Shame upon shame upon shame upon…
Did we ever truly feel that shaming someone is the answer? That the high folutin’ squish squash power of a good shaming session will cause anyone to dare to strip away all wrongs and find their right!? What ever kind of thinking, or not thinking, led us to believe that piling on shame would make one a believer in who they are once again? We were not born shame bound. We were not upon immediate inspection immediately expected to twist and turn towards an ideal of idiotic distortion. We were not measured and found not up to the mark. No. That happened later. Perhaps moments later. Shame upon shame upon shame upon… Two wrongs dont make a right. They take away our right. Our right to breathe. Our right to dream. Our right to roam free. Our right to walk side by side. Our right to our very place of existence on existing before its time to exit once more. No one life is better than another. No one being gets a gold plated, Jesus blessed, angel juiced, holy molly fuckin star from God! Despite what those religious bindings have told us, carelessly whispering our forever sins, marked by the DNA of our ancestors, who knows whether being sinners or saints, visions of goodliness or scoundrels of pariah. Shame upon shame upon shame upon… Original sin. Leave them to paradise. Of pleasure. Of nature. Of original naked nature. Rumi told of a field. Out beyond ideas of right or wrong doing. I’ll meet him there later. You coming to? Perhaps it’s paradise lost. Found. Shame upon shame upon shame upon… We get very good at hiding. Hiding and swallowing down. Swallowing down seeds of bitterness and regret. Seeds of truth momentarily caught in our throat. Caught between speaking our truth and being silenced by shame. Shame seems the easy option at the time. Easy to press delete and censor. Censor to oppress, repress and depress. Depress and destroy the vine of voice and the true of truth. Apples go bad. They rot inside. We get indigestion, no longer able to stomach the wrong inside. Shame upon shame upon shame upon… Whatever happened to forgiveness? Whatever happened to seeing through the eyes of learning? Whatever happened to kindness over cruelty? Whatever happened to truth over tyranny? Whatever happened to singing the songs of our bones, our blood, our belly, our body, our bold beingness borne from the bounty of life. Of love. Shame upon shame upon shame upon… Peel the layers back. Spit out the forbidden fruit. It won’t bite it has no teeth. For shame can only rob us when we keep it hidden, keep us hidden. Light is inside the dark. Dark is the ground for all light. Be. Be ugly. Be beautiful. Be bad. Be good. Be mistaken. Be wrong. Be generous. Be a git. Be foolish. Be willing to know better. Be ballsy. Be a coward. Be naive. Be lost. Be all. Be it all. So fucking what! Shame only wants us in its club because we think you have to be perfect. That we have to get it right. That we have to fit in. That we can’t say that, do this, think like who we are. Shame upon shame upon shame upon… Pull off the scales of arid armour. Lay down our arms. Be in not knowing who the fuck we are and how the hell did we get here! Press our nakedness against I dont know and stay there. Strip ourselves bare. Bear ourselves stripped. What they told us ain’t the truth. Listen to the seed. The seed that came before they started to shame us. Maybe, only moments, after we were born. Aho X
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"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 :-)) |
Heidi Hinda Chadwick
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