Beneath the surface,
gripped by the ripples
of life gone by.
It is a sad softness, and there are cold
lashes of fear, set into the marrow
of my bones.
Take this tender heart, I whisper.
To someone.
Somewhere.
The scars of life run so very deep. It’s hard to remember them, hard to sit with that pain.
The moments of quiet are beautiful, though, and moments of love revisited are to be cherished.
How beautiful true love feels when compared to its total opposite.
They were tears like rain. The sort of rain that brings your soul to life as you feel it hard and cold on your skin. Refreshing. Beautiful and nourishing, were those plentiful tears of mine.
I was meditating. It was early afternoon and the baby was sleeping. I’d set the intention to heal my heart, and to clear whatever stuck energy might be blocking me from achieving my highest purpose in life.
I still don’t know what the exact blockages were/are.
But I know that by the end of the meditation, I understood why several of the most heartbreaking things that have happened in my life had to happen. And that they had to happen so that not only I would grow in love, but also, so that others might grow in love, too.
Isn’t that the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard? Firstly that this sort of divine intelligence lies within the very skin we wear. But also, that even the bad things in life serve their specific purposes for the good of universal evolution.
Of course, I could have been making it all up.
Of course I could have been.
But the tears that smashed down my neck and the knowing smile that lit my whole being told me otherwise.
We are a tapestry. Not one of us leaves the quilt without touching another.
And with a smile,
she held life gone by.
And love kept her.
Love kept her,
home.
Home, at last.
A rose. Think of it.
How like a rose we are.
Beginning as seed, gently, a bud.
How we open,
slowly,
never seeing our petals born;
never guessing when, at last,
the last
will fall.
And when we wither,
wrinkle and darling grey:
the beautiful rose that lived.
Think of it.
How easily we forget who we are.
Devine and growing.
Think of it.
Think of how lovely.
Mistakes are our greatest gifts, and yet, we are buried in shame.
Do not make a mistake. Do not ever be bad.
We are shamed.
We are shamed.
We are human. Not one of us is perfect, not one.
I teach my children that their failures are the best things that could happen for them, their mistakes, beautiful lessons in how to do life beautifully.
Punishment breaks my heart. An eye for an eye, an ancient, barbaric way. And all of it pointless, in my eyes, because shame only drives the ‘bad’ underground, it doesn’t lovingly guide it to a better day.
Accepting our faults and carefully growing with them through life might work.
Shaming will destroy.
I choose the gentle way.
I choose self compassion, and compassion for others.
I choose…actually, I choose sleep.
I’m so terribly tired.
So terribly tired.
Even the most darling rose
is a work in progress.
Be the rose.
How beautiful
that she will show you the way
to freedom.
If light though the trees is your wish,
it is my wish, too.
If a meadow awash with eerie shadow
calls you,
I am gone.
Already beyond the boxwoods
and sweet peas
of my garden, home.
Day 24. Somewhere over the rainbow.
I’ve come to realise that creativity is just the art and flow of being yourself. There’s really not a lot more to it than that.
At its core, creativity seems to be made of the absolute depth of who we are. And the depth of who we are is always waiting, somewhere beneath the surface, to be shared in its most resonant form. (I believe this is true for every human being. Not just those who are considered creative types.)
For me, the purest form my creativity takes is music. My voice, in particular, seems an extension of the calming, soothing essence that naturally seems to spill from the deep, internal parts of me…and so my music always does seem to reappear in my life, no matter how far I stray from it.
For a lot of years I judged myself (my voice, my performance capabilities) based on what others were doing with their own musical talents. Somewhere in my teen years I grabbed a hold of the idea that, although my talent was constantly being validated, I didn’t have a voice that could compare to a real singer. According to young human me, real singers had a range that reached far beyond the heights that my limited range could. Real singers were perfect, never to stray a note in pitch at all.
How sweet it is to have found the most beautiful new gift of evolved perspective when it comes to my music: that being…my music is my essence. Unique and beautiful, and only mine, never to be compared to any other. My voice and my music are here to achieve their own purpose. And this purpose has nothing to do with an out of this world range or perfectly crafted technique.
There may be singers who use a wider range of skills to express their musical essence in order to thrill…but to thrill is not what I am here for. I am here to express the depths of my heart. I am here to heal with my voice and perhaps to bring peace, calm and emotion to those who connect with my music, writing and creativity. How beautiful, to finally come to know this of myself.
And so I continue to release my musical essence as it is.
No more excuses.
No more foolish voice within trying to compare my musical self with others.
They are all beautiful fruits to be savoured and cherished in the fruit bowl of musical life. I am a different fruit, who finally understands that apples and oranges never will compare.
If I am not her,
that good and lovely girl in a box,
who am I?
Now that this body is alive
with the energy of all of life,
who am I?
I believe this,
but I believe the opposite of this, too.
I love you desperately,
I hate you just as achingly.
Both can exist within, but how?
But how?
I am bursting fire,
I am calm ocean blue.
I do not understand, and I understand entirely.
For one small me,
these feelings are large.
Too large for me to carry
alone.
brooke-cutler.com 