The Turtle and Golden Yoke

At the bottom of the ocean lived a blind turtle. Believed only to surface once every one hundred years. Floating above it upon the vast Ocean was a golden yoke, blown by the currents and the wind, an opportunity for the turtle surfacing at just the right time and in just the right place to put its head through the yoke. Our chances of finding freedom and fortune are similar. So what is there to do? I spent the first seventeen years of my life unaware in a sense that turtles and golden yolks existed. I learned to swim at a very young age. I loved swimming underwater. I never gave a thought to my own breath, but I give thanks to those times: To the breath that gives and takes from mine to his and to the roots and leaves and back again. To a heartbeat that drums into tomorrow, and the day after in timeless rhythms. To a family that supported being a soldier, a hippie and a nomad, only as long as happiness came with it. I give thanks to the sickness that whispered to me of the turtle and the yoke, and the ancient stories that never floated away, so that I could be lucky enough to hear them. To every other being like me, that hurts, and shivers, trembles and dances, cries and laughs as I do, and to all their many languages. That I have the opportunity to communicate with them, and sometimes without words. To never once having the worry that I may go hungry this night, or the next. To always having a home, and a clean bed I can fall back into and to not having to do so. To past lives that occurred in this memory, and the ones I have forgotten that have put me in this place. To the music, love and happiness that make it all worth it. I give thanks to the turtle on my arm and the one that found its way. Thank you for the breath and a yoke around a head More at : http://brendenpettingill.com/index.php/2017/11/27/the-turtle-and-golden-yoke/