Sometimes I am so powerful.
I can stand on my own two feet, and face the storm with fearless abandon. As the inferno burns hot before me, I can stare the flames right in the soul as the world turns to ash all around. I can crawl over boulders and reach heights as the fear grips at my mind. There is much fight within me even as the ground shakes below me.
Sometimes, I am so weak.
I hear their voices and I shrink into my shell. My legs wilt under the weight of the cross I bear, falling to my knees in abject failure. The chorus rains down shards of judgment, shards that pierce my armor and force my heart into hiding. I am a lost child, gone beyond my veils, outside the walls of my kingdom.
What is left to do now but learn? Can I shed the mask of pride? Can I rid myself of the weight I’ve carried with me my entire life?
Pride, that alien being to my soul, that bastard bully hiding in the shadows right behind me! Whisper if you will, but I can hear you. Sing if you must, my ears bleed at the sound of your song. One day I shall turn the torch and burn a hole through your darkness. Pride cannot defeat the lowly man with an empty bowl. He stands, kneels, and bows with equal power, with equal strength.
That warrior knows the only strength he needs is to lift his bowl, give all he has, and accept what others are willing to offer.
A hard fight for me indeed. The hardest battles are often the ones we wage within.
A Conversation
I turn to my god, the Silence I crave in the noise of my mind, and beg of Her to answer me.
The answer is as it’s always been. “Shed your gold and give glory to your heart. Pride is thine enemy.”
So much gold has been cast into the raging torrents, sacrificed to the god of who I am. There lies so much of what I once believed important, so much of what I gave my life to have.
“It’s time to give more of you and less of what you have. It’s time to rise, naked in the snow,and be warmed by what only love can provide. That is what you must learn. It is you the world needs, not your coin. It is love that must fill your pockets. You will fly in the lightness of love, not be drowned by the weight in your purse.”
“I have little left to give,” I answer.
“Wrong. You have yet to scratch the surface of what you offer the world.”
A tear forms. I have heard this all before.
“My child, you have hidden behind the quest for things of the world, seeking to be judged by them as some reward. The gold you seek is waiting for you, and when it ceases to be your quest the truth will open up those waters to raging currents. Where the green light shines within you is that space you should work to fill. The other chest will fill after your treasure chest has opened, and your heart becomes free to beat to its own time.
The chest you’ve tried to fill cannot be filled until the chest that holds the true treasure, your heart, is fully open.”
A tear spills. I know all of what I hear to be true.
A Lesson
“It has been said,” the Silence whispers to my soul, “that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to pass the gates of heaven. A chest of gold cannot fit but the man full of love passes through easily. You will leave your gold behind, my son, but love will go with you forever.”
“Yet I tire of the struggle,” I respond.
“Ah, it is the struggle that keeps you from your truth. You will regain wealth, have no doubt, but first you must stop judging yourself in its presence or its absence. When you love, you will know yourself the same both in wealth and in poverty. Neither will change the man you know yourself to be.”
It is the struggle that I know myself, and it is in the struggle that I judge myself as worthy. What was once so easy has now become so difficult. The river that once flowed has now become a trickle.
“The ice up there is ready to melt again and Spring is ready to appear,” said the Silence. “Love shines warmly. Let it shine, watch the ice pack melt and the river flow again. It is truly that easy. Stop being the struggle and start being the Spring.”
I smile, knowing full well the beauty and truth of this remembering.
“I know it is difficult, my son, but you were not built for the easy things. You were bred to make the difficult things easy. You were born to melt the ice…”
A breath, a moment, an undeniable truth.
“…and to light the way. So, now shine. Love yourself as worthy and watch the river flow.”