On going soft in the head

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Esme Upon the Cloud, feelings, Hariod Brawn, head, humanity, inspiration, life, love, Lovingkindness, Metta, Mickie, Oxford, reflections, relationships, soft, thoughts

Esme Upon the Cloud said this:
“I love how this starts, you set the scene so well that the reader is right there on that road in Oxford with you and Mickie; but moreso how it suddenly blooms into joy with a sudden awareness of love. Of metta”

And because I couldn’t have put it any better, Hariod, I have used her words to introduce your excellent post on ‘metta’. I am so pleased that in some small way I was able to inspire you to write this – thank you. Metta.

contentedness.net

Jessica. By Thomas Hawk, San Francisco — The homeless girl with love in her eyes.

It was during a balmy mid-afternoon in Central Oxford that I and my friend of some 20 years’ standing gingerly negotiated a crossing of the busy street that had first been lain a millennia ago during Saxon times — then a loosely set cobbled carriageway running northwards up from the ford of the oxen at Grandpont, some half mile or so distant along adjoining St. Aldates. The year was 1992 and a palpably self-satisfied, Thatcher-hewn metropolitan hum of affluence pervaded the air in equal measure to the oppressive diesel fumes belching from the buses and taxis that laboured and lurched their way along Cornmarket Street towards Carfax, twixt which our body’s wove, breathing in unnatural rhythms, yet mysteriously embracing the effluvium with bare arms and wide open hearts, unburdened neither by concerns nor the otherwise ubiquitously lugged, logo-laden…

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What if?

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chance, changes, Chevvy8, coincidence, dreams, fate, FGM, journey, path, reflections, relationships, serendipity, soul, travel

FGM may I introduce you to Chevvy8? I’m not sure if this is a coincidence …
What if it isn’t a coincidence? What if …?

What ifs

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alternatives, chance, changes, Chevvy8, choices, coincidence, destiny, fate, freedom, journey, prison walls, reasons, reflections, relationships, stars, travel

Thank you Chevvy. This is lovely and relevant on so many levels for me and especially the 4th line of the second verse. I hope ‘What If’s’ resonates with others too …

Approval

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acceptance of self, analogy, approval, birth, control, definition, denial, dictionary, family, guilt, mental health, metaphor, seeking approval, self-love, shame, siblings

Why do we seek approval?  Should we pay for it, and how much should we pay?  Is it cost effective, and if it is not why do we urgently seek it out, and if it is, why is it that it seems that there is not enough of it to go around?  Approval, how about we strike it from the dictionary completely and see if it is missed, and then contemplate the lives that have been affected by this word, a word which in itself begs for the very thing it may deny others.

As soon as we are born, although we do not know it, are not aware of it, we become the subject of approval: to be thought well of, commend, authorise, so the definition says, and that stays with us, weaving its way through our lives, lives depending on it, lives failing by it, lives denied by it, lives controlled by it, lives foiled by it, lives sadly wiped out by it.

We require approval from our parents from a very early age, and at that stage it makes us feel. Feelings and approval: cousins, sisters, brothers, it cannot be denied, these two are related and like siblings, first cousins, step children, they do not always get along.  They tussle, they squabble, they fight, they vie for parental affection, believing that they are the first among equals.  But sadly this is not so, because as we know, no parent loves one sibling more than the other.  Or so they lead us to believe.  But we know, approval tells us so!

Later on, when we are older, bolder, approval hangs around like a boulder: huge, solid, unmovable, it dictates the way we should go.  Approved of, we feel nurtured, loved and accepted.  Disapproval on the other hand, based on faulty premises, leaves us feeling like orphans, un-loved, un-accepted, lacking, unseen, in some cases, guilty and ashamed.

We need approval.  It appears to be essential for a life well lived.  But in order to live a life with no regrets, the only approval worth investing in, is the approval we give ourselves.  Let’s keep that word in the dictionary and approve its existence but with the proviso that it includes not only approval from others, but above all approval from ourselves for ourselves in order to live our best life.

~Marie Williams 2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guidance

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communication, compassion, emotion, fears, flowers, harmony, healing, heart, journey, metaphor, nature, poetry, prose poetry, self-knowledge, therapy

Image: Google Images

Guidance

When I’m floundering fixedly on facing fears; fully aware of my shortcomings, I find you pointing proudly in the direction that I should go. Don’t you know that if I go, I go with the knowledge that I am not enough out there on my own? My needs are not necessarily manifold, but many are they and they won’t go away without first feeding that part of me which hungers for your staunch support; stepping in line with me.

So when you point, please don’t point with those elegant finely forbidding fingers. Instead, firmly hold my hand, grasp it lovingly and lead me along the path where the bluebells grow, dancing in freshly fallen snow, in the chill wind of April’s noon-day sun.

