Alchemy.

I am sorry, Mother Earth
for the days I walked heavy,
leaving footprints deeper than my presence,
for the times I forgot your breath
is the same breath stirring in my lungs.

I am sorry for the ways in which I betrayed

my mission to be your guardian 

because my own walls were too high.

I am sorry for our humanity
my tangled, luminous kin –
for every moment I hid my light
because I feared its size,
for every hour I let my shadows
speak louder than my heart.
I am sorry for every wound I inflicted
every scar I ripped open
when I forgot how to love
and needed to remember
I am always loved by you.

Forgive me for not yet being
the fiercest, clearest, most humble version of myself –
the one who loves without armor,
the one who listens before acting,
the one who remembers
that every choice is a spell
cast into the world.

But here I stand, palms open, sight wide,
ready for release and transmutation.

Let my regrets crumble like old stone

rot like the illusions of hierarchy
and become fertile soil –
dark, rich, and willing
to feed the roots of what is to come.

Let my shadows split and soften
into raw organic matter –
lead for the great change,
awaiting the fire of awareness,
the slow gold of change.

May this apology be my turning point:
a vow to walk gentler,
to bow deeper,
to love braver,
to rise cleaner from the ashes
of who I have been.
And to spread it around the garden
to nourish what will bloom and feed.

Mother Earth, please take my sorrow
and mix it with rain.
Let us form, let us create out of alive clay
the possibility, the model, the art piece
of what we can be if we care and dare.
Humanity, take my humility
and make it a lantern.

And I –
I will step forward
lighter, truer, calmer, bolder,
forged by my own forgiveness,
standing within my own faith and your power,
reborn from the alchemy
of shadow into shine.
Root to shoot to flower.
Mud into lotus.
Blood into growth.
Death into life.