"Belonging. What does that mean? As David Whyte discovers in his extraordinary book 'crossing the unknown sea', we feel the gravitational pull towards the centre of our being the more we begin to live following the truth of who we are.
We are living in a time when our sense of who we are and the bigger, truly existential question, of where do we belong, to what and whom, grows more urgent. Does belonging depend upon the colour of our skin, our religion born into and/chosen, our class, status, income bracket? Does it ripple out from the families we create and choose? Our vocation, careers, work? How we invest our time? Where we place our attention, a laser beam of luxury, freedom and privilege where we can pick at, like a buffet, and serve ourselves plates of what feels familiar, comforting and safe. Is it enough to say we belong to the human race anymore? And then look away, busy ourselves with matters closer to home, half blinded by the understandable helplessness that strikes another human. Another life. Another world. What does it mean to belong? By simply being born, and that's a whole other story or stories, we are part of a conversation of belonging to life each other and the world. By who we are. By the words that we speak. By the actions we take. The course we traverse willingly or with great grudge. By the work that we do. By the art, words, and expression that we offer. It's all a part of the great living conversation. The conversation of belonging. When we do not add to this conversation, for fear of the repercussions, we live a life crouched down, a life squinted and misshapen. We cower away, not desiring to rock the boat, the ocean liner, that carries us on the greater voyage of belonging, destination unknown. The boat marked 'in this together'..." (Published to Elephant Journal. To continue reading head here :-))
0 Comments
Every living thing has desire running through it. The desire for life. The desire to create. The desire to become, grow, and thrive. It is a powerful force that can manifest into rich creativity in all areas of our life, art, business, and relationships. It is an instinctual, natural force, rooted in our innocence of being, and from our soul's yearning. Desire is the seed spark for all creative ideas, stories, art, projects, adventures, and together with commitment (see 'C is for Commitment': https://youtu.be/YMo7dOcMeGI :-)), creates a magnetic force that attracts life towards us! Healthy desire helps us to grow, and feels satisfying, and has a fullness, and embodiment, about it. It is instinctual, literally arising from our belly, body, bones, breath, blood, and our heart. It is our truth desiring to be expressed into form! We can hold many beliefs around desire though, and this can cause us to shrink or squash or ignore our natural desires through fear, judgement and shame. It is worth exploring your relationship with desire in your life. Is it an honouring one? An approving one? Are you able to give full reign and permission to allow desire to flow through you? As part of the 'An A to Z guide to being a creative genius', I have created this week's video on 'D is for Desire'. Check it out my lovelies! :-) If you enjoyed this video then do please like it, subscribe to my channel as i intend to post a new one each week, and do share with your fellow creative geniuses! :-)
So much creative rock 'n soul love to you. HH, The Creative Genius xx I burn.
I burn with the fire of words escaping like flints that violently spark red and heated from my fingertips. Wired like charges from what my heart needs to say. In a way I don’t know what my heart needs to say but it needs to say something. We all have a voice, that still small voice that runs like God’s prayer within and through us, a veined cable of electric current; a current that links and bridges the truth of the divine that holds each cell a vibrant alive particle that makes us a living breathing Frankenstein creation of madness. There’s a madness that runs riotous within us. A madness that is in fact our genius. It causes us to squint and squirm if it doesn’t have its time unleashed to growl wolf and bare its fangs and let the slobber that foams at its mouth fall in globs and drips and piles of wet moist stickiness down our chin. What is this rabid frenzy? What does it want from us? Freedom. It’s our freedom and it wants to run and roam untethered. Many of us have a problem with this wild feral voice. Many of us have a wounding nestled deep down in our throats, a cork stopper of nicety and good girl/boy-ness, that swallows up the words, the voice, that threatens to upset the apple cart of Eve coated sugar and pour a bitter-sweetness out on to the city streets. I question what it is I need and the bile rises to be belched out. Not at him or you or something to pin the donkey tail of blame on to. Oh no. Blame and shame keep us spinning headless chicken like, plucking feathers out of integrity’s nest. We all have a right to our anger. When our boundaries have been blurred by neglect and carelessness and the allowing of another’s punch of dishonour to wind us of who we are. I have been learning about my boundaries these last few years. Learning where the frayed edges cower back afraid. Afraid to say No. Afraid to say yes to what is my truth. Tell the truth my teacher says. Tell the truth. I read some words recently, by Herman Hesse, one of those quotes that bound about like whores all over the place. But this one choked me up and especially one line. This line: “My story isn’t pleasant, it’s not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories; it tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.” Who no longer want to lie to themselves. We live a lie each and every time we do not say no. We live a lie each and every time we know, and god damn how we always know, and open our mouths then shut em close like a goldfish blinking complicit in its own demented memory loss. We live a lie each and every time we betray our own soul, our own worth, our own truth, to become a pawn in the porn soul selling for the admission of another’s momentary thrill and pleasure. And we live a lie each and every time we make that choice, we topple over, into diminishing ourselves for the god forsaken validation and supposed ‘love/not love’ of another. Guilty. I’m guilty. Guilty as charged. Guilty and yet not gilded by guilt nor shame. Guilty and yet oh how I see, post incident, post accident, when the blood and guts have been mopped up and the sirens of emergency have gone back to drama land, and stillness descends once more and there’s only this, just this, just this left to be with. Guilty and yet bowing to the medicine of that gift, another reminder, another choice spilled over on to the wrong side of the road to splatter. And as the dust settles once more the voice arises. The voice of No, the voice vilified by the vice seduced once more on the faux shiny road of addiction. Addiction to the victim that no longer serves. No more, the voice rises full and free. No more. And I let the voice rebuild and re-enliven. And I let the voice be brave in its shaking. And I let the voice rip through the hiding and the denial and the silly folly of the old fool for love/not love. and I let the voice do its surgery on me tending and threading and stitching and pulling together taut its wires to knot back together that which fell apart, this time reinforced with steel so that those rips are stronger, perhaps some of that light that Mr Cohen spoke of, gets inside too. I can only hope. The voice is my doctor and my God right now, my life in its hands. There’s no anaesthetic, no soothing balm, for I must stay awake to its crafting, to its service. And when it is done and the instruments of forgiveness have been put down and its hands of words are empty I can only rest. Rest and surrender, and let the healing happen, the scar a part of my living, my wisdom, curious in the knowing that I cannot, and will not, go there again. No. No. No. |
Heidi Hinda Chadwick
Creativity. Sexuality. Life. Art. Soul. Love. Archives
June 2020
Categories
All
|