How deep are you willing to dig?

It is one of those nights
Where the demons fly in
And the lit end of a cigarette
Against bare skin
Seems somehow
Less a sin
Than giving in
To the promises
The lies
The whispers
The cries
Beneath their disguise
Where reminders of an oath
Spoken
A life time ago
Feels as near as
Yesterday
To scream so loud 
Still
There is one
You remember
You wish to make to make proud
So you cover your ears
Against your own
Despair
take that next breath
and….

The poem of a beautiful heart, a beautiful soul.  This deep feeling deep loving of a woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, graces me with her poems on occasion, poems of hope, despair, anger, hurt, suffering, wondering, pining, wishing, wanting.......

We all have a way in which we process our emotions, our experiences of life.  Poetry is one way to reach deep into our soul and retrieve its’ stirrings, its whispers, its hunger for growth, evolution, revolution, transmutation…..change.  The Spoken Word is this woman's gift, and with this gift given freely to others, we all get to resonate powerfully together.

In my reading, or listening of this poem, there is a testament to the depth and weight of the pain experienced.  There is testament to the promises we make to others, the grips of loyalty once declared, and the struggle to break free of this promise when it no longer serves us.  There also seems to be a battle within, the parts of ourselves in combat…..our ego needs to stand in the safe familiar……. in conflict with our souls desire for transformation.

We grow up, but we were once very little, tender, benevolent, curious, open and vulnerable little  beings of love and light.  

Programmed resiliency and thirst for survival provided us with the ability to adapt to any given environment, any given circumstance.  The more rigid our adaptive strategies, the more difficult our experience of life circumstances.  But here is the trick, you are extraordinarily and breathtakingly adaptive, you have what it takes to survive anything.  And you already have.  As my lovely friend above ends her poem…” take that next breath, and……”.  You fill in the blank.

Notice as you move back into the familiar as we all do, the discomfort that follows, the mind chatter that whirls through your head begging and pleading with you to have a fresh new look, to take a new unchartered path, to reach out when the past has told you “don’t you dare”.  Listen to that beautiful soul of yours. 

​Mr. James Hollis, one of my favorite soul whisperers, gives us the questions to ask this discomfort, the soul’s protests to leading a life of constricted habit and pattern.  

• Why have you come?  
  
• What is it you are protesting?  
  
• What is the desire of the soul (as opposed to the desires of m environment, my complexes, my history)?   
  
• What do you want?
  
• How might we converse?”

He further and so eloquently expresses….

"Given that the most powerful and the least considered messages"....(our beliefs)...."derive from our earliest experiences of safety, peril and adaptive instruction, whenever they are activated in our psychic life, they have the power to usurp consciousness, take over and execute their archaic programs.

The most powerful of these messages derive from our earliest relationships ​and tend to accumulate as a series of reflexive responses to the stimuli of life.

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While they were once phenomenological,  namely experiential and not conscious, over time they become “institutionalized” responses to the tasks, troubles and turbulence of the world.  No wonder we have patterns.  Letting go of them proves the most difficult of our tasks because they once were, and sometimes remain, tied to our survival, our fitting in, our acceptance of others.

Old loyalties, old understandings, old commitments may very well have bound our days together in predictable ways, but these same constructs can also bind us to a disabling past or a limiting view of others.  The nature of our psyche is based on change, growth, curiosity and imagination.  But there are very conservative elements within us that retain a commitment to the known, the familiar, even when it is based on constrictive perspectives".

And lastly…..

“Only with this sort of respect fo the dialogue with the psyche can we begin to leave the old behind.  Much in our history is worthy of carrying forward, and much is not.  Just as we periodically clean the house, go through old clothes and fashions and discard the no longer germane, so we have to go through our accumulated histories, our driving attitudes, reflexes and responses, and discard what is no longer useful, productive, relevant, or serving growth.  As St. Paul writes in his Letter to the Corinthians, when we become adults, it is time to put away childish things.  Only then may we lay claim to our cooperative journeys into that unknown, which is asking us to be brave, thoughtful and courageous.

Growing up is an uneasy, uncomfortable, and disquieting process, but with self understanding, self compassion, and self forgiveness…..we take notice of others on this collective journey, are comforted by this beautiful shared trip we are on, all the while getting to live lives that are a true expression of our soul’s aspirations and knowings.

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When we interrupt our old patterns, a new process is possible, a new strategy can take place of the old, creating freedom, choice, a cultivation of our soul imaginings and intended lives.


Please give a lovingly solid salute to your soul today. Watch her solute you back!!


With love,

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