one of those moments that changes your life
*deep breath*
Life is hard.
*deep breath*
But gorgeous.
There was a moment today when I stood alone praying to anyone who would listen. A gentle breeze toyed with my linen skirts and played across my body, touching my soft skin and reminding me that I am a woman, not a little girl. I felt supple and slender, delicate and tender, inviting and appeallingly vulnerable... I was aware that the contours of my body were inviting, that the skin I had exposed was both fragrant and smooth. I stood there, completely alone and defenseless, barely protected by very thin clothes... and I knew I was powerless. I knew I was weak. I knew that if I stepped back out into the world I would be crushed and swallowed by all I had to face.
And so I forgot that world for a moment and stood there, sensual and silent. I felt unbelievably feminine for the first time in my life. I then let my gaze roam across the tender saplings and fragile spring flowers around me, finding in their heart-wrenching delicacy an echo of my own uncertain existence.
I too am striving to find a place in the sun. I too am attempting to bloom into something beautiful and enticing. But just like those saplings, I too am young and bewildered and desperately vulnerable -- mere inches above than the mud that spawned me and could easily reclaim me at any moment. One careless foot-step is all it would take. One hard rain, one swiftly fallen branch.
I feel like I am dizzyingly weak at this moment. I felt that way earlier, standing in the forest. I feel like I have no idea what I am doing nor where I am supposed to go from here, nor why it is I'm suddenly in the world I'm in, no longer safe beneath the loam. Suddenly everything is unfamiliar. I was and am completely exposed.
And yet I do not earnestly desire to go back to being a seed in the loam. Though recently I find my heart aching for safety and comfort and a place to hide, I do not truly wish to retreat from this. This is necessary. This is me. And I cannot find the heart to muster my typical pride and stubbornness to hate myself for this -- because I don't. Because I have to acknowledge that sometimes I am weak and helpless and lost. And maybe it's not always my fault, or maybe it's not anyone's fault... maybe that is just how life evolves. Maybe in order to be a lioness I need to be trembling lion cub first.
I might need to learn to walk again all over. I feel like a colt or fawn who spontaneously figured out how to run but toppled over and realized in the aftermath she didn't even know how to stand. I am using a lot of Nature metaphors because Nature is the one I feel closest to now, the one who is providing the first scrap of hope I have seen in a long time.
The flowers that were blooming in the forest today have been doing so for countless millenia. Year after year, winter after winter, death after death, they have done they same thing. They have continued to lift pale green tendrils toward the sky no matter how cold and bitter the world that receives them, no matter how hungry the insects are or how many foot-steps fall heavy upon. They are battered and neglected, uprooted and shadowed -- and yet they grow. They are always unfolding. Their obvious weakness, then, is perhaps not weakness whatsoever -- but uncertainty. They have not learned of the deep and abiding strength hidden deep within them.
Everything grows because it needs to. The power of spring compells us toward heaven. The Earth's unfolding prayer is that of life and continued existence, of perserverance in spite of everything because nothing is certain and nothing ever will be. All of the great oaks standing in the forest were once shiving saplings; all of the humble moss blanketing the way-side has been tortured by draught yet crawls steadily onward.
I too am just another piece of a moss treading softly by the wayside. I too am just another sapling, another little flower bowed over by the simple weight of dew. I do not have any guarantee of happiness, of safety, of success, of love in this life -- but I am still growing. I am still here in the dirt and the shadows unfolding. I may never reach the sun, I may discover that I am too weak to handle being stepped on... but that is irrelevant. What matters now is that I continue to unfold the endless genesis of hope.
I realized today as I stood in the forest, my hand resting gently upon my warm breast, that the heart I felt beating inside of me was as old and strong as the Earth beneath. I share the same strength that the trees do, the same weaknesses, the same history. Perhaps that is why I have always have the strange sense that we are mutually dreaming -- we are. And we collectively are the Earth's dream.
With a half an hour 'til Beltaine, I find myself feeling frightened and exhausted. My heart aches. I am confused and dizzy. My head hurts too badly to study and my brain is desperately tired, such that I know I can study no further tonight though I desperately need to. I simply have to yield to sleep very shortly. I will not sleep well knowing my housemates apparently saw a mouse in my kitchen today.
But despite all that, I am softly smiling. I have finally let the spring-time in. I have found that this feeling of vulnerable femininity is not the enemy after all, but rather a type of counterbalance to the strength and pride that womanhood also brings. I feel a newfound awe for all grown women and all those women I can warmly call my ancestors -- somehow they did it. Somehow they got through their own difficulties and blossomed into something full. As I prayed in the forest today, I prayed for the strength and the faith to let my heart do the same thing, to let the same incredible rebirth I saw all around me occur inside of me. It is time for my own revolution. It is time for my own spring. I knew it would not be easy and I already know it will take much more strength than I have to give... but I see that I am not alone now. There is strength to be found all around.
If wildflowers can overthrow the winter, I can overthrow this depression as well.
We are both at the mercy of the world right now.
