Kintsugi is the centuries-old tradition of repairing pottery by filling in cracks with gold, with the understanding that the piece is more beautiful for haven been broken.
No love, you are not broken.
There is nothing to be fixed.
You are just beautiful in a way most can’t understand.
But you don’t want most, do you.
You don’t need to be understood by those.
Who can’t see the beauty in imperfection.
You will not find poetry here
Here, no poet resides.
Just a collection of words
Infused with magic, (which cannot be defined)
Summoned by a gypsy soul
Hiding behind a naked guise.
Follow @summoningmagic.com
That moment of truth. Your truth.
When you stop running. Because you have to.
Because your soul implores you.
That moment you discover, what you feared most
was, in fact, what you’ve been searching for all along.
Photo by Caras Ionut
Here is my humble attempt at day two of a challenge offered up by one of my favorite blog gurus, brandewijnwords. The task at hand is to share my favorite quotes for three consecutive days.
This has proven to be more difficult than I anticipated. I have so many quotes swirling around my head right now. But this one is the first that came to mind, so I’m going with it. (You can visit @summoningmagic to see more of my favorites.)
—
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure…our playing small does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you…and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”
~ Marianne Williamson
This first time I read this, I realized I had done this my entire life: played small. There were several reasons why I chose to do this, the primary one being I desperately craved love and acceptance from those I loved…most who didn’t exactly know how to reciprocate. Regardless, it became very clear to me that being the center of attention was not unacceptable.
I never understood it, really. It was next to impossible for me to believe I had any redeeming qualities…precisely because those were not to be cultivated or celebrated. They were to be stifled.
So, for survival purposes, I stayed in the shadows. And it truly was to survive. For me, being rejected by the ones I love the most was and is my worst possible fate. Being the smartest or prettiest or anything that threatened anyone else was simply not an option.
So I played small.
This meant that I constantly attracted people who demanded the spotlight, and I gladly gave it to them.
I’m not sure when the shift happened, but I know this quote fueled it. I imagine being a trainer/coach also contributed. That was my first experience having someone look to me for guidance or want my permission to shine. It changed me. On a fundamental level, it changed me.
There is nothing more beautiful than to be a part of someone realizing their worth.
So I still gladly offer up the spotlight, but it’s no longer for acceptance. It’s for the joy of seeing someone shine from the inside out.
As for the ones who feel they need to steal the light from others, I think I understand it now. They are simply doing what they think will prevent their biggest fear- their worst possible fate- to be rejected by the ones they love the most.
“It used to be thought that the events that changed the world were things like big bombs, maniac politicians, huge earthquakes, or vast population movements, but it has now been realized that this is a very old-fashioned view held by people totally out of touch with modern thought. The things that change the world, according to Chaos theory, are the tiny things. A butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian jungle, and subsequently a storm ravages half of Europe.”
— from Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
If you’ve been following ‘the challenge’ initiated last week, you hopefully experienced the magic that happens when people break out of their comfort zones and inspire others to do the same.
If you missed out on some of the action, Tanya, our Incurable Dreamer, summed it up perfectly in “the losing of my poetry virginity“
“Last week, she [that’s me] wrote a poem [inspired by George Ella Lyon’ original ‘Where I’m From’], and what has transpired since then has been nothing short of extraordinary.
The poem she wrote was inspired by a prompt – Where I’m From.
Her idea was to post it on her blog and challenge someone to write a poem about where they are from, and then hopefully they too would pass it forward. Well, that is what she did, and that is exactly what happened. She challenged Tom who challenged Wulf who challenged Susan who challenged Bojana.
Inspired by Brooke’s words, Brad and LLY1205 didn’t even wait to be challenged, they both just got right to it and wrote and posted their poems.”
This wasn’t a competition, by any means. But we were all nervous to try something that isn’t exactly our strong suit. Even our celebrated poets expressed some anxiety about presenting their piece. I suppose it’s because we are all following the same model- one that requires us to reveal some of the most intimate parts of our stories- and create something on the heels of the previous person who blew us away…
But no pressure…really.
