We came out of a land
Rich with harmony and sacrifice
We built legends and legacies
And threw fire from our fists
Unto the firmament
We brought down gods upon our heads
We sought shelter in their arrogance
Devoured our fear like ripened fruit
And this is how we nourished our souls
Grew teeth in our throats to imprison them
Behind voices made lame by our dinner
Our hearts grew thinner
And our chests spanned wide
To shield and conceal our labouring breath
Convinced of our impending death
But our souls
Trapped in our breasts
Heaved through our skin
The immortal summons
To life
Trauma, indignity, betrayal and other unwelcome visitors show up in some lives more than others. If they show up enough, a person might reach a point where they feel – they believe – they cannot withstand anymore. One more blow, and they will crumple and cease to be. They might plead and put The Great All That Is on notice: “Look, I can’t take anymore. I’m just letting you know this, in case you can find it in your heart to not send any more my way.”
Then, another blow – maybe a series of small ones, or one low-grade, crushing long one. Then, the person might just shut down – cease to even try negotiating with the powers that be. “What’s the point?” Now this person KNOWS, they really cannot take anymore. Truly, this time, the person will break when another wave comes.
Then, another blow. A big one. One that makes all the other blows seem like mere child’s play. And do you know what happens to our little person? Our weary, bedraggled, pushed-beyond-the-breaking-point little human, who has always had thin skin, but who now surely possesses no skin at all anymore.
It takes a long time, but this person opens their heart and makes themselves vulnerable – again. They do it. And they do it because now they really know something. Now this person knows something that is true: Life wants to live. It keeps going whether or not we can keep up. Life wants to live. So may as well embrace it. We are stronger than we think we are.
Embrace This
I’ve watched you break
I have felt every bone,
One by one, splinter into fragments
Into dust and rubble
Utter annihilation, not once
But many times
I’ve seen you stand up to tidal waves
I’ve seen you refuse fortunes
I’ve seen you run headlong into the mouth of a beast
And then another…and then another
How you emerge to run again
I do not know
But I’ve seen you reappear like magic…fully formed
Over and over again
I’ve seen the map re-write itself
I’ve seen the flowers bloom
And ruts in old roads replaced by mountain meadows
Purely by the sheer power of your will
I’ve seen you cry
Alone, abandoned and betrayed
And I’ve seen you walk outside and go right on loving
There is no give up in you
Even when you desperately wish it so
So may as well embrace this
This longing
This heart hurt
This betrayal
Because it is happening
And your heart will rise to meet you
…Again
With increasing frequency, I see around me a new and different kind of human. Most often they are young people, though not always. They have a wisdom and emotional intelligence, I would say beyond their years, but truthfully it is beyond what has ever been typical in humans at any age. They speak a language of acceptance and inclusion that is unprecedented and embody a depth of compassion that is eye-opening. They are acutely aware of what happens in the world and they act in hope. This too sets them apart – they see, they take action. And I have very often seen them respond to resistance and misunderstanding with openness, patience and kindness while remaining steadfast to principles of common good.
This is more than the optimism of youth. Their wisdom and depth of understanding at astoundingly early ages is at odds with long-accepted psychological theories of human developmental stages. I have come to affectionately refer to them as the new evolution of human, and I believe, as they step forward, more and more of us remember who we are and the power we hold in our innate love.
So FEAR, wherever you act in the world – whether through violent animosity, complacency, psychological paralysis, spiritual imprisonment or exile – you have been put on notice. We are led by a new evolution of human and we are taking back the human race!
Look across the land and sea
A new day is dawning
There are hearts in the horizon
Sizzling hope crazed with consciousness
Turn around if you fear,
The light will come for you anyway
Embracing all you ever were or have done
You are the chosen one
With all your fits and frustrations
Ramblings and riotous furies
You, with the storm front of worries
And the long line of casualties in your wake
This is the moment of your redemption – your chrysalis
The power of all your might
Will not call back the eventide
See the crystal spark of all you become
Rise into the blinding light
You are more than the caged experience of sight
Blissful, billowing sacrifice of want
Exchanged for gratitude
Great engulfing wave exuding
Empires of joy
I wrote this poem after reading about Parrotfish. They create entire beaches in Hawaii and help build reef islands in the Maldives by eating coral, digesting the stony bits and excreting them as sand. Yep, you read that right. I was fascinated by how these creatures can build whole beautiful beaches and even islands, a little bit of sand at a time. The notion then co-mingled with an image from a digital art piece I had seen that depicted an angel living on the ocean floor, and voila! Now, I’m not saying anything about the digestive habits of aquatic angels, but I had fun thinking of how we might all be elevated one grain of sand at a time.
