Yellow Roses

My dreams are yellow roses on the longest of stems; rooted to people and places, grown in disparate memories, and moments in time.

I grasp tightly at the bouquet, welcoming to my chest their robust beauty.
The heads of the blooms crush against each other, petals folding and jostling for space under my grip.

I run my fingers over the tapering stem as far as my reach will allow. And where tactile contact ends, my gaze resumes. I follow the trail to the edge of my horizon.

Ever fearful that one day I will see signs of decay and know that out there, somewhere, that stem has been uprooted.

Ever fearful that today may be that day’s eve; the day of the uprooting..
And the demise is set in motion and travelling ever closer.
And I, unaware.

Ever fearful that I never made clear what was to become of the seeds I left entrusted. To those nurturing the roots, how they and I are still connected somehow.

And of those I never told. Those whom unwittingly offered such fertile ground for my imaginings, I carelessly dropped one or two, curious, to see if they took.

Diligent horticulturalists and unsuspecting gardeners, alike.
Who could have known how I would rely upon you now?

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure

This morning I wrote a post over at my ‘work blog’ on the perceptions we have of our selves, skills and roles and the huge impact these have on the wider world; specifically via the manner in which we accordingly interact (or don’t interact) with opportunities in life. All this, of course, got me thinking about the manner in which I go about (re)defining myself.

Thoughts, it turns out, that were to continue as I then met up with a friend of a friend with whom i’d been trying to arrange a meeting for some time, a particularly inspiring yet disillusioned gentleman, we spent all afternoon discussing how divorced the Human condition has become from nature, and how a holistic approach rooted in self understanding and worth is required even to begin to improve this. At this point I couldn’t help but be reminded of a line in the poem “Our Greatest Fear” by Marianne Williamson

“Your playing small does not serve the world.”

I then saw this on Twitter and couldn’t help but love the headline..

Save the Planet? We don’t even know how to take care of ourselves; we haven’t learned how to care for one another… We’re going to save the F*ckin’ Planet?

..which, though humorous and flippant in style, only stood to further reinforce these ideas solidifying in my mind.

All of this today, harshly juxtaposed with a very quiet evening alone, is culminating in an increasingly strong realisation that my initial responsibility to the wider world is to become “okay”. Not amazing. Not great. Not, as some have already said, “formidable”, “inspiring” or any of these flattering and memorable praises. Seemingly counterintuitive, perhaps, in the face of my arguments towards building greater self worth in order to ‘serve the world’ but these statements, pleasing though they are, are meaningless as they were directed not to the ‘genuine me’ but to my ‘presented self’ while there is currently an altogether too vast distinction between those things. So to become ‘okay’ simply as me should be my first step. To not require a ‘presented self’, but simply to ‘present myself‘ because, to borrow another couplet from Marianne Williamson

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”

My Piece.

I am not going to tiptoe around your feelings,
They’re neither eggshell fragile, nor hurtful as broken glass.

I am not going to clam up and withhold my self in order to protect you,
You have loved, and love, who I am then, and now.

I am not going to speak loudly, harshly or impulsively,
What I have to say could be said alike in silence.
But I shall say my piece, nonetheless, in peace,
And listen to yours in the same.

Being the best “Me” ?

I read a wonderful blog post this week which tapped into a collection of thoughts and feelings I have been semi-consciously turning over in my mind for some time now. In many ways I am glad I found this post before I tried to verbalise the feeling myself, as I shouldn’t have managed it with close to the honesty and grace that Sasha Dichter has.

“For a while, I think, we have no choice but to internalize, and at times mimic, the voice of those we admire, trying on constructs or phrases or ideas for size.”

Simple, beautiful, a spot on ‘must read’ … please do follow the link above..

It is very easy for me to lose a coherent sense of “presented self” at the best of times. I am known to adopt the intonation, gesticulation and vocabulary of people I have been spending time with which, though intrinsically changing nothing about who I am and what I believe, can create a fractured picture for the outside world.

Particularly at this point in my life where I am generally confused, tumultuously restless, dissatisfied with my choices and fundaments of myself as a human being with a role to play in this world, I have noticeably been feeling myself ‘playing at’ different roles and doing what Sasha describes thus: “we play, we practice, we experiment…and in so doing we discover the ground we would like to stake out for ourselves”

In actual fact I found this post after a day long seminar taken by a speaker whom I both respect and admire deeply as well as, possibly arrogantly, see something of a kinship with. Hence it is perhaps fairly easy to see how this came at the right time for me, and is therefore worthy of sharing in my opinion.