When We Write, We Come Alive

It is often said that when a writer writes, he/she writes from a place far deeper than the limits of the conscious mind.

Somewhere between the realms of the heart and the dwelling of the soul, a magical land nestles on the horizon; Between valleys and mountains, rivers and fields. It exists in our imaginations, but its promise is sweet like the apple of temptation held to our wet lips, crisp and juicy… dangerous. Real.

When we write, we sit and let our hearts reach the page the way rivers reach the ocean.

They rush and run, a steady flow, determined, always knowing where it’s headed but not the route it must take. Nothing can stop its course. In the same way, nothing can stop the words from spilling from inside of us and out into the world.

We draw our words like swords from a place of dreams, desires, nightmares and fears. Truths so raw they threaten to break us open as they burst through the barriers of our physical form. Our souls may bleed a thousand deaths as we dictate its longings onto the page as it settles and sets into a little piece of its own history.

Our mind will leave us and in its place an empty space, void of rationality and sense.. An urgency, a passion that reaches the very depths of our heart and begs to be etched onto the souls of those who read it.

Words are manifestations of ourselves. They are symbolic representations of the many truths and desires  which lurk inside each and every one of us.

They force their way out through hurried pens and scrambled fingers on keys. They pour like liquid gold out from under the places where we’ve kept them buried like hidden treasure. The unanswered questions of our own existence kept like hostages of our souls.

They bleed from our wounds, our hearts, our ink-filled veins.

Stirred from the bottom of our engorged hearts we scrape letters, smudged with tears and sweat and heartache. Signed with blood we write with poisoned ink, our pained revenges and our bittersweet goodbyes to old lovers and friends.

We lie naked and exposed, wrapped in the silken robes of stories told and secrets yet to be revealed. We let our hands gently reach out in the dark for others who understand that our words are our most precious gift. They are to be hidden in hand-carved ivory boxes, wrapped with satin and ribbons and delivered in the dead of the night, to be opened by those who’s hearts beat with the same gentle rhythm as our own.

We savour words as if each succulent morsel was crafted from the finest sugar-spun delicacy, melting on our lips and our minds. Their sweetness lingering and dripping from our souls like drizzled honey.

We caress old books, their spines weak and frayed. We touch them like old lovers, who’s every curve we know like our own. Yet each time we trace our fingers along their worn edges, it feels like the first time, tense with excitement and eager to unfold the promises within.

We swim amongst sentences like drowning men, off long lost ships, swirling and sinking within the rough seas of our minds. We cast nets for feelings and scramble for their meaning , ripping open maps containing long lost lands. And when we can no longer find our way, we rely on the quiet wisdom within and let it guide us, shaking pen in hand, to steer us home.

We find heaven on earth as we sit and breathe life onto blank pages; Our art is our words, our instruments our pens and the medium our hearts.

Choose Love, Not Fear.

The world seems so full of fear.. Our country's leaders are fearful of each other, Religions are fearful of each other, Races are fearful of each other, people are fearful of each other. The media promotes fear..of terrorism, of extremism, of the drunk, the insane, the poor, the rich, the incapacitated, the skinny, the fat, the powerful, the weak. We are driven by fear. We are taught fear... and we are encouraged to act based on fear.

We must fear each other, we must fear ourselves.

Fear has become an epidemic which has spread across the planet and holds it in a vice like grip.

But it doesn't have to be like this. There are only two states in which we can exist: Fear and Love. Fear keeps us small and keeps us hostile to one another. But Love opens our eyes and unites people, forging bonds, giving power to people who feel powerless, offering hope to those who feel hopeless. There IS a reason to keep going, to believe in the beauty of the world. LOVE on a grand scale is what the world needs.

Ignore the media trying to make us hate each other, Ignore the leaders of the world trying to fight each other, ignore the whispers at work or school or on the street telling you to hate someone because they are this colour or this gender or this way or that way.

We can choose to rise above the fear and the anger and the hatred, and we can choose to come from a place of love and acceptance and compassion.

There is nothing more powerful than the unified power of people with passion and purpose coming from a place of love.

Act now. Make Love your revolution. Spread it like wildfire, shout it from rooftops, ignore the fear and focus on love. For yourself, for each other, for the world and for everyone in it, regardless of our 'differences'. We're all human, we're all struggling, we're all capable of love. We need love to have a voice on a grand scale, not fear. Help be that voice. The world needs it, the world needs you.

Do you see me?

When you look at me, what do you see?

Do you see me whole, naked, as I am or do you see a constructed metaphor for the idea of me – a promise or a lie? Do you see me unmasked, bare, or do you paint me with the colours of your dreams?

I want to be seen beyond vision. I want your eyes to bore into my very soul and explore the dark corners like an intrepid explorer of my heart. I want you to hang off guide ropes and lower yourself  gently into my cavernous depths, so that we might encounter each other there in the shadows. I want you to venture deeper than others have dared go – Your piercing torch-light of inquisition penetrating my vulnerability.

I want you to look at me and question everything I am, smashing me apart into a thousand shards in a magnificent display of surrender, like a broken mirror. Only to piece me together again, with truth as the adhesive and love as the instruction.

I want to be exposed to you like an open wound, or ocean – the expanse of my wholeness, my realness; a stark reality which shakes and awakens us. I want to shade my eyes from the glare of your intense gaze only to realise that the real blindness comes from the denial of who we really are.

I want to see myself in everything you are; a reflection eternal of a million lives, loves and losses. I want to be brought to my knees by the eyes that surprise me with their imitation of my soul.

I want you to scold me with the fire and brimstone of your burning heart; scarred forever with the permanent scorch of your passion and desire. I want the glaciers of my self-protection to melt under the solar flares of your safety; to watch my levels rise as the ice falls away.

I want to unravel, slowly like old denim.. each thread, a piece of me that untangles and detaches, adding to the whole, a gradual creation; the bigger, more beautiful picture. I want to unfurl, softly like a precious scroll containing my wishes and secrets… opening up to reveal the promise of my desires and the honesty of my heart.

I want to be seen, so undoubtedly, so clearly , that I become translucent  as if being held up to the light – exposed in both my innocence and my guilt; a stained glass window to my soul.

I want you to see my troubles, my insecurities and my imperfections as part of the beautiful mosaic that makes me whole; each piece a part of another story, but held together to form the art of my being.

And I want to look at you, and see the same…