Tag Archives: growth

Healing Hugs

I hugged shame

I loved disgrace

I encouraged peace

To the weeping face

I heard confession

I felt mercy

I held his hand

Told him he’s worthy

Removed the prison

Of spoken word

Showed him value

By actions served

He sobbed for relief

From a god he doubted

Regret his badge

His sight; sin clouded

Visible pain

ached his soul

But his words dictated

Desperate control

Will he surrender?

Forgive his heart?

Remember his humanity,

That is tearing him apart?

I can’t fix him

Or make things better,

Just let him feel loved

Releasing the debtor

Grown

Flames surrounding a blue figure with gray shadow people watching.
Past life

I have lived in darkness

Reveled in its muck

Too lost to seek out beauty

Too broken to give a fuck

I have succumbed to anger

At the injustice of it all

I’ve witnessed deadmen falter

I’ve heeded hateful calls.

I have chewed away the chains

Of violent neglectful abuses

I have blamed myself and blamed the stars

I have justified it with childish excuses

I’ve rejected ancestral wisdom

To bleed out my unique path

I’ve run. I’ve crawled. I’ve slithered

I’ve ground myself to ash

I’ve built myself a castle

With every grain of sand

I’ve flown through vicious storms

Without a personal command

I’ve crashed and burned a thousand times

Roasted marshmallows on bridges I’ve burned

I’ve picked myself up and dusted me off

Each scar a battle-wound earned

I’ve cavorted with sinners and prostitutes

I’ve imbibed heavily in the drink

I’ve witnessed senseless violence

And still refused to sink

Because that darkness cannot win

It isn’t who I’ve become

It may be where I once have dwelled

But I will never revisit or succumb

The Heir

You were a human being

With a life as precious as my own

But, I’m alive and you are not

To me a path was shown

I’ve inherited your voices

I’m heir to your bright beacon

I will not turn away

My resolve will never weaken

I spend my inheritance freely

With loud pride from your source

I magnify it ideally

Your oppression no longer enforced

The lynching tree will bear no fruit

The crucifixion of branches

Will decay, not take root

It’s time to play with matches

Altar Building

Holy light ripples from one prayer to the next

Candle to candle

Continuous Hope lit liberally

From one heart to another

A sustainable support

To ease burdens

To celebrate joys

To guide one another

With wisdom and reverence

A catalyst towards Universal Love

Progress towards Justice

A beacon towards personal truth

A stable trust in sacred communion

Of torchbearing faith outwardly

Reflection of our own hearts

Rising like the morning mist in a meadow

Liberation TW

What you see before you

are the skin and clothes of the living

and my dead.
A result of generations of love

or hate

or boredom on a Tuesday night

and a potluck of chromosomes
The gene pool of my ancestors

drying up in my shallow end
Distilled into hereditary faults

that I forgive them for because they resulted in me.
I observe through my mother’s eyes
They show me that inaction causes stagnation
That stagnation causes resentment
That resentment causes a paralyzing fear
THAT fear festered rudely in my cradle

visited by vacationing cockroaches from upstairs
Unlike my one-eyed father, blindness is not mine.
My eyes are opened

when my mother reads me lies from a book of fairy tales

because I know that imaginary monsters aren’t real
That the real monsters look like people

they tend not to hide under my bed
instead, they sneak into my bed

a candy-colored catastrophic cruelty
Thieving my innocence,
Shackling me in guilt and shame
reinforcing that there is nowhere to hide
No closet is deep enough,
no blanket is tightly wrapped enough
No pillow will help my breath
Swaddling complacency
Nurturing tar black secrets

Forbidden by death
To verbally vomit
My truth abandoned in cobwebs

Chronological milestones

Amalgamated rubble

Duct taped together

Glued with lies, rejection,

Abandonment, and

A visceral faith that I was the broken one.

denunciation was not implanted

on those who blighted me.

Conversely, desperately

I believed.

I once had the courage to tell a student teacher

When I was 9 years old that I didn’t want to be a girl

I didn’t want to feel the way I was feeling anymore

I wanted to have the power of being something else

Because even then I knew that what I was,

WHO I was

Wasn’t like the other kids.

I had no lighthouse to guide my loose sailing

I had no anchor to throw over the side

To halt the rocking, storm-battered ship

That I’d been given to captain with no skills.

