Writings & More

“Consciousness is a Love so raw, so
powerful, so real, so strong.
A Love that knows who I am, without exception or omission.
A Love that calls me home on the wild and stormy nights.
This Love burns.”

~ from Consciousness,
by Sara Priestley

What my heart burns for you to know about unconditional love is this: that you already know. You are complete, here and now.

There is no understanding you need to learn. No course you have to take. Not that there is anything wrong with courses, practices, rituals and learning. But they can’t bring you the only thing you ever truly wanted: grace.

Grace is the capacity to navigate life, feeling all of it, deeply, but not suffering. Grace shows up as peace, contentment, happiness, joy, elation, excitement, and sometimes sweet sadness or the cleansing fire of anger. Grace is immersion in the ocean of life, knowing ourselves as the water. Grace shines in the darkness and calls us home. Grace is freedom, and grace is unconditional love.

If this is true, why do you suffer? Why might you feel anxiety, distress, frustration, shame, lack or brokenness? For one reason, and one reason only: that you learnt to believe yourself a tiny, finite wave in the ocean. You were probably taught this, innocently, by your parents, your teachers, your friends and even some spiritual leaders.

But deep down you know, even if just as a faint echo, that you are more than this. You know that grace, freedom and love are possible. The feeling of brokenness sits in dissonance with this echo. It’s natural that in feeling broken, you yearn for grace, for freedom, for love. And that you reach to the world for fulfilment.

Notice, each time it seems you’ve found the answer (or each time you throw in the towel) there’s a pause. In that pause, you know grace, you know freedom, you know love. All you ever wanted, seen in the absence of seeking.

This isn’t a call to tell the seeking soul to stop. That’s near to impossible. Instead, I offer this: consider that this grace—this freedom, this love—is your own true nature. And that it’s always apparent in those moments you aren’t reaching to the world to fulfil you.

This is what a baby knows instinctively. We’re not trying to become like a baby, but it’s useful to know that we were born into grace, and that somewhere we lost sight of this knowing.

Fortunately, the knowing never lost sight of us. So, let us turn inward together, back to the heart, back to the essence of life. And, from here, see the world as it truly is. Live it fully. Live as grace, as freedom, as love.

With Love, Sara