Photo Credit: Gabrielle Clark
Who am I?
I ask and ask many times and I step back, but nothing comes.
I stay and say it is okay.
I drift off and remember something I have read yesterday – ‘we must defend your dwelling place in us to the last’, so I come back. I ask again.
Then I remember a lovely note from a friend – ‘its okay and enjoy life’ he says – This makes me smile. Enjoy life – yes! The smile keeps growing. I think this is enough and I finish.
I come across a poem and I am moved by the line – “Close your eyes and follow your breath to the still place that leads to the invisible path that leads you home.”
I pause again and follow my breath – a feeling is coming in my body. It’s big! It is like a feeling of ecstasy, it is scary and nice and I am allowing it.
I remember the support of the chair.
It feels like I am allowing life to flow in me and it is so beautiful and light and uplifting. I can still feel it now, it is tingling and buzzing with life. “Let life happen to you” says Rilke.
Perhaps I am the vehicle for the life that is longing to live in me. Or am I the life I felt moving in me.
I don’t know.
Who am I beyond the conditioning that has been imposed on me?
Who is the one that looks out from behind my eyes?
Who is the one that looks out from behind your eyes?
Can I even risk being seen that deeply, seeing that deeply. The thought of that scares and excites me.
I hold both, as a hopeful possibility.
Note Authors of my inspiration in order: Etty Hillesum, Rainer Maria Rilke and Teresa of Avila
That was so beautiful, and so transparent of who you are………. you express your true self as I see it, so poetically. It just flows and it mirrors life itself. Thank you…….. your warms my heart…..thank you Kevin
Dear Gabe,
Thank you for your ability to be the observer of your process. It shows your own way of being including your connection to writers and philosophers as your support system. I experienced them as if they were spirits rather than intellectual thoughts.
We all get stronger when one of us provides a window into their healing.
Brava!
Thank you Kevin,
I like that it warms your heart – that feels lovely.
It warms my heart to have the space to write from my own experience and to be welcomed so warmly by you and Diana and others here.
Dear Diana,
I really liked it when you said the philosophers and poets are my support system, how wonderful and very true I like this.
When you said you experienced them as spirits, this feels exciting in me and encourages me want to open more to listening to what comes from these spirits in unexpected moments.
It is a great reminder that when I can be in this space of deep listening all sorts of wisdom is available!
Thank you
Thanks a lot, Gabrielle! First of all, the parrot in the photo made me smile. When reading your text I started to feel my stomach – not a very nice feeling relating to some part of me that is longing for total acceptance. So that there wouldn’t be any fear of what others say or feel about me. Or how I do it myself since there is a part of me that very easily is scared of me doing something wrong.
“I remember the support of the chair” and noticed that I can be with all this. Just be with it. And suddenly I could feel like somebody was looking at me so enthusiastic, so willing to know all about me, whatever it is, without questioning if it is good or bad. It just is. I am as I am. It was like that beautiful, friendly, curious parrot! I can see her head moving back and forth saying: “Please tell me, show me more about you!”
This made me smile Maria and reminds me to be curious too – just like that beautiful bird.
I like your words – when the support of the chair is there, – “I can just be with all this” then suddenly that wonderful experience came.
Thank you for sharing it all.
What a delight!
It’s just as it is, I am as I am.
Yes to that.
Hello Gabrielle,
When I finished reading what you wrote, I felt the words, ‘just beautiful!’ come up in me, very simply.
Then I read the comments and I want to say that I love that this blog is truly becoming a place for heartfelt conversation/connection. Yay!
And I like very much this, which you’ve written:
“Perhaps I am the vehicle for the life that is longing to live in me.”
And something in me says “YES!”
with thanks,
elizabeth
Hi Elizabeth
This makes me smile.
I like this space too. It is easier for me to express from a deep place in writing and then to be received and heard and to then have others
reply from a deep place in them is an added joy.
I am saying YES also to the life that wants to live in me….and making peace with it slowly…however it appears each day.
Gabe