We are both embracing it nevertheless.
Life is hard.
*deep breath*
But gorgeous.
There was a moment today when I stood alone praying to anyone who would listen. A gentle breeze toyed with my linen skirts and played across my body, touching my soft skin and reminding me that I am a woman, not a little girl. I felt supple and slender, delicate and tender, inviting and appeallingly vulnerable... I was aware that the contours of my body were inviting, that the skin I had exposed was both fragrant and smooth. I stood there, completely alone and defenseless, barely protected by very thin clothes... and I knew I was powerless. I knew I was weak. I knew that if I stepped back out into the world I would be crushed and swallowed by all I had to face.
And so I forgot that world for a moment and stood there, sensual and silent. I felt unbelievably feminine for the first time in my life. I then let my gaze roam across the tender saplings and fragile spring flowers around me, finding in their heart-wrenching delicacy an echo of my own uncertain existence.
I too am striving to find a place in the sun. I too am attempting to bloom into something beautiful and enticing. But just like those saplings, I too am young and bewildered and desperately vulnerable -- mere inches above than the mud that spawned me and could easily reclaim me at any moment. One careless foot-step is all it would take. One hard rain, one swiftly fallen branch.
I feel like I am dizzyingly weak at this moment. I felt that way earlier, standing in the forest. I feel like I have no idea what I am doing nor where I am supposed to go from here, nor why it is I'm suddenly in the world I'm in, no longer safe beneath the loam. Suddenly everything is unfamiliar. I was and am completely exposed.
And yet I do not earnestly desire to go back to being a seed in the loam. Though recently I find my heart aching for safety and comfort and a place to hide, I do not truly wish to retreat from this. This is necessary. This is me. And I cannot find the heart to muster my typical pride and stubbornness to hate myself for this -- because I don't. Because I have to acknowledge that sometimes I am weak and helpless and lost. And maybe it's not always my fault, or maybe it's not anyone's fault... maybe that is just how life evolves. Maybe in order to be a lioness I need to be trembling lion cub first.
I might need to learn to walk again all over. I feel like a colt or fawn who spontaneously figured out how to run but toppled over and realized in the aftermath she didn't even know how to stand. I am using a lot of Nature metaphors because Nature is the one I feel closest to now, the one who is providing the first scrap of hope I have seen in a long time.
The flowers that were blooming in the forest today have been doing so for countless millenia. Year after year, winter after winter, death after death, they have done they same thing. They have continued to lift pale green tendrils toward the sky no matter how cold and bitter the world that receives them, no matter how hungry the insects are or how many foot-steps fall heavy upon. They are battered and neglected, uprooted and shadowed -- and yet they grow. They are always unfolding. Their obvious weakness, then, is perhaps not weakness whatsoever -- but uncertainty. They have not learned of the deep and abiding strength hidden deep within them.
Everything grows because it needs to. The power of spring compells us toward heaven. The Earth's unfolding prayer is that of life and continued existence, of perserverance in spite of everything because nothing is certain and nothing ever will be. All of the great oaks standing in the forest were once shiving saplings; all of the humble moss blanketing the way-side has been tortured by draught yet crawls steadily onward.
I too am just another piece of a moss treading softly by the wayside. I too am just another sapling, another little flower bowed over by the simple weight of dew. I do not have any guarantee of happiness, of safety, of success, of love in this life -- but I am still growing. I am still here in the dirt and the shadows unfolding. I may never reach the sun, I may discover that I am too weak to handle being stepped on... but that is irrelevant. What matters now is that I continue to unfold the endless genesis of hope.
I realized today as I stood in the forest, my hand resting gently upon my warm breast, that the heart I felt beating inside of me was as old and strong as the Earth beneath. I share the same strength that the trees do, the same weaknesses, the same history. Perhaps that is why I have always have the strange sense that we are mutually dreaming -- we are. And we collectively are the Earth's dream.
With a half an hour 'til Beltaine, I find myself feeling frightened and exhausted. My heart aches. I am confused and dizzy. My head hurts too badly to study and my brain is desperately tired, such that I know I can study no further tonight though I desperately need to. I simply have to yield to sleep very shortly. I will not sleep well knowing my housemates apparently saw a mouse in my kitchen today.
But despite all that, I am softly smiling. I have finally let the spring-time in. I have found that this feeling of vulnerable femininity is not the enemy after all, but rather a type of counterbalance to the strength and pride that womanhood also brings. I feel a newfound awe for all grown women and all those women I can warmly call my ancestors -- somehow they did it. Somehow they got through their own difficulties and blossomed into something full. As I prayed in the forest today, I prayed for the strength and the faith to let my heart do the same thing, to let the same incredible rebirth I saw all around me occur inside of me. It is time for my own revolution. It is time for my own spring. I knew it would not be easy and I already know it will take much more strength than I have to give... but I see that I am not alone now. There is strength to be found all around.
If wildflowers can overthrow the winter, I can overthrow this depression as well.
We are both at the mercy of the world right now.
We are both embracing it nevertheless.