So, back to the whole butterfly thing. Yes, I will acknowledge that I set this in motion…flapping my wings if you will. But, as Edward Lorenz, creator of the chaos theory postulates: (Cool article discussing the butterfly effect here)
“Subject to the conditions of uniqueness, continuity, and boundedness … a central trajectory, which in a certain sense is free of transient properties, is unstable if it is nonperiodic. A noncentral trajectory … is not uniformly stable if it is nonperiodic, and if it is stable at all, its very stability is one of its transient properties, which tends to die out as time progresses. In view of the impossibility of measuring initial conditions precisely, and thereby distinguishing between a central trajectory and a nearby noncentral trajectory, all nonperiodic trajectories are effectively unstable from the point of view of practical prediction.”
Simply stated, the noncentral trajectory of my challenge was effectively unstable and wouldn’t have unfolded the way it did if you all had let it die out…
Okay, enough of that. In short, it was not I who accepted the challenge and wrote something brilliant enough to inspire the next person, who wrote something brilliant enough to inspire the next person…
Maybe I did initiate a breeze. But you all gave it the momentum necessary to make the next person’s words take flight, compelling them to dig deeper and soar to heights that took our writers and readers by storm and left us all spinning.
So Tanya, thank you for finishing off this whirlwind week of words with such grace, depth and courage. And thanks to the rest of you brave souls who gave us an enchanting glimpse into…where you are from.
See where Mirian, from Out an’ About takes us next…
Desert Curmudgeon, an unassuming prophet, as I affectionately call him. He is a writer, a philosopher, an intellectual, a humanitarian, a seeker of truth, and what I consider to be genius in motion.
I am posting this because I think his words need to be heard, and because sometimes we need a little boost, and he gave me one of the most meaningful, heart-warming compliments I think anyone could in regards to my writing. He shared with me that my words inspired his in Warrior Mind.
The compliment:
“For another take on a similar theme, please check out this profound post by Brooke at A Gypsy’s Tale: Masters Of Our Fate. The post you just read would not have materialized without her”
Wait, what? I told our Incurable Dreamer , another one of my blog heroes, it is the equivalent of Einstein telling me I I’m smart…beyond. When I saw that he had credited me with inspiring him to write THAT, it felt pretty much the same as when I saw my name as an author in the Washington Post. Call it ego or a somewhat dysfunctional need for recognition, (both are true), but it made me deliriously happy.
So, please read his words. To say they will make you think is a gross understatement. To say they will inspire you, even more so.
My reaction is below. A lot to take in on a Sunday morning, but in light of all the madness that has happened the past few weeks, perhaps a bit of reflection and perspective will help.
My Response:
Jesus. I don’t even know where to begin here (Jesus, might not be the best place to start). I have never read anything so unbelievably profound and enlightened, yet accessible and pragmatic…and impossible and maddening. Because I agree with him on so many levels, although could never articulate it so eloquently.
More times than not, it is our fears- of rejection, of pain, of being alone- that drive our behavior, our actions, our “ignorance”. And empathy, god, it just seems like this word is almost antiquated. The ideologies that get thrust upon us on such a colossal scale, shoved down our throats, reiterated at such a rate that they not only become our modus operandi, they drive are words and actions in a way that doesn’t even seem to be on a conscious level. We react, we judge, we declare truths based on ideas that we never took the time to question.
Therein lies the tragic flaw, right? Digging deep into our psyches, questioning what is supposed to be the foundation of our existence, the constants, ‘the truths’, is terrifying and painful and an inconvenient distraction from comfort, as mundane and unfulfilling as that comfort might be. I think this makes empathy next to impossible, unless the recipient of it is a person or people who sync up with our established truths.
But I will say this. I don’t believe the search for our tribe, for finding those people we connect with, love and who love us, is necessarily a hindrance to becoming the warriors we inherently are. I actually think it can be what fuels this process. Loving someone completely, accepting and celebrating their flaws, I believe teaches us what empathy truly is. I think it can also ground us in a way that gives us the strength to ‘go to battle’ and the courage to do this, not with traditional weapons, but armed with the capacity to look beyond the tactics of those who seek to inflict pain on others and see the origins of what motivates them to do so. I think if we have experienced love in the truest, purest sense, we can empathize with the fact that everyone, at the end of the day, truly just wants to experience love. Isn’t this the universal thread that unites us? So many are denied this or don’t see that they are worthy of it. Perhaps committing these horrific acts comes from a belief that they will attain love and acceptance with their actions in the name of whomever, whether it is in this realm, or in a world they believe lies beyond.
