What it Means To Surrender
Gentle Hand, Christina Mokwa + Katherine Alt (2025)
Digital collage
What It Means to Surrender
(in 500 Words or Less)
To surrender is to give up the false satisfaction of figuring out just the right thing to say — in the shower, exactly two hours after the argument — to catch him looking, and make love under the water instead.
To surrender is to embrace sincerity — to put down the heavy, well-worn armor of cynicism.
To surrender is to float instead of swim // to surrender is to let the before fall down, down and away like the leaves of your favorite oak tree in the autumn // to surrender is to give up believing strength is a choice — understanding instead that it is a sacred gift, bestowed from birth.
To surrender is to stop pretending — to navigate that most tender terrain — those delicate inches between the third eye and the heart.
To surrender is to become a clear channel — to let God pour out of your mouth and eyes, your hands, your feet // to surrender is to take a nom de guerre — to be unconcerned with names, and age, and credit.
To surrender is to make a home at the altar of good — among the rising Shoyeido smoke, the oranges, all the old pictures of the long dead.
To surrender is to give up wishing any of it was different // to surrender is to understand that it is not the present that is making you uncomfortable, it is your resistance to it that is.
To surrender is to choose one life, rich in color — hands stained amaranth by berries, cherries, hibiscus flowers for fresh tea // to surrender is to let what you have, and what you are, be enough — to stop moving, planning, taking, and to simply be with.
To surrender means to understand your place in the great I Am — the futility of attempting to move skyscraper-sized chess pieces, when it was you meant to be moved all along.
To surrender is to let the traffic crash by, the crow’s feet appear, the dog howl at the moon — moored by your belief in the beauty of now.
To surrender means to give up the endless Russian doll act — casting off layer by layer of fragile persona until you get to the golden yolk of your being — to then share that sunshine warmly and widely.
To surrender means to let it all come up in the ayahuasca ceremony — and to finally know a life, a body, without pain.
To surrender is to let everyone you know, everyone you love, everyone you pass, see you — really see you — and to rejoice at what they find.
*Written work by Christina Mokwa – © Christina Mokwa/Mokwa LLC/Mokwa Creative Company
