BEING KNOWN by Murray Hidary
Aug 24, 2025
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 arrives.
We offer the world
not what we think it can hold
but what we can bear;
a portion of our light,
the truth whittled down,
the smile that hides.
The rest we keep
in an unopened cupboard
waiting for the day.
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?
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.
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
is to feel the soft weight
of another’s gaze
holding the truth of you
without flinching.
To be held
In the places that hurt
and are now healing.
You learn,
slowly,
to stop turning away.
To be known
in love,
in loss.
Layer by layer uncovered.
Sometimes raw.
Sometimes hard.
And one day you feel it,
waiting just beyond
your periphery.
To meet yourself,
the still presence behind
all that arises,
the quiet ground
beneath every storm.
The you who has learned
not to judge,
not to fix,
but to witness,
the way a mountain
witnesses a valley.
In that knowing,
you feel the whole
woven through you,
and the walls between
dissolve like mist
in morning light,
like the shadows
they always were.
All along,
you have been walking
toward this,
a life that sees you,
as you see the moon,
bright and without question.
This is what the world
was made for:
not the accolades
nor the aspirations,
but the still moment
when another soul says,
‘I see you,’
and you remember
you have been whole
all along.
Ser conocido