~mew

The Flowering Vine: A Letter to Our White Great-Grandfather

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ancestry, black, colour, family, granddaughter, great grandfather, impact, inspiration, legacy of slavery, letter, life, mixed-race, offspring, reflections, relationships, white, Writing

Wow Lady G! What an amazing letter to your white grandfather. I don’t know if I could have worded this as well to my own white great, great grandfather, so can I say I echo your sentiments?
Thank you for sharing, this is so bitter-sweet…

Soul Lessons

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forgiveness, freedom, healing, letting go, life lessons, pardon, peace, prose poetry, rules, school of life, self-knowledge, trials

“When hate has legislated, love is an act of rebellion”
Source: Origin South African, author unknown

This school is different to other schools that I have ever known. The curriculum is somewhat hazy and is nowhere written down. I’m expected to turn up each day with a smile upon my face, my shoes polished and my laces not undone. My uniform is whatever I choose to wear that day and I cannot say that it is one that others green of eye will be wearing the very next day. So come what may, some unseen force has planned that I should stay in school until all the lessons that I need to learn are well and truly learned.

There are no classrooms in this school and the rules are made up as I go along, they come down heavily upon me even though I feel I’ve done no wrong. No text books grace the library walls however hard I look, and if I enquire about things of which I’m unsure, the advice I’m given arbitrarily is go and look it up! Through many trials I have come. So many doors shut in my face. I am sometimes told by the principal to go at my own pace. And off she walks heels clicking on the floor, with a smirk upon her face, as if to say, my goodness me, will that child never learn.

Today’s lesson is the hardest I have ever had to learn, and still I know that even though to memory I have committed it, tomorrow when I’m asked what are the basic principles of the act of letting go, my already creased brow will furrow and I will stumble as if I didn’t know. But when alone, with no pressure from those who know, I will say quietly to myself:

Forgiveness does not mean that the other person has not really done anything wrong.
Forgiveness does not mean that you have to forget.
What forgiveness means is that you choose to pardon the wrong.
Forgiveness means that your soul is free no longer chained and restrained.
Forgiveness means that you are stronger for the lesson has been learned.

The school bell tolls and I no longer ask for whom.

~ MEW 2016

Florence: Part 2

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daughter, death, emotion, fears, forgiveness, healing, Holy Land. Garden tomb, inspiration, Jerusalem, journal, journey, joy, mother, Redeemer, tranquility

I was overwhelmed by the response I received from writing about Florence. There was such an outpouring of love and compassion on a scale which I had not expected. All of those amazing, wonderful voices that spoke to my post, I want to say a very deep and heartfelt thanks from the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much. I would love it if Florence could have shared in the love and compassion too but sadly she is no longer here. But that does not mean that because she is not here to hear all those wonderful sentiments, she cannot share the love. Florence was my mother. And because I am her daughter a piece of her, a very valuable and precious part of her lives on in me, and so because she did not have a voice while she was a victim of domestic violence, I hope by sharing with you a very poignant time in her life, her voice will speak once again.

Image: Source unknown

Florence, my mother, your once tortured soul I hope rests in peace and I hope that you don’t mind sharing that wonderful day you had in the Holy Land shortly before you left us. I found your journal in amongst your things, and I read about the amazing time you had. You didn’t have many amazing days for longer than I care to say, sadly for you, but I know you treasured life and all it had to give despite facing many dark days. This light-filled day was a blessing to me when I read it and so many were saddened by your experience, that I would like them to know that you experienced joy and you were able to record it so that I would one day find it and share it with others who care for you.

Florence in her own words:

“The tour of the Holy Land is a most exciting and moving experience. The Bible is made alive. It surpassed all my expectations.

During my grown-up years it was always my desire to visit the Holy Land – Christ’s birthplace. Oh I wish I had been there when He walked among men.

Now that I have gone there, I was really overwhelmed by the vastness of the land and the awesomeness of it. I have seen a lot, and I am certain that there was much more to be seen. But the place that had the greatest impact on me was the Garden Tomb where Jesus was supposed to have been laid after His death. I entered the tomb and saw the imprint of His body and as I emerged I glanced upon the wall and saw the words: “He is not here. He is risen” and then I suddenly realised that my Redeemer lives and for a moment I was transfixed.

Then we began to wander through the Garden and the visit was terminated by Holy Communion and prayer. I never experienced such peace in my life. All the tiredness had left me and I felt so relaxed I had to tell my experience to my room-mate when I returned that evening to the hotel. I am so glad I was able to make the journey to Jerusalem because what I saw and heard will linger with me for the rest of my life. We returned home on the 24th February 1996 and our lives have never been the same since that week that was spent in the Holy Land. We stayed at the King’s Hotel in Jerusalem”.

I am pleased to have given my mother a voice. So many of us are unable to use that most precious of gifts for whatever reason. It is such a powerful instrument and with power comes responsibility. The responsibility to use our voices wisely.

~ MEW 2016

We write to “right”, right?

