Resistance is essential. The experienced surfer resists the wave’s power and speed Carves a brief route into raucous ecstasy. The skilful skier resists gravity’s wild pull, the destabilizing bumps, The peculiarity of the snow, For a few moments exuberant out of time. The practiced dancers resist each other, One deceptively solid, the other almost weightless In the grace of shared flow. Reaction is entirely different. When you react, you have stopped resisting. You have turned away from yourself. You have lost your true ground. Reaction is contraction into me, Away from we. React and the surfer plunges, the skier crashes, the dancers try to change each other. Reaction separate. You become posture, idea, image. Reaction justifies identity Identity dispenses reaction, Blaming, anger, insatiable needing. It is in your most intimate relationship with yourself, The one your soul has insisted your live with another When the hovering me wins agonizing victories At love’s expense. Then you must resist By sharing your being, by trusting your way of knowing, By revealing yourself, the best and the worst. You resist by listening with no rejoinder ready to pounce. You resist by surrendering ever deeper into your feeling flesh, into your carnal wildness, For your sake and each other’s joy, Natural, authentic, without shame. You resist by never lying to yourself about your own fragility By refusing to believe you know When life’s stormiest waves feel overwhelming, the slopes impossibly treacherous, You resist by trusting You can still somehow say. Thank you.