Sacred Origins: What Our Addictions Know About Love

Before the first drink

Before the first smoke

Before all our medicines

became our chains

There was a heart

trying to remember

how to stay open

in a world that felt

too much to bear

There was a pure intention

A holy reaching

A sacred yes

to feeling alive

even if just

for a moment

~

Every addiction begins as medicine.

This isn't just poetry - it's a truth I've come to know in my bones, through my own journey and through sitting through thousands of hours remembering the way home.

Think about it: that first glass of wine that helped you laugh again after months of grief.

That herb that finally let your busy mind rest enough to feel your heart beat.

That practice that became your lifeline when everything else felt like it was falling apart.

The intention was pure. Is pure. Has always been pure.

Originally - we're not trying to escape - we're trying to remember what it feels like to have an open heart in a world that often feels too sharp, too bright, too much.

Nature offers us these medicines - in leaf and vine, in fungus and flower - not as destinations but as bridges.

Each substance that calls to us carries a wisdom, a key to a door our hearts forgot how to open on their own.

But here's what we forget: these medicines were meant to be teachers, not homes.

Training wheels, not permanent supports.

They show us what's possible - that we can feel connected, that we can stay open, that we can bear what feels unbearable.

Yet without conscious practice in staying present with our hearts - in their storms and their calms, their openings and closings -

we begin to depend on these external keys to doors that were always meant to open from within.

And this is where medicine becomes addiction.

When we forget it was always about remembering, not escaping.

When we grip too tightly to what was meant to be held lightly, like morning dew on grass.

But even this gripping, this dependency, began in love.

Began in hope.

Began in a pure intention to stay open, to stay alive, to stay connected in a world that often feels desperately lonely.

So before you battle your addictions, before you shame yourself for your dependencies, remember:

These patterns in us are not demons to be slayed but medicines misunderstood.

Each craving points to a holy longing.

Each dependency began as a bridge your heart built toward healing.

The path forward isn't in fighting what helped us survive.

It's in gently remembering what we were really seeking all along - the wisdom to stay present when everything in us wants to run, the courage to feel what feels unfeelable, the strength to keep our hearts open especially when it hurts and scared.

This is the deeper medicine. The true medicine. The medicine that was waiting within us all along.

So let us bow

to all our medicines

even the ones

that became our chains

Let us honor

the pure intention

that began each reaching

each seeking

each sacred yes

And then

ever so gently

let us remember

what we were

really looking for:

The courage already in us

The wisdom already in us

The love already in us

That's been waiting

all along

for us to remember

how to stay

how to feel

how to open

even when it hurts

This too

is medicine

~

Love, Oriya