And then the day came, when the risk to remain tight in a bud
was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
Anais Nin, Danish diarist
I am reminded today of this truth. That there comes a time, I believe, in every person's life, where the risk of staying safely wrapped in that bud is much more than the risk of letting go of the control and discovering the truth of who you really are. When I was a small child, I remember seeing a sadness that surrounded most adults - a kind of suffocation that settled on their spirit, behind their eyes, that said "This is life, this is all I can expect". Even then, I knew this was not the way I wanted to walk my life.
A child asks "Why can't I?" to most obstacles he or she meets. And slowly, we are taught, all to often, the answer "Because..." But the real truth is that there are no limitations to the depth of one's true spirit and this journey always leads to expansion, not restriction.
Sometimes, life can hurt. I know this. My last real hurt came when I lost my child in 2003, and my relationship hit the hellish lows. At the time, I could only see what I had lost, what had been 'taken from me' in my life. And for the second real time in my life, I doubted the truth of the above quote, of the Fool's Path. When life hurt this much, why open your shirt to the sword? It took a long path of night, good friends, Love, courage and the willingness to listen to the spirit beyond what we see, for me to get to the place where I woke up and found myself feeling in the pain the abundance of what had been given to me.
If someone had told me when I sat with my heart breaking that this was a gift, I probably would've given them a bloody nose, yet something inside me, even then, knew that I could not, would not give up, that I would keep walking the path.
Yesterday, sat atop of Garsdale Head with Adam and Simon, eating banana and yoghurt, the only sound the birds crying around the hills, we fell into laughter so deep and silly it made me weep. A simple, beautiful thing. And something I thought I would never feel again.
I would rather live a thousand times of tears to feel the true bubble of joy that comes with love, that comes with being within my own skin, in my own life, walking my true path, than live always safe, neither hurt nor happy.
My mother always said "save me from a grey life" - for years I thought that meant it had to be dramatic. It doesn't. It can be as soft and small as sharing stupid laughter in the silence of a Sunday picnic. And that moment can burst into life in a myriad of colours, because at its heart is love, and truth and freedom.
A child asks "Why can't I?" to most obstacles he or she meets. And slowly, we are taught, all to often, the answer "Because..." But the real truth is that there are no limitations to the depth of one's true spirit and this journey always leads to expansion, not restriction.
Sometimes, life can hurt. I know this. My last real hurt came when I lost my child in 2003, and my relationship hit the hellish lows. At the time, I could only see what I had lost, what had been 'taken from me' in my life. And for the second real time in my life, I doubted the truth of the above quote, of the Fool's Path. When life hurt this much, why open your shirt to the sword? It took a long path of night, good friends, Love, courage and the willingness to listen to the spirit beyond what we see, for me to get to the place where I woke up and found myself feeling in the pain the abundance of what had been given to me.
If someone had told me when I sat with my heart breaking that this was a gift, I probably would've given them a bloody nose, yet something inside me, even then, knew that I could not, would not give up, that I would keep walking the path.
Yesterday, sat atop of Garsdale Head with Adam and Simon, eating banana and yoghurt, the only sound the birds crying around the hills, we fell into laughter so deep and silly it made me weep. A simple, beautiful thing. And something I thought I would never feel again.
I would rather live a thousand times of tears to feel the true bubble of joy that comes with love, that comes with being within my own skin, in my own life, walking my true path, than live always safe, neither hurt nor happy.
My mother always said "save me from a grey life" - for years I thought that meant it had to be dramatic. It doesn't. It can be as soft and small as sharing stupid laughter in the silence of a Sunday picnic. And that moment can burst into life in a myriad of colours, because at its heart is love, and truth and freedom.
"Acquire the courage to believe in yourself.
Many of the things that you have been taught were at one time the radical ideas of individuals who had the courage to believe what their own hearts and minds
told them was true, rather than accept the common beliefs of their day."
Ching Ning Chu
3 comments:
Beautiful, beautiful writing and yes, living with intensity doesn't mean having to be intense.
Thank you, Gill. The quiet revolution is the one that goes one within the individual breath. We are all heroines!
I love this Vik and it is so true -I think you have hit on a very deep aspect of being that we touch a lot as women and especially as mothers, beacuse we have to do so much simply being and waiting but the living of it is intense and beautiful like new leaves slowly unfurling.
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