I am Radiance
I am the Joyous Dancer
Mountains still the dissonance
See your Great Accomplishments!
Feel your own Benevolance
They speak through me
To beg you:
Please!
Know yourself as you know Me!
I AM Radiance
And so are thee
Dance and Sing and Love with me
Be still
Be soft
Be wildly
Free
I beg
On hands and knees
Say Yes
I’ve sent
So many messages
You have refused to See
Blinded by your Apathy
Warring against the Truth that is Me
You ask for a hand
But do not take the one offered
You ask for a sign
But they’re hard to see
When you’ve made up your mind
When you feel so confined
You want to be saved
But won’t let me in
You say you Believe
But don’t open to Receive
Unless it would be in the way You command
So many demands for Life to be what you wanted
Instead of What Is
Oh Child, let yourself mourn for this!
I beg
On hands and knees
Say Yes
To me
I do see your suffering!
You wear handcuffs
Chained to the Insane
Begging me
(You think in vain)
But the key is gripped tight
Between your own, stiff fingers.
Will you let yourself out?
I am calling you
And while many are called
Chosen are few
Can you not see that I’ve chosen you?
I am here, waiting
But
I will never force you to unlock
The precious Things that keep you trapped
Life’s Meaning comes from Your Ability to do that
I would never simply whisk away your deepest, Greatest Pain
When you let It be your teacher
Is when your life will Change
For it is The Thing that causes this deepest, Greatest Strife
That is The Thing, ironically,
Which also brings New Life
In the meantime, Child, if you must —
Go forth and fight your fight
Every Hero must find Her way
To find the path that’s right
I wish I could take away your shame
Your self-recriminating blame
For you’ve done nothing wrong at all
Just tried to find Your Way
As you struggle, know that I am here
Waiting with your every breath
Hand extended —
Life’s Heart hoping
One day you’ll
Say Yes.
In the distance
A warrior cries
A girl breathes out
A Sage has died
Something Deep’s been brought to life
Unconscious things direct the wise
‘Til Truth reveals Age-Old lies
The Wise then question their label of “wise”
The girl mourns and sighs,
How can I ever trust The Whys?
When their Answers are hidden in such plain sight
And wearing such a believable Disguise…
But
In the distance
A warrior cries
She hears the voice
She knows Inside
Something dead is now alive
A treasure Unearthed from a far-away place
A taste of dark, generational waste
That lived in her while Life she faced
Unknowing that this poisonous Slice
Wound up her soul like ivy vines
From her very First Cry
To her first breath in
Unintentional Parental Sin
But
In the distance
A warrior cries
The girl breathes out
A Sage has died
Something Deep’s been brought to life
The girl breathes in —
Alive again
A Sage reborn
Wisdom lives.
Sometimes
God calls
In Her silent ways
Tugging at the soul like Intuition
Which only becomes nagging…
When we Refuse to Listen
She shows up gently at first –
A little itch at the neck
Or a whisper in the back of the head
Or a sense that something is Not Quite Right
Sometimes
God begs
From Her Presence on High
Or maybe from Deep Below
Where the gut speaks
In gurgles and bubbles and indigestion
Please, She says plainly now,
I am trying to get your Attention
But we have gotten so used to pushing Her aside
Placing Her in a box of the Archaic kind —
Urging in voices that are not ours but our Parents
Or our Parent’s parents:
“You must fit in This.”
(Bullshit.)
We’ve been believing this and Restricting Her
Or hiding Her,
Sweeping Her under the rug
Until
Sometimes
God screams
She badgers us and weighs heavy on our souls
Now we have enraged Her
She tried so hard in Her gentle kind of way
But we would have none of that, No.
We westerners so used to listening and valuing only One Side:
The goal-oriented, straight-line, get-shit-done-yesterday-damn-it!
Patriarchal approach
(When the round-a-bout, Matriarchal way is proven to lead to better learning)
Did you know this?
Doubtful, because She has been dismissed – missed —
By way of men’s unintentional ignorance
How could any God not be Whole?
Look to Nature and see your Soul!
I swear — You will find it includes Both.
The Feminine half of the Godhead, though
Has suffered
And suffered
For so long
That we humans begin to rot right along with Her
Suppressing the feelings that might help to lift Her up
To be renewed from Life’s overflowing cup
But We do not hear Her until she screams
And then we call her a Bitch or a Nag
Or some other Unpleasant Female Name
Or we ignore Her, still!
Sometimes,
God calls
Why wait for Her to start screaming?
Why not just close your eyes, center in
And Listen?
There is no more Easy
I have gone way, way…
Way too far in
I have Seen Things most won’t ever See
I have taken flight on hellish wings
Clasped hands with dead visionaries
While friends from this 2013
Somehow don’t seem as real to me
Life will never again be “Fun”
In the way the Unencumbered use the term
Fun like carefree
Fun like light
No, The Work comes with it a weighted plight
The kind that can’t just breeze by anymore
The kind that’s tethered to Something More
A bigger fate, behind the scenes
We carry the cross
For Others’ dreams
And know, as we tread the weathered road
There is no more
Easy.
I am starting to Begin
To realize
All I have Unrealized
The things I have known
That have been shoved way down deep inside
Though prying fingers have tried to open up
The Vault in me
It stayed cemented shut
If I couldn’t get to it
You sure as hell weren’t going to
But somehow
The cement has begun to soften
Sticky now, like it wants to be
Pried open
Torn apart
Ripped open
Blown apart
Exposing fully
The human vulnerability that is
me
Heart-Throbbing in the open space
Of human community
Feeling the Everyone-Air touch my Raw Wounded soul
And very slowly
Ever-so-slowly
Begin to Know
When I am hurt again
(for that can’t be prevented)
My Greatest Strength will protect me:
My vulnerability
My ability to Feel All These Things
To move through them in my community
And know
Really Know
That though the individual journey is On My Own
I am never, ever
Alone.
