Conrad SatalaJuly 21, 2025

21 July 2025 - Monday The Struggles - the Fears - the Challenges - the Emergence of Hope Remembering of the “Heart Within Water.” Part 7a

Conrad SatalaJuly 21, 2025

21 July 2025 - Monday

The Struggles - the Fears - the Challenges -

the Emergence of Hope Remembering of the “Heart Within Water.”

Part 7a

“I Carry the Mountain in My Breath”

A Ceremonial Introduction to Living Within Two Lands

from the Earth Remembers Series

The Struggles - the Fears - the Challenges -

the Emergence of Hope Remembering of the “Heart Within Water.”

The Struggles - the Fears - the Challenges - the Emergence of Hope

Remembering of the “Heart Within Water.” This centered upon Lake Atitlán.

But this same sacred focus can be practiced with any body of water— a lake, a ocean, a river, a stream, a drainage pond, or even a glass of water sitting quietly beside you.

For all forms of water carry within them

the Weaving of the Many into the One Heart—

reminding us that life is always lived in relationship.

The Heart Within Water assists us in remembering

that these relationships are woven with our words,

that these relationships are woven with our ideas,

that these relationships are woven with our communications and actions.

And most importantly,

that these relationships are first woven

within our inner nature,

and within the inner nature of all life around us.

This remembering becomes the foundation of inner kindness.

And what emerges from this inner kindness

becomes the first thread

in the weaving of the Many into One Heart within us—

as we begin to communicate

and take action into the outer world

through outer kindness.

⸻

Writings of the “Heart within Water” through Lake Atitlán:

I walked down toward the lake,

toward her skin of moving light.

She shimmered with the sky,

mirroring what the world forgot “to see.”

I sat beside her,

and the waters whispered:

“Let me carry your breath for a while.”

Voice 1 stirred again:

“But your body hurts. Your sinuses are full. You are tired.”

Yet the lake only listened,

and in her stillness,

she invited me to receive—

to breathe in the shimmering Presence of the Heart Within Water.

As I exhaled,

the light rippled outward across the surface.

“This, too, is healing,” the lake whispered.

“You are breathing the light of what still lives.”

Writings of the “Heart within Water” through Lake Atitlán:

Later, by the lake,

I watched how the water receives everything.

Leaves. Ash. Tears. Light.

Even the footsteps of birds along her edges.

She receives it all,

and offers nothing in return but reflection.

So I sat beside her,

and said nothing.

And the lake said:

You are allowed to receive.

You do not have to give back right away.

The breath of the water

moved into my own breath.

I inhaled through my nose,

slowly, gently,

and I felt it—

that wave of permission

to rest.

This too became a thread.

A soft shimmering blue light

weaving into the bones behind my lungs.

Writings of the “Heart within Water” through Lake Atitlán:

Conrad walked to the shore

as the sun unwrapped its first breath

across the waters.

Lake Atitlán shimmered like a woven shawl of dawn.

A woman’s presence.

A mirror of the unseen.

Conrad knelt and let the water touch his fingertips.

The lake responded not with waves,

but with stillness.

Within that stillness, a light moved —

gentle, feminine, fluid.

He inhaled.

And he felt his inner tides soften.

A kindness flowed into his ribcage,

into his inner waters.

The lake whispered into his skin:

“Let your emotions move like me.

You do not have to hold everything still.”

He pressed a hand to his chest:

“I receive this fluid kindness

into the Heart within me.”

Writings of the “Heart within Water” through Lake Atitlán:

Then I remembered the lake.

When Voice 1 said:

“You were betrayed by those you trusted.

You believed in justice, and they sold it for profit.”

I felt my fists tighten.

But I saw again the way the lake receives.

All things.

Even poison.

Even grief.

So I sat by the edge of my breath,

and I let the water inside me listen.

The lake whispered:

“You can hold this pain

without letting it define your shape.”

And something softened.

My belly. My breath. My jaw.

A thread of surrender entered me—

not to give up,

but to receive

what I could not yet change.

⸻

The Beginning of the Weaving of Inner Kindness

Each of these threads—

the mountain’s stillness,

the lake’s breath,

the cloud forest’s remembering,

the cornfield’s belonging,

and the forest’s aging—

wove themselves into the inner altar of my heart.

Not as thoughts.

Not as concepts.

But as Light.

As Presence.

As Kindness.

Before I ever listened to the sharpness of Voice 1,

before I dared to meet the pain inside my own mind,

I had already begun the Weaving of Inner Kindness

through the land and water that raised me.

The outer landscape

was the first Voice of Kindness.

The Heart Within Nature

was the first thread.

And that is how the inner weaving began.

⸻

Let this be known:

The Earth offers the first acts of kindness

not in words, but in presence.

When we receive the Heart Within the Landscape,

we begin to weave the Heart Within our own body.

This weaving becomes the ground

from which we will later meet Voice 1—

not in fear,

but in relationship.

This is the beginning.

This is the first kindness.

This is the Weaving of Many

into One Heart.

