Rooted in Refuge
This past Father’s Day was my first Father’s Day without my dad.
Even though I knew it was coming, grief has its own rhythm. Some waves are soft and slow. Others knock the wind out of you.
The ache showed up quietly—in the stillness of the morning, in a familiar phrase he used to say, in my body before I had words for it.
And while I was moving through that wave of personal loss, the world around me didn’t stop. The world is BANANAS! So much suffering. And some days, it just feels like too much.
When that happens, I notice my impulse to distract, to push through, to keep going. And then there are other moments—more tender, more spacious—when my heart feels cracked wide open. Vulnerable, yes. But also honest. Alive.
In these moments, I keep turning to something that has carried me again and again: refuge. I’m making it a habit.
Not as an escape, but as a way of grounding in something deeper. Something more trustworthy than the noise and urgency of the world.
Tuere Sala says,
“Taking refuge is not an act of avoidance. It’s an act of remembrance—of choosing to stand in the truth of who we really are, rather than the delusions of the world.”
That line has been living in me lately.
Refuge, for me, isn’t abstract. It’s the breath I return to before reacting. The stillness beneath the overwhelm. The presence of something greater—call it God, Spirit, Source, the mystery, the Dharma—that reminds me I don’t have to carry everything alone. Life is just Life-ing.
Refuge also lives in community. In the quiet knowing that others are showing up too. Practicing. Forgetting. Loving. Returning. Just like me.
This isn’t about spiritual bypassing or turning away. It’s about remembering who we are while we feel the grief. While we face what’s hard. While we keep our hearts open.
We can set down the second arrow, even when the first still stings.
So if you’re feeling stretched, tender, or unsure, I hope you’ll let this be your reminder:
Refuge is here.
In your breath.
In your body.
In this moment, just as it is.
In your remembering.
In each other.
We don’t have to wait to feel better to return.
We don’t have to earn stillness.
We just have to turn toward it, and let our responses to Life come from wisdom, clarity, compassion,
Again and again and again.
With love + steadiness,
Sharon 🙏🏽❤️🙏🏽