medium. That is crazy to me. Do you think I should take vitamins. They are on canteen. Crystal knows about them and what is good. What do you think about me learning a second language, like Spanish. Been thinking about that too. I am really excited about doing something to earn a degree in here. I keep having vivid dreams about all this stuff.

Well I am going to work on my blog. It is amazing to know my story has a voice.

Love always,
Nichole

The Essential

How easily we get trapped in that which is not essential
- in looking good, winning at competition, gathering power and wealth -
when simply being alive is a gift beyond measure."

~ Parker J Palmer

What is essential?
What is essential for me to write, to know, to be, to do, to heal, to reveal, to live, to share?
What is essential?
I wonder what it would be like to live my life sourced from the essential...from essence, to ask moment to moment, "what is essential now and now...and live the answers to the best of my ability."

What is essential for you right now?

I google essential: vitally necessary, basic and fundamental, all-important, crucial, indispensable, absolutely required, not to be used up or sacrificed, containing essence.

What is vitally necessary, crucial and absolutely required to liberate that which is imprisoned, behind bars, trapped within us at this moment? What is essential to liberate the Love that I am, that we are? What is essential to experience and deeply receive the Love that is seeking me, that is seeking us all?

As I sit here in my chair glancing out at the river and Mount St. Helens, I sense a deep and true prayer surfacing in my heart. I am calling us all home to the Essential...to the Essence, which is God, which is the Sacred Heart, which is the Beloved Community, which is the tenderness and the sweetness of our own Souls.

Let us come home now, to the essential. Let us not wait another moment to return to Love. Let us drop everything and turn and run toward the Beloved...naked with despair, naked with longing, naked with shame, naked with our own darkness, naked with delight, naked...naked...naked...let us come home to the arms of the One Essential, let us hear our Beloved Father and our Beloved Mother whispering to our souls, " beloved one, return again, come unto me." Matthew 11:28

Let us return to the essential. Let us return to speaking the essential into one another's hearts. Let us not belabor our words, let us not hide behind a mask of everyday chit chat and the rote patterns of how are you and what are you up to? Let us open our hearts and pour what is essential on the altar of our lives for others to see. Let us open our hearts and pour our love into one another's hearts like never before.

Let us reveal what is essential. Let us reveal what is essential to our own hearts, to our own souls, and for our own nourishment...what is essential...what I have may just be what is essential for you and what you have may just be what is essential for me.

Let us praise the essential. Let us praise the essential in ourselves, in one another, in our lives, in the world, in the cosmos. Let us watch and taken notice of the essential. Let us speak the words of the essential.

Let us remember, gather together, call together the essential. Let us gather in the essential, come together as the Essential. Let us remember, re-member the essential together.

Let us surrender to the essential, let us offer up our burdens to the essential, let us let go into the essential. Let us burn in the holy fires of the essential. Let us be born again, anew in the essential.

Let me be here, with you all now, as the Essential.
I surrender my love, I surrender my life to the Essential.
My healing is essential, my loving is essential, my written and spoken words are essential, my gathering in community is essential, my loving and being loved is essential, my touching and being touched is essential, my vulnerability is essential, my broken open heart is essential, my playful spirit is essential.

I am essential.
We are the Essential.

Amen.