BEING KNOWN by Murray Hidary

It is a strange thing
to be seen.

Not in the easy way;
the wave or smile passed
across a crowded room,
but in the way a hand
finds another’s in the dark. 
in the way a listener
leans closer
before a word is spoken.

We offer the world 
not what we think it can hold 
but what we can bear;  
a portion of our light,
the smile that hides the tremor,
the truth whittled down
to something we can carry
without shaking.

The rest we keep
in the quiet cupboard
of the heart,
waiting for the day
we might find the courage
to bring it 
into the open air.

And somewhere inside
we know
the real threshold
is the moment
we let the whole of ourselves
stand unguarded
and risk being met.

What is it to be known? 
What does it feel like to be known? 

Have you ever felt it —
in a piece of music,
a painting, 
a poem —
as if it had been waiting
all along,
in some quiet place
for you to arrive
and recognize yourself
in its voice. 

You do not choose this kind of knowing.
It arrives,
like first light resting
on the shoulders of the mountain,
like a tree
leaning gently toward the sun. 

To be known 
in love
in loss. 

To be known
is to feel the soft weight
of another’s gaze
holding the truth of you
without flinching —
the parts still in shadow,
the dreams half-buried
under the rubble of the years.

And you learn,
slowly,
to stop turning away. 

For being known
is not surrender
but remembering;
that somewhere,
before the long forgetting,
you belonged entirely
to your Self.

You do not arrive here
by accident. 

Layer by layer
you uncover. 
Sometimes raw but always real. 
Sometimes hard but always healing. 
Sometimes painful but always pushing toward an opening. 

And one day you feel it –
the quiet presence
of someone
who has been waiting
just beyond
your periphery. 
And it is you. 
Truly you. 

The you who has learned 
not to judge,
not to fix,
but to witness —
the way a mountain
witnesses a valley. 

To be known
is to be held
In the places that hurt 
and are now healing. 

To be accepted
in the ways 
that once denied you 
and now simply are.

To be moved
without needing to shift
from where you stand. 

Firm. 
Felt. 
Free.  

The truest knowing
is to meet yourself —
the still presence behind 
all that arises, 
the quiet ground
beneath every storm. 

In that knowing,
you feel the whole 
woven through you, 
and the walls between us 
dissolve like mist
in morning light,
like the shadows
they always were. 

And maybe you understand then
that all along,
you have been walking
toward this—
a life that sees you,
as you see the moon,
bright
and without question.

You realise then—
this is what the world
was made for:
not the applause,
not the striving,
but the still moment
when another soul says,

I see you —
and you remember 
you have been whole 
all along.