That teacher gently corrected me

to crash on the rocks instead

There was no safe harbor in which to moor

But…

There was something inside of me

A luminosity that crusaded for freedom

A light so obscured to me

by external destruction that I was blind to it

But I could feel it, warm in the darkness.

Growing exponentially with each fear abated

With each discovery excavated from shame

With each box opened, musty and dusty

The contents returned to owners

Who gave me their rejected anger,

shame and guilt disintegrated with antique fragility

I piled them up in the middle of the room

And I burned every bit of that judgement.

The fire rampaged uncontrolled

Scorching anyone who stood too close

Its flames reached unprecedented heights

With a destruction as violent as my life

Every step a new fire ignited

Every truth a testament

Every act defiant

No obstacle an impediment.

My raised fist declared my power

My resurrection burst forth from within

I am no longer defined by what was taken from me

But by what I bring with me to this world

What I create, nurture, give and receive

Is a reflection of that glorious light

I was destined to be.

Liminality

I am, but I’m not.

I’ve evolved from the broken baby-steps

No more a child but rather child-like

in wonder and awe which astounds my senses

in a warm bath of spiritual baptism

that cleanses recklessness from my history

within acts of love, compassion, and kindness.

A comprehension of seeing the unseen

breathing in unison in emotional repose

Setting down the burdens haunted

at the threshold of forgiveness

where retribution crumbles bitterly

into the dust from which it was born

A hobby interest

I was chatting with my friend Professor Pudgytums about things we were doing in our lives. I was creating art, traveling, and working. He was working, traveling, and picking up new hobbies.

He has done fencing, trapeze, racquetball, and a variety of other interesting activities. His latest interest is book binding. He was interested enough to share some of what he was learning.

I sent him two books I have in storage and requested he practice on them. He didn’t feel confident enough to agree, but I sent them just in case.

Then I thought about it. I have an entire library of books primarily on death and dying. I have others, but I want to learn more about a topic I’m interested in like him.

To hold a book, yes I also have a Kindle, is to feel the heft of the words, the thoughts, the desires, the emotions, and entire imagination pinned down in time by someone who didn’t give up. It’s almost holy in a way.

Wait. I have two books that I sent to someone else. Why the farts couldn’t I do that for myself? What do I need to know to do this? I asked the oracle (YouTube).

It’s involved and takes skills that are a challenge. Is it something that I can figure out and learn? I think so.

The writing for one of the books is complete and the art is being created. The second book is complete and ready to go other than formatting. Yes, I’m really going to try it. I have a sneaking suspicion I’m going to love it.

May peace be with you wherever you are or go. You are loved!

Day Thirty-Seven, 🎶Borderline(s)

Leaving France, entering Spain
I’m the blue dot. 3AM here, 9PM East Tennessee
About to cross into Portugal.

I’m so tired but holy crap! Fantastic!

Cheers, Coleman’s!! That’s a double espresso.

Day Thirty-Six, Press Start

I’m sitting on the FlixBus in Caen. My cumbersome luggage is loaded under my butt. I feel a complexity of emotions.

I’m excited to see what happens next. I’ve been to Paris, so that part doesn’t feel anything but familiar. I’m not sure if that’s what I mean exactly but it’s close. After Paris, then the fun/fear/excitement/unknown begins.

Truthfully, I’m intimidated by that unknown. More so than when I first arrived. Maybe because it was a rather spontaneous choice to change everything I’d planned at the last minute. Perhaps it’s because the summation of my experience has been a working trip.

I don’t have to work. I don’t have obligations. I’m doing this for me. It feels selfish. It feels uncomfortable. It feels unsafe. But it’s also exhilarating because it’s not something I normally would do. It’s adventure and exploration. It’s new.

I’ll let you know what happens as I leave Caen and head into the rest of my life.

May peace be with you wherever you are or go. You are loved!

Day nine note

The other day when I went to the grocery, I picked up some delicious things. My plan was to cook for myself, but I kept putting it off. This morning, I got ambitious.

I took out the spinach and put it in the colander and poured boiling water over it. I cut up potatoes into tiny little pieces. I chopped up an onion and put it in the pan with what was sure to be a gastronomic pleasure. I popped in some vegan butter, and tried to turn on the stove.

I was pushing buttons like it was a typewriter, and nothing happened. Nothing. I tried turning it off and turning it on again, but to no avail. I tried for a good 15 minutes to figure out how to work the stove, but no.

The stove was smarter than I and I ended up going to my favorite place for breakfast. They make better coffee than I do anyway.