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.
How lovely it was
to call the darkness an old friend.
The darkness inside,
the darkness outside.
Did they even know it was both
of which they spoke?
A Neon God was made
so beautifully to shine
light
for all the world to see.
And so the world saw.
And so the world changed
for a moment, just one.
And so the world went on
to lose its voice
over
and over again.
To the darkness.
To the never ending lies
that remain hidden
beneath a grand old rock named
fear.
Sorrow is quiet and soft.
How strange, that during the saddest times, the quiet is the loudest voice of all.
Tonight, I send my voice into the stillness.
To honour the love and the sorrow that lingers when we lose our most precious hearts.
Quiet, the place where unconditional love floats free.
Peace. Our soft and gentle, forever home.
Life and her currents.
I feel them like tears in my bones.
And all I can do is let the river run,
let the stream carry me
wherever I may go.
Through the high clouds of white.
Through the deep dungeons, dark.
I will be there.
Life,
I will be there
to follow the rainbow, home.
The wind will call and you will know.
And it won’t tell you why,
and it won’t tell you what
but you will follow
blindly,
hopefully,
until the sun peaks ’round the bend
and the horizon dazzles
in ways far beyond possible.
Indigo, apricot nights.
Warm breath on starlit cheeks.
And you will know
(oh, you will know)
what it was like
to have lived.
I just fell in love with an octopus.
It was an octopus mum, to be specific, a mum just like me. And my mum, and yours, and his mum and hers.
I wouldn’t say it was the octopus herself I fell in love with, exactly…
It was the love.
The love I somehow absolutely knew she felt for her little tiny octopus babes. It was grace in motion, the way she bundled her precious little ones into the ocean, the way she held them with her soul.
Maybe it’s because I’m pregnant (29 weeks, not that I’m counting down or anything.)
Or maybe it’s just because love is what connects every living creature on this earth and I think that is the most beautiful miracle, regardless of the motherly hormones surging through my veins.
I think it’s the miracle thing.
The love thing, the complete and utter mind boggling beauty of it all.
I am so saddened it took me this long to connect to all of life, truly I am, but I’m also beyond grateful to have had a chance to know this depth of connection with my fellow planet dwellers. It really is the most magical, wondrous thing.
Now, If you’ll excuse me…there must be another adorable octopus video on the internet somewhere. I mean, surely.
I’ve been getting to know myself through music again.
I wanted to go a little further into this idea because not only does music tell familiar stories and remind me of people and places…it also becomes me. As in: I embody it. This is the most magical phenomenon I have ever known.
I read a theory, once, where it was said that the mirror neurons of the brain are somehow responsible for this sort of mega feeling capability, and I only wish there were enough hours in the day for me to truly explore, and come to an understanding of, it all. I wish more people talked about their subjective feeling experiences so we could all pool our individual authentic truths and perhaps come up with a better, more holistic understanding of the nature of reality. Maybe one day people will open up fully to each other, even about the stranger things in life. Maybe.
I’ll start the ball rolling.
Feeling music.
The other day I was driving along listening to a song where the singer was expressing a feeling of complete and utter freedom; a gorgeous energy that felt fun, wild, curious and sexy all at the same time. What a beautiful feeling it was as it surged through my body. I was alive.
While listening to this particular song, I recognised the essence of the singer as seperate to my own, and yet…her feelings had become me. I was feeling her freedom within my body. I was feeling her cheekiness and sass. It was as if I was her.
What-on-earth. If nothing else, I came away from the song understanding that this was clearly an energy in my life I am needing to explore. But on a more out there note, I had to wonder. What might humans truly be capable of if we removed the stigma and shame attached to the more, umm, left of centre traits of human nature?
We haven’t even begun to seriously discuss this sort of phenomena without attaching it to the words ‘disorder’ or ‘disease’. What if…we changed our story? What if we framed high sensitivity in humans as exactly what it is: high sensitivity in humans. Nothing more. Nothing less. I think you could guarantee that far less of us would suffer from the anxiety that naturally arises from being perceived as different. Or, worse, broken.
I suppose I know the problem in a nutshell. You only need to look at events where the human ego has completely rejected any sort of difference perceived as weird or threatening in any way. In 1692, for instance, hysteria swept through an entire town in the U.S.A and condemned many women (women who, by the way, very likely perceived themselves as normal) to death if they were discovered to be witches. These women were probably just highly sensitive women, who very likely had been born a little different to the rest…and yet.
So it’s not surprising to me, then, that humanity has taken quite a long time to truly own the more eclectic parts of ourselves. No one wants to be kicked out of the pack. No one wants to stray too far from safe and secure. You know. Just in case. (Cough: no one has been burnt at the stake for quite a while now.)
Perhaps I am different, but really, who isn’t? We are all unique in our own way, and I believe with just a few tweaks in perspective (for instance, we might do well to dismantle the damaging cultural narratives that seperate people) humanity might be onto something really very special.
The room glowed orange. And LOVE. A wooden carving of the word sat against the wall in my room, opposite my meditation cushion, on top of a painting of my favourite tree (the letters light up if I really want them to. I very rarely want them to.)
I’ve become increasingly frustrated with words and their inability to capture and express the absolute truth of the concepts they frame. Love is one of the best examples of that, for me.
Love, for instance, is on a spectrum, for starters. There are differing types of love, differing levels of depth, differing levels of understanding of it as a concept, differing levels of experience with it.
And here is the problem I have: LOVE, the word, is far too small.
It is too small to capture
and hold
the vast ocean
that love
truly
is
to me.
So I get a little frustrated.
Words, in general, are a little frustrating to me, because even people we share a language with will never know the exact meaning of a word according to our perception and expression of it.
An example. I experienced the most profound moment the other day, when discussing some things with my beautiful, spiritual counsellor. She is trying to help me work through some of my energy blocks, at the moment, but as we discussed a particular topic I found myself fumbling. I knew exactly why.
Words. They were vastly limiting us in a few ways: one way being our different perception of particular words (it seemed we weren’t quite on the same page). Another being the energy beneath the concept I was trying to express. The whole thing seemed far bigger than any means of communication we had in our toolbox to discuss it with. It was as if we were trying to catch a whale with a plastic fishing rod. It was just never going to happen.
I even said to her that I felt so frustrated because I couldn’t possibly express the depth of what I was trying to convey to her in words. This was a feeling. But it was also something so much more than a feeling.
I don’t need to capture the entire universe and express it in form. But if I did…words couldn’t possibly reach the heights I’d need to climb to pick that apple.
I wonder if there is any human tool that could.
I wonder a lot of things, actually.
Perhaps I’ll keep wondering.
My heart is open and bare,
laid out before the world again.
Their pain is mine: I give it loving arms.
I speak their truth.
I burn with mine.
They say these are words, but I know they are more.
I call them life, achingly true.
Here I am, the softest rose: bruised but sweet.
And waiting.
An open bud, thirsty for the dew.
It’s who I am, the rose, I know.
What is this dew to fall on me?
Is it love? This feeling, deep and strong.
For a world that doesn’t know itself,
a world too scared to open its heart and see?
Do not tell me I overthink.
I feel
for you.
I feel.
For humanity.
How lovely it is
to find home again.
In this home
I am what I am,
and what I am
is a river,
a rock,
a lion,
a ballerina.
What I am
is all I am.
All I am
is all there ever was.
All I am
is all
I am.
