Perception is a vastly misunderstood word, I think, because, for the most part, we use it in very one dimensional terms. It looks like that man over there is grumpy. It sounds like he is, too, given he’s just yelled at the mail man.
But have we been underestimating the truth of what it is to be human? Are we forgetting to tap into the depth that lies beneath the known? Our five senses really only begin to explain to us the absolute vastness that is the universe within and around us.
And Charlotte’s Web helps me to know this truth, in my own life.
Because I feel it. Every word, every meaning, every heartbeat of its beautiful flow…I feel it within, like a gentle wave, like a Mother’s touch. The subtle energy of the book tells me everything I need to know about it, and me, and who I have become because of it.That, to me, is profound and beautiful. And really rather magical, when I think about it.
The energy of Charlotte’s web (or, perhaps you might like to think of it as the ‘voice’ or ‘essence’ of the writer) is soft, gentle and wise. It makes me feel safe in a very real sense. It holds me in an invisible world that I only know because of my relationship with what lies beneath the words.
Pop’s old library is full of it; lamp dappled walls, beautiful to look at, even more beautiful to feel.
How do you describe a feeling? You can only feel, and open up so others can know what you’re trying to tell them. Some people never open up. Some open and close and open again, like a snail rolling in and out of its shell.
I look for the switch, every day. The switch for the orange light inside of me. I’m the snail, and it is dark in here.
I will keep searching until I feel the light. When I feel the light, I will open, and journey on.
They were here, tied with a little bow, tagged: ‘Brooke’s heart’; now they’re gone, the internet stole them. Snuffed them out, like a candle, with ease.
The internet has been down all day, so I don’t suppose it cares for blogging. I don’t suppose it cares for drafts worth saving.
I had to write. With my heart open wide and my energy flowing, I had to write because writing is what my soul does when it needs to breathe.
My soul needs to breathe.
I stood beneath a tree in my front yard the other day. I was gardening, but gardening has become so much more than just a word, to me. How about caring for, nurturing gently, cherishing life as it grows beneath my hands? That sounds about right.
I was always going to love like this. Always going to be the one to love that little bit more. And where it often hurts a great deal to live with my heart wide open, I can’t imagine any other way of being.
A bug caught my eye as it crept up a branch. It was my baby daughter. Of course, it wasn’t my actual baby daughter, that would be insane of me to consider. But I knew in that moment that I loved this little beetle. That I would protect it. That I cared so much more deeply for this little life than I ever thought I could.
I have only just allowed myself to feel this deeply again. It was often unsafe to be my fullest self in this world, and many have hardened beneath the hardness of generations before them. My culture was not built to tolerate a soft heart. It is a culture of jokes at people’s expense and arguments over petty things. I reject it entirely. And it rejects me.
But I stand under trees and I love them with all that I am.
brooke-cutler.com 