⸻

The Beginning of the Weaving of Inner Kindness

In the Struggle Between the Voices, and the Receiving of the Heart Within Water

It did not begin

with strength.

It did not begin

with clarity.

It began in the ache of breath,

in the weariness of the mind,

in the unrelenting drumbeat of Voice 1—

“You’re not doing enough.

You’ve already failed.

Hope is gone.”

This voice—familiar, sharp,

woven into the fabric of my thoughts—

spoke the loudest.

And yet,

beneath its echo,

in a flicker hardly noticed,

something softer stirred.

Not quite Voice 2—

not yet the full emergence of light—

but a Heart Within Voice 1,

a fragile kindness

tucked inside the despair.

It was this flicker

that opened my breath to the world again.

⸻

I stood at the edge of Lake Atitlán,

not seeking beauty,

but simply unable to carry more.

And the lake did not ask me to heal.

It only asked me to receive.

There, I opened—

not fully,

not perfectly—

but enough

to let the Heart Within Water

move toward me.

The shimmering surface,

the quiet movement,

the vast breath of stillness

held my pain without resistance.

And I felt, for a moment—

just a moment—

that I was not separate.

The lake breathed.

And I breathed.

And that was enough.

That was the beginning.

⸻

Each thread of the outer landscape—

the mountain’s silent witness,

the cloud forest’s sacred hush,

the cornfield’s memory of belonging,

the aging trees’ radiant stillness—

began to enter me

not as thought,

not as idea—

but as Presence.

As Light.

As Kindness.

Even while Voice 1 continued

its warnings, its judgments,

its ache of futility—

a thread had been placed

in the altar of my chest.

A thread from the Heart Within Water,

a thread of breath that did not demand healing,

only relationship.

And that is how

the Weaving of Inner Kindness began.

⸻

Let this be remembered:

The Earth offers the first acts of kindness

not with answers,

but with Presence.

When we receive

even the smallest breath

from the Heart Within the Landscape,

we begin to weave

the Heart Within our own body.

And though Voice 1 will still speak,

though despair will still return,

a flicker has been woven in—

a breath,

a thread,

a memory of belonging.

This is not the end of struggle.

But it is the beginning of

Kimoon K’uxlaal—

the Weaving of Many into One Heart.

This is the first kindness.

This is the first thread.

This is the place from which we begin to reimagine

ourselves and the world

as one living heart of Earth.

⸻

Closing Breath: The Weaving

And so I walked home.

My breath not perfect.

But moving.

Not without pain.

But with presence.

Through every outer landscape,

a part of my inner landscape awakened.

The wind that moved the world

now moved through me.

Nawal Q’iiq’ and Nawal Tijaax

walked on either side of me—

one weaving life into breath,

the other dissolving away what no longer served.

And in my chest,

the Heart Within pulsed,

not with fear,

but with new kindness.

With each step,

I whispered the prayer:

“Let my breath be a remembering.

Let my body be the altar.

Let my bones receive the unknown light

of the Great Grandmother’s Wind.”

And the wind answered—

“You are One of Earth.

This breath is ancient.

This breath is holy.

This breath carries you forward—

into the unknown,

into new light,

step by step,

bone by bone,

breath by breath.”

⸻

Deepening within the Closing Breath -

The Weaving In the Struggle Between Voice 1 and Voice 2

A Remembering of the One Heart

And so I walked home.

My breath still uneven,

not yet free.

The body did not open into peace—

but it continued.

The movement was not joy,

but it was still movement.

Through every outer landscape,

something inside had stirred.

A thread of remembering—

not strong, not lasting—

but flickering.

Voice 1 still clung

to the hollows of my chest:

“You are not getting better.

This pain is permanent.

You’ve lost your chance.”

And yet—

beneath that voice,

there was another.

Not loud.

Not certain.

But present for a moment

like a breeze touching my cheek.

This was the Heart Within Voice 1—

the tender part

that still longs to heal,

even when it speaks in fear.

And somewhere beyond that

—just once—

Voice 2 appeared.

Like a wind passing through the trees—

there, then gone.

But real.

It did not promise transformation.

It did not erase the sorrow.

But it stood beside it,

silent and kind.

I felt Nawal Q’iiq’ walking near,

the Sacred Breath—

not fixing,

but witnessing.

I felt Nawal Tijaax behind me,

not cutting with sharpness,

but with clarity—

a presence who could see

what I could not yet let go of.

And so I whispered—

not in strength,

but in longing:

“Let this breath, however small,

be a remembering.

Let this body, even in struggle,

be the altar.

Let these bones receive,

even now,

the flicker of the Great Grandmother’s Light.”

And though the wind did not answer

with certainty,

it moved.

And that movement,

that breath,

became a thread

in the great tapestry of the One Heart.

A reminder, not a conclusion:

You are not separate.

Even when Voice 1 returns in waves.

Even when the struggle tightens again.

You are being woven—

step by uncertain step,

breath by imperfect breath—

into a light you do not yet fully see.

But that light remembers you.

And that is enough for now.

Conrad Satala