The Message
We come face to face,
and I know there is more to this
In what world do winged creatures live in the dark deep?
I swim passed the hourglass that is shattered
– sand being more useful than time –
and I see that you are building an island
and I am your first guest – a child who knows everything to be true
How very wise of you
Though you know I cannot stay
I am the accidental messenger
The incidental friend submerged by wonder
and taken in by what should never be
If one believes the stories…but I don’t
For you are here amassing islands under sea
Proving all things possible
And when you spread your wings, do you fly or float?
Can there be any greater hope? You rise up either way
Even one grain of sand at a time elevates you
I am often grappling with the uneasy coexistence of absolute oneness and the seeming separation imposed by being in a physical body and of an individual mind – the condition of being an earthling, as it were. Here, the antidote to existential loneliness is an acceptance of a connection that is not knowable through my physical senses – a real surrender to my own beliefs. Physical touch is so much easier, yet this other kind of connection is so much bigger. But how do we live that kind of connection in our day-to-day physical world? We have to reach out our hands, answers my intuition. She gives no further instructions.
The Art Of Touching You
Telescope to the sky
A tingling darkness rises within
Shaping me tenderly
Resonating with things too far or too close for the eye to see
Things to be known instinctively
I sit alone with the universe
Embodying its great infinity
Contemplating the boundlessness
And the borders we impose
Intersecting at nowhere
And it is here that I laugh again
Because you are so close
That I can feel and know and love you
You are in my very own particles
And yet you are uniquely apart, as am I
But the art of touching you
This is the quest for which I turn to the telescope
The finer details eluding me
Out there we intersect, you and I,
At every point imagined and unimaginable
Here, I lie back and open my soul
To the immensity of that truth
My cosmology defining nothing while explaining everything at once
In this vast darkness swirling immeasurable light, I surrender and repose my longing
And reach out my hand and accept that you are here
I hear a lot of talk about the state of the world. Often, I hear statements that begin with vision and understanding and shift quickly into sentences starting with, “but sadly… .” I hear a lot of voices filled with resignation saying “I hope… .” The implication being “I hope I’m wrong about where all this is headed.” This is not hope.
Hope is not passive.
Hope is not waiting to see what will happen. Hope is not about outcomes. Hope is making choices. Hope is choosing what you do with your thoughts, where you focus your attention, what you do in response to the challenges in your world. Hope is not passive.
Hope is investing in life. Showing up. Being here – for however long you get to be here. You wonder sometimes, “is there any hope for us, for our world?” Youare our hope. Be here! I am our hope. Stand with me! All we have to do is show up, see ourselves in each other and choose accordingly.
What if we go in
What if we go under
Where sunlight doesn’t reach
What if the guards step aside
And let us enter
What if there is light still?
How will we re-configure ourselves
How will we wrap ourselves
Within and around a reality
That is unending
What if there is a way
And we have already chosen it?
What if we surprise ourselves
What if we step aside
And let the mystery prevail
What if we are not masters of our destiny
But co-conspirators
In a great gamble
Of opportunity and chance
Where risk and reward
Are synonymous with play
And the consequence is freedom
What if the guards were put in place
By our own fear
What if they were never really here?
Look beyond your stories
Your imaginings
Your interpretations of events
Look beyond what you think they see
When they look at you
Look for something new
Carry your ghosts
behind enemy lines
And drop them there
Look beyond human shame and indignation
And limitations of birth and time
Look beyond what you think you see
When you look in the mirror
Look for something true
Look for questions, not answers
Reality is in the possibilities
Not in that which has already been named
Forget what you know
You are here now
Even if all the world is a step behind you
You have a right to see
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