MySELF

I sat down, almost in a slump. 
Arms limp to my sides.
I had had about as much as I could take.
Nobody knew my story.
I had grown tired of explaining.
I had exhausted in IT.
IT was feeling like a burden.
A spiritual lesson I couldn't quite seem to understand.
A botched Law of Attraction.
And, while in the midst of wrapping my brain around a recent diagnosis of my middle child,
it hit me...
Look inside at what you give to the outside world--then look beyond MySELF. 
NOT, yourself.
BUT, MySELF
This was an issue of ME!
OF SELF! 
MySELF.
The part of me, the SELF, who I am.
MySELF
Whom is that?
What makes up the SELF wrapped in ME or MY?
How does that affect those around me?
What drives MySELF to make my life extraordinary but leaves me depleted?
The disconnect happens where?!
Within MySELF.
Figures.
(*Figures IS figuratively coupled with literally.)
[*What is always present & in front of you, BUT has NEVER added up to a clear picture.
A descriptive way of giving that mental image of here & now...its ME!
I keep getting the wrong answer!
I know...
It's because I have always sucked at math.
Funny how math affects EVERYTHING?!
(my business math teacher from college would be laughing right about now)
Its gotta be multiplication.
And it's not just the math. It's the one engaged in the math.
It's the order of the operation. 
The methodology.
SHIT!!
I've got the order of the operation completely wrong!]
ANALOGY TIME.....
So, like the butterfly, it's flight creates vibrations.
It's flight vibrations are sent out into the world.
With each flutter, another vibration dispels its energy into the world.
In all that I do, I am creating a ripple in the energy of my life.
And those close to me.
And those around me.
And those beyond that.
A circle of energy through vibration will travel back to me eventually.
Some days I am like a boulder rolling down the hill & crashing into the water...
Not much survives that title wave of power.
Other days, 
it's just a tiny droplet hitting the surface.
Initially not making much of an impact, 
but eventually the results reverberate back to me in a much larger & changed form.
I've been looking for a different result. 
When I've already put IT out there,
what will eventually be returned to me.
To, MySELF.
What goes out as love, comes back as a greater love.
What goes out as indifference, comes back as boredom.
When I give up, sorrow & suffering are returned.
MySELF feels & responds from experience.
MySELF decides worth.
MySELF argues with my heart & my head.
MySELF, my soul, often grow weary.
Needing rest.
Needing nurturing.
Needing permission to let go.
So it can rest & nurture itself.
MySELF seeks clarity.
MySELF knows & denies LOVE deliberately, often defensively.
It's that denial that causes the slumping in the chair.
Exhausted & worn.
It is not a state of presence. 
Of being MySELF now...in this moment.
I have the order of operation all wrong.
I am slumped on the giving end of MySELF.
What I was, has been returned.
TO ACCEPT in that energy that I sent out.
I had forgotten,
in whom it affected.
In how it changed lives.
Good or bad.
To inspire comes from what I give....AND how I receive.
To inspire takes a lifetime.
To receive takes but a brief moment.
I don't ache in my slumping, 
as I am in position to receive.
It is through this receiving & accepting,
that I can release my energy again purely,
clearly,
as
INSPIRATION to those willing to receive.

I send out now, 

with my hands upward turned,

My creative energy in all I must tackle.

Be that through my art,

my writing,

words spoken or felt.

I send out to the world, in a small ripple

my love & a bit of warmth,

from

My SELF!

And in the end, when you can't find your way through. There's always one place you can go to find what you are seeking....its through the mind of Dr. Suess!

"Unslumping yourself is not easily done."

exactly!

She Painted Souls

My heart thumped loudly.
It was all I could hear.
His voice distant now.
I once danced just for him,
He loved it so.
Dirty, though elegant.
It's all so distant now.

She fumbled her words when she spoke of her dreams,
He didn't pick out the points she was tirelessly trying to make.
This frustrated her, an inability to describe the thought.
She gazed sometimes at other men,
He thought she was straying,
She was curious how some men carried themselves.
It didn't always mirror the way they were dressed.
He began to respond as if betrayed.
She didn't explain well.
He did not understand.
She painted soul's she saw on the street,
Men mostly.
He began to rage and said, you'll know no other man than me.
BUT....she still couldn't explain so he would understand.
So she painted.
They were faces that moved her brush in paint.
She could speak with each stroke. Line. Color.
Jumbles of light shards & emotion moved her soul.
Awaken her mind.
Pushed her to create.
But she could only paint what she felt.
It was her way to tell her story.
He did not understand.
He only saw him.

She wept as she painted him some years later.
He didn't look the same as in snapshots.
She remembered him differently.
Strange.
His face had hard lines & little kindness.
It was not a gentle image she pushed onto her canvas.
I love you so, she cried.
You made me want to dance...even when I was alone.
I don't dance anymore.
But I paint you now in my sorrow.
You've changed.
I loved this? She wondered.

His image hung in a gallery window.
He passed by.
He was grief sicken at his image. A reflection of his soul.
He could see her dancing, dirty and elegant.
He gave up on her to soon...

Original art by Cherie Strong