And as I continue to uncover my soul
I begin to unweave
The Unrealized Me.
She is livid mad
Crazy bad
Kick your ass kind of badass Wo-
man
But ain’t no man a fan
Of this kind of Black-Red
Sick-nisssss (I mean that in the Present Tense –
Sick as awesome not sick as bad)
Just ask the First Man —
Adam
How he couldn’t stand
The Original Kick-ass lass:
The one we know as
Lilith.
How he moaned and bitched like a little bitch:
“Ooo, waaa….God made a mistake —
‘Cause this woman won’t Subjugate”
Subservi-ate made Her irate
‘Less Than’ was nothing she would tolerate
So God banished Her to the Other Land
But She was the Wrong One to ban!
Shoulda took that Adam-Man off his
Ladder, man —
Made him mate with matter, man
But he shoved Lilith in the Shadow-Land
And by His command…
Another woman up God’s sleave!
Mix, carve, blow…
Why look!
It’s Eve.
Oh, so willing,
Oh, so sweet
So ready to just
Lie Beneath
And take what Adam did bequeath
She’d lay there silent,
Just receiving
The entire time just believing
She must be doing the Right Thing —
By never, ever
Speaking
Adam praised God’s “Good Girl” work
Secretly feeling like the biggest jerk
For all the while he was fucking Eve –
It was Lilith he was seeking.
Epilogue:
[And all the men wonder today
Why a woman won’t just speak up and say
All the things that she is feeling
But deep inside an Ancient Fear
That we’ll be Sent Away for speaking
There’s that Usher song, you know… the one that says:
“Want a lady in the street but a freak in the bed…”
But the Freak is the one who won’t Lie Beneath…
The one We All left for dead.
She wonders now, as she breaks out
And leaves her Shadow Land
Who is strong enough to Share my bed…
Is there Such a Man?]
She wears the Bright Red Dress, dances on marble table-tops
Has that perfect laugh — Head tilted back
You know the kind.
Yes, she’s That Kind
The kind they like to put in slow-motion
On the movie-screens
The kind who gives the teens
Wet dreams
And makes men stiffen in their theater seats
As they squirm over to one side
So the wife won’t see
The hard evidence of their fantasies.
Yes, she’s That Kind –
Her smile blinds,
Those wide big eyes
Blink innocently
While what they think is underneath – unbridled sensuality
Simmers through transparently
Because it ain’t necessarily
Her own sensuality
But I won’t bore you with
Such Things.
They all imagine she’s Untouchable
While fiending oh-so-desperately —
To touch her ever-endlessly…
Projecting every wanted woman they have ever seen
Unconsciously on that Bright Red Dress
She happens to be wearing.
Betting to themselves deep down, “I know her and she knows me.
And if I could only win her over, she’d see we’re meant to be.”
Oh, how they think Know her!
And there is some magic quality.
I’m not sayin’ she don’t have it —
It just ain’t the Realest thing.
‘Cause they all think she’s the Virgin Mary
And Madonna —
Goddesses Sophia and Innana —
Some twisted kind of Freudian mama
That they secretly beg to Keep.
Sweet souls just projecting onto her
Their hopeful, true-love dreams.
Nothin’ wrong with this except
When the woman removes the dress
She hopes the men who said
She was the greatest thing since whole-grain bread
Will be able to, instead,
Love the regular, plain ol’ “me.”
You know — the very real wife beside them
In the theater seat.
It doesn’t have to be Some Big Thing
You do today.
The Inner Judge that Pushes you
Also Leads Astray.
The Thing inside that Punishes
The Thing that ever-states,
“It doesn’t matter what you want,
Just do exactly as I say.”
We all have that Thing inside us
We may call it by different names
But the Harsh Advice it gives us
Always sounds the same.
It Beats Us Up with Expert Reasons
Harvested in self-harm, for
When a child falls or stumbles —
Does it help to also break his arm?
So when this Thing attacks you
It helps to know He’s there
It helps to know His twisted Tricks
It helps to Stay Aware.
When the Punisher has got the whip
And He’s giving you your twenty licks
Look again and understand
The whip itself
Is in your hand.
You can choose to Notice that!
Call on a different inner part:
Let your Warrior take over
And choose the Path of Heart.
Did you know…
There is a name for a rose that never blooms?
It closes so tightly in on itself that it cannot open.
They call it the Bullet Rose.
It never gets the glorious, torturous Break Down that screams, “Yes! Yes I am alive!”
Instead its petals are like arms crossed defiantly over a chest refusing to let any feeling in.
And isn’t that the Real Tragedy?
Because something happens in the breakdown:
It is the undefinable Mark of Chaos;
A mark that becomes clear-cut only by its utter Confusion where
All
Falls
Apart
Going into total Dissolution;
Caterpillar liquifies
Suffers to become butterfly
And so, too, do I.
I know by now It is coming.
Ah but I fight it, I fear the pain.
“Not again
Not again.”
But yes.
Again.
That is where Acceptance comes in
And having a memory that can hold onto knowing
That the Break is never The End.
We either evolve or regress or worse yet…
Stay fixed;
Hiding too long in one place
We erroneously believe is safe.
Like the poor Bullet Rose
That never gets the Beauty of the Break.
Nor the Resurrection that is only faithful moments
Away.
ariaphoenix 