The rain has finally come back to the West Coast. I actually missed it. Rain is a part of our life blood here. It's a mirror image of our identity. We complain about it, we embrace it, reject and love it.
With the rain come along the ashen clouds. It's like I'm crawling back to my own body. Like it's time to cocoon again, to hide away and emerge in the spring as another self.
I have so many thoughts in my head these days.
There's a person that scares me. He comes floating in on his own raft, carrying his regret between his legs and my heart cautions me against opening things too early. I'm stepping back into the wilderness, submerging with the foliage until I'm nothing but a part of the woods again. The world, the universe, sends me the oddest messages these days. I interacted with another messenger of death the other day, he kissed my hand and stole my safety again. I can only surmise what this means.
I have no choice but to be continually shielded, to put up barriers, to be strong all the time. Being strong all the time is exhausting. But I do it for myself, to make sure that I am no longer stripped of myself, my essence, my presence, my light. The important thing (and I must remind myself of this all the time) is that I'm trying to flourish, to root inside myself my own garden, to bring back all the things that all those people took from me. My dignity, my innocence, my magic, my safety, love.
And that's the hardest one. The one with the most risk involved.
So I continue to cultivate this garden within myself. I create my own love, my own magic. I am the creator, the alchemist, of my experiences. I bring to life these flowers and plants that will adorn my soul. I can walk through this garden for as long as I like. I can close off this Eden to all outsiders. I can fall in love with those parts of me that were broken. I can embrace my existence. Isn't that the point of all of it, anyways?
To fall into yourself.
To rest in yourself.
To heal yourself.
To love yourself.
To undo all the things they taught you, the things you learned when you didn't know better. The things that hurt and took you away from yourself. And redoing it on your own terms.
The rain comes to cleanse the land, to cleanse my being. I cast off all these shadows and doubts (slowly, in time) and come to that place again where all the healing began, a spot in my heart where I rooted myself in selfish protection. And I keep flourishing.
“You are the best. You are the worst. You are average. Your love is a part of you. You try to give it away because you cannot bear its radiance, but you cannot separate it from yourself. To understand your fellow humans, you must understand why you give them your love. You must realize that hate is but a crime-ridden subdivision of love. You must reclaim what you never lost. You must take leave of your sanity, and yet be fully responsible for your action."
- Gnarls Barkley