Please be very, very clear, I am not in anyway justifying these acts. I believe the perpetrators have swallowed someone else’s truth. Regardless of what you believe, causing any other being pain is anything but ignorant, it is the antithesis of humanity, it is the antithesis of love. And yes, I hate them for it. I am human, after all, and I am an empath by nature. But, meeting them with aggression, killing innocent people, dropping bombs on countries and annihilating the very ones who could counter and overcome those who have forgotten their essence, its asinine and clearly ineffective, to say the very least.
So what do we do? We go within, as our author so beautifully concluded. We start with discovering our truth, what makes our hearts full and gives our lives purpose. We treat our tribe with the love, compassion and kindness that we so desperately want to receive in return. And if we don’t get these things in return, we try to understand that they are fighting their own battles.
Most importantly, we continue to fight our own and try like hell to love ourselves in the process. We start there and hope that one day our intentions, our benevolent actions, will reach our fellow budding warriors who have forgotten who they are and why they are here, why we are all here….to embrace or inner warrior, to fight for our truth, and above all, to love.
I’m struggling a bit with all of this.
Writing in general. sharing all of this, exposing my mess. This blog is the thing that brings me the most joy these days, but I can’t help but wonder, am I killing you? Are you so over hearing me bleed? I know I am. But shit, I’m still bleeding a little bit.
So I admittedly went into publishing mode, which I certainly don’t think is a bad thing. It makes me happy to see my words out there in a forum that can reach more people. I love seeing people’s comments, even if they aren’t positive…at least I made them feel something. And I’m not going to lie, it’s pretty amazing to see my bio hanging out down there below an article published in the Washington Post. I’m only human.
But then I come back to this, to you: this community that has grown into something akin to a family, kindred spirits who offer me brief glances into your lives. I get to learn your beautiful stories, one post at a time. It feeds my soul on a daily basis. And your writing!! It blows my mind, and I can’t believe you actually want to read mine. But now, I have this crazy fear you’ll stop wanting to. Because goddammit, I’m tired. I’m tired of being sad. I’m tired of writing about being sad. And I can’t help but think that you have to be tired of reading about sad. But I haven’t quite arrived at happy yet, so what the hell do I write about?
On a side note, for you poor souls who think going on a second or third date is a good idea, I have discovered a full proof method to ensure that we definitely won’t. Just say something to this effect:
So I think you should write about…I don’t know, something happier, like your travels or maybe how you are getting through all of the pain…something that might inspire people, maybe give them hope…
Really? You’re joking, right? Because I seem to recall you telling me that is why you loved my writing in the first place. ‘It’s so honest, raw, engaging, bold…’.
Regardless, I’m just not quite at a place where I’m ready to conjure up my favorite memory from childhood, or from Spain or France or Colombia. I will someday, I have countless. But until I’m in the mindset to write about those memories with the same authenticity and passion I can about the not-so-happy parts, then they will remain unwritten.
In the meantime, I have a bit more bleeding to do.
But I am curious, are you requesting happy because it makes you more comfortable? Is it because, if we did actually start dating, someone you know might read what I write and question why I’m still so sad and heartbroken if we are dating? Shouldn’t I be ‘over it’? Shouldn’t I be happy because I’m with you?
Or maybe you really do just want to read something happy. I totally get it. My favorite new blog, The Incurable Dreamer, is my favorite precisely because it makes me laugh. The author’s writing is honest, raw, engaging…and it’s hilarious. I laugh out loud. And I also cry. Because parts do make my heart hurt, mainly because I can completely relate to her, and because she writes so brilliantly that I feel like am her, in the place where she is, seeing what she sees, and feeling what she feels.
I love it precisely because she does what I so want badly to make others do….she makes me feel.
So apologies if this comes across as bitter, or if it makes you uncomfortable. I want you to feel how you feel, and I want to know what that is, even if it isn’t always what I want to hear.
I won’t, however, write what you will always want to read. And in my defense, I try to set a tone, even throw out a warning in the beginning, to give you a head’s up if what I wrote is going to be especially brutal.
This present state will eventually subside and give way to the me who almost always has a smile on her face and a positive spin on shit situations. She’s still here, you’ll see glimpses of her in even the most tragic posts, but you have to look a little closer sometimes. And you might actually have to feel something…
So, you have been warned.
Not as light-hearted as the last one, clearly, but I guess there has to be dark in order for there to be light…. 🙂
The latest new and improved article published in Thought Catalog. Hope you enjoy it!
Summoning Magic: A Gypsy's Tale 