Started with one true sentence. What followed just flowed, and decided not to get in the way. I have not edited this, nor have I changed a thing about it. This is spirit flowing uninhibited…
Suddenly, we are here, in the now, playing with something we call the present moment, living and dying in heaps of clotted fur we call life. Awakened, or so we think, scribbling letters on parchment about dreams and whimsical rhymes that somehow make sense to the world even if they don’t quite make sense to us. Inspired as we are, we are nothing compared to that which inspires us, for we have limited ourselves beyond measure while spirit itself is only limited by those boundaries we, ourselves, have set.
We often have clouded spirit in veils of rights and wrongs we’ve created to keep ourselves safe. We plod along on our dusty trails, keeping time with a drumbeat that comes from places we never dare to visit. Though we see ourselves as brave souls trudging along though a life created to test us, we are often cowards hiding behind a thin fabric mommy created for us, or a rusted shield given to us by our fathers. We’ve yet to forge a sword of our own and, as a result, wield nothing meant to fit in our soul’s sweet hand.
We have moments of great courage, and in those moments often believe ourselves cowards. That’s the enormity of our discourse, we believe the dreamscapes and forgo the realities just to fit into a story we’ve both created and had created for us. We are, after all, what we say we are even when we are nothing of the sort, and we live and die according to words that we’ve scribbled in our books both by our own hand and by the hand of those we think we owe a debt to.
I’m not sure which I fall into today. A lion in me roars his truth in a wide desert while the mouse in me squeaks helplessly along in the underbrush. I inspire no one to courage because I can’t find it within me. I inspire no one to greatness because I can see none of it in my own eyes. I just meander along, sometimes roaring and sometimes squeaking in unintelligible dialect while the world ignores me completely.
I’ve convinced myself that I need none of them. Not their attention and not their protection. That’s the shield I’ve hewn from the shelters and the bridges that have imploded before me. I’m not sure if it is my truth because I am so convinced, but something within me seems to whisper that no, I want your love. Mostly, I want to give you mine.
For so long it’s been a path built on solitude, trusting no one for my sanctuary and owing no one my heart. I’ve left the companionship of people behind more often than my memory permits me to realize, forsaking embraces for handshakes and warmth for passing glances. My truth, I’ve believed, was always out there. Somewhere, out there, would be a story that matched my own, a heart that fit perfectly into the empty spaces carved into mine, a soul that knew mine from an eternity of waking me the fuck up. I tried to settle for seawater only to nearly die of thirst. I’ve tried to settle for a warm body in the cold space only to nearly freeze to death.
So I decided on the path of solitude until that heartspace was filled with divine perfection, where I could drink from an unending sea of possibility, and find warmth next to a fire of pure love. It would be that way, even if it meant dying alone in this lifetime to find her in the next. I committed to that path.
Love came, for sure, and along with the divinity of that wonder came the humanness for which we all limit ourselves. We peer around corners hoping what’s around the bend cannot see us in our hiding. We walk slowly on the newest trails as if the newness is a threat despite never finding what we’ve sought on more familiar climbs. We tread lightly even when the ground seems steady for fear that the security we’ve found was nothing but a dream, just like the dreams we’ve had before. Nothing seems to hurt more than a nightmare born from a beautiful dream, and thus we fail to put all of our hearts into the dream for fear of the beasts eating it in one large gulp. Or, worse yet, devouring it in tiny, painful bites.
That’s the mouse squeaking as the lion roars. I want my fucking truth, but fear to both announce it and make it happen. Rejection of a truth is like being slapped in the face with your own hand. It’s then we realize that our truths are not always shared. In fact, they seldom are.
That’s when the mouse speaks up. Soon, we tire of our squeaks and begin to fight for what we feel. Soon, we tire of walking paved roads and begin to seek the muddy entrails of nature. Soon, we grip our swords, drop our shields, and make the leap into a truth unshrouded, daring those who love us to follow. It’s often a lonely trail, but one filled with mystery and wonder.
That’s the lion roaring.
Then the aloneness of the trail wears out its welcome in our human home, and we begin to whittle away parts of our truth to satisfy our fear. Suddenly, we become more likable to the (m)asses, more palatable to the tastes of those who barely know us. We create a belief that suggests all is fine, to be known a little by many seems better than being known completely by a few. That’s when we become liars not only to the world, but to our selves.
The mouse squeaks again, and cycle continues. What a wheel we run on…