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birth, communication, creativity, death, emotion, expression, fears, harmony, healing, journey, life, poetry, struggle, words, Writing

When we need to feel the way we think we ought to feel, what’s the first thing we look for? We grab a pen and a sheet of paper and we mark that piece of paper with the deep stirrings of our heart. Feelings felt are emotional words which will not rest. Restless, they birth in the mind’s womb, children of (sometimes) unequal bedfellows. Having nothing in common save a lust for life and life at its best, not a life of struggle or unrest. And who does not want to live a life free from encumbrance of sadness, sickness, greed and grief? A life that meanders along a lane of lasting twists and turns and leads you lonely, lost and drowned in sorrows which forever abound.

Those children words in infancy come screaming, raw and red. They hit the paper with a bump. When washed free of literary placenta, they open their eyes and survey their surroundings: their parents if they are fortunate to have two, sigh with relief that they have all their fingers and their toes. They do not dress them in pink or blue, lemon or white they find will do. Those words, those precious longed for words, those words which never required IVF, fertilized by need, born to succeed, they speak the depths of the human heart. They utter the joy, they express delight, they sometimes quarrel noisily and fight. But each and every word that’s born to parents of their need to perform the seemingly endless tasks that life requires is always thankful their child was born.

We write to right the wrongs. We write to speak of our delight. We write to fight. We write for peace. We write to rally our battle cries. We write to herald birth. We write to make a friend of death. We write to champion life.

~ MEW 2016

Sex, Ties and Which Road Do I Take?

Tags

abuse, awareness, bread, commodity, connection, emotion, healing, hurt, journey, love, morality, Oscar Wilde quote, retail, sex, shock, therapy

Warning: this contains controversial subject matter.

“Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.”
― Oscar Wilde

What is it about sex? Why does it catch everyone’s attention in a way that other subjects do not? Let’s face it if you open a newspaper and there is some scandalous snippet about a well-known politician, do your eyes not immediately wander over to what you might perceive to be something juicy, something to gossip about on the telephone, by the water cooler: “Who would have thought it? Yes, and he’s married with three children!” Sex elicits shock, surprise, disbelief, smugness. It questions morality. It excites. It turns you off. It turns you on. It can bring on a headache. Some can take it, others prefer to leave it. Some will only do it if you put a ring on it. Or so Beyoncé would have us believe.

So what is this three letter word all about? Why is it so pivotal? Is it because we cannot exist without it? We can’t exist without the air we breathe, but does talk of “air”, (incidentally another three letter word) impact the human race in quite the same way as sex does? An article on air and an article on sex? Which do you read first? Air or sex? Sin -an old-fashioned word with religious connotations. Sin too is pivotal to the human condition. Who doesn’t sin each day, intentionally or not. Sin excites, shocks and questions morality, but not in the same way as sex does.

We cannot live without sex. It is central to our lives. And if this is the case, why is it not revered? The association with dirt cannot be denied. When I was growing up, my mother could not say the word “sex”. So I was introduced to menstruation, by being given a little pamphlet about it with the warning: “Don’t fool around boys”. That was the extent of my sex education from the woman who gave birth to me. You would have thought that I would have been given more detailed information from someone who had been there, done it, got the “T” shirt – right? So the shy, confused eleven year-old, was left to negotiate her own sexual journey armed with a pamphlet and an ambiguous statement. What exactly did “don’t fool around boys mean”? Don’t appear to be an idiot in the presence of boys? What would a boy consider to be foolish behaviour?

Sex, sadly is also a commodity. This some would say, beautiful expression of connection between two people can be bought, sold, bartered, negotiated, and disposed of. Sex has been reduced to a retail concern, with economic connotations. Just as you can “pop” to Tesco for your bread, milk and potatoes, you can pop out to buy sex too. Both sustain you. But when was the last time you got excited about spending a night in with your loaf of bread? Isn’t sex more satisfying? Especially with a loved one with whom you’ve forged emotional ties.

So what is sex? A beautiful expression of connection or a physical urge which needs to be satisfied? It would appear to be both. A sexual paradox?

And then, there’s abuse. Using sex to ruin a child’s life. Wrong! Forcing yourself on an individual who does not want to be part of your desire to satisfy your own physical urge. Wrong! How can it be acceptable to be irresponsible about sexual gratification if it involves stealing a child’s right to explore their own sexuality in their own time, at their own pace, when they want to? Yet this is what child molesters, paedophiles, and those inclined to this criminal behaviour would want to impose on those of us who find this reprehensible. This is not sex. This is depravity. Make no bones about that. Once you have stolen someone’s innocence, you might as well have killed them. Yes, I know this is unpalatable for many. But it is the reality. I have to shock you. Because I have no other way of stressing the hurt, the pain, the distress, the emotional turmoil, the mental turmoil, the taking of a valuable life. Who knows what that child, young person would have achieved had they not found it necessary to heal that trauma in later life? Hiding away from the world, instead of boldly shining their light.

So I’ve dealt with “sex” and I’ve touched on “ties”. Now you’re wondering what I’m going to say about “which road to take”. It was in fact a play on the words “Sex, Lies and Videotape”, that well known film starring Andie Mcdowell and James Spader. I have nothing more to say than I hope you appreciate my pun.

~ MEW