March 4th, 2017

March 4th, 2017


Affirmation: I hang onto and cherish my humor. I make everything fun!


Word of the Day: lotus-eater (n):

1. a person who leads a life of dreamy, indolent ease, indifferent to the busy world; daydreamer.

This World Which Is Made of Our Love for Emptiness

Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence.
Existence: this place made from our love
for that emptiness!

Yet somehow comes emptiness,
this existence goes.
Praise to that happening over and over.

For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness.
Then one swoop, one swing of the arm,
that work is over.
Free of who I was, free of presence, free
of dangerous fear, hope, free
of mountainous wanting.

The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece
of a piece of straw
blown into emptiness.

These words I am saying so much begin to lose meaning.
Existence, emptiness, mountain, straw.
Words and what they try to say,
swept out the window, down the slant of the roof.

____


A Letter To Those Who Feel Like Too Much

To all the men and women, young and old, who feel like "too much", to the every individual reading this who feels like "too much" - you know precisely who you are.

You are the one who went through your childhood and adolescence feeling different - but not special. You grew up feeling excessive, crazy, out of place, an outcast who was too brash, too "out there," perhaps too passionate or fierce. You just didn't feel like you belonged or that you were a part of anything. You were a one (wo)man island unto yourself.

You've spent your whole life being told to tuck it in and tone it down; to bite your tongue and sit on your hands; to settle and shut up and put up; to tame your curious and creative mind and to conform and blend in.

You were told to strive to fit in and be part of the calmer, cooler, normal crowd.

You've struggled to contain your feelings and to regulate your spirit. You've felt the tug between the wild and the tame, the awe and the apathy, the courage and the path of least resistance. You've endured the ceaseless calling to go and yet the underlying yearning to stay. The never-ending desire to explore and the quiet need to settle down and have a routine.

You've had a hard time finding peace within yourself and peace about yourself. You've felt the crushing expectations of the world more profoundly than most and you have always felt the pressure to try harder, run faster, push further, and do more. Yet you always seem to feel that you are falling short. You even feel like a failure at being because you overdo it. You don't realize that the only person's expectations you'll never live up to - and the only expectations that really matter in the end - are your own.

You don't see that you are the one who is irreplaceable. Unrepeatable. Amazing.

You may always feel like you are too passionate, too idealistic, too intense.

But you forget, dear one, that you also love the hardest and the deepest. You would fight the longest for the things you believe in and the people you care about. You have the resilience to persist and hope long after the rest of the crown has given up and gone home.

You champion the causes that need a voice, you push for the changes that need to be made. You won't sit down or shut up or be put in your place when what you care about and believe in is on the line. You are not scared to stand up and speak out when the rest of the world is staying silent.

You may always be too much for the people who are complacent and meek.
But you will never be too much for the fierce ones. The ones who have come alive.

You will never be too much for the people whose fires burn as brightly as yours does, whose zest and vitality complement your own.

You will never be too much for the people who seek to experience all that life has to offer and to live it fully - with arms and spirits wide open, ready to embrace whatever comes their way.

You will always be exactly right - exactly as you are and should be - for the people whose hearts beat the way yours does.

You will always be exactly right for me.

But is it up to you to find us.

We aren't the ones sitting down, blindly following others' footsteps, never walking off the beaten path. We aren't the ones pushing ourselves beyond our limits to earn a badge of acceptance or a seal of approval that will never come.

No, we are the ones dancing ahead of the pack, singing, playing, contributing, and taking in all that life has too offer.

So if it's not too much for you to handle (because it's not!), come join us. Take our hand.

We've been waiting for you.