the wildest wave alive
Among the half-dead trees, I came upon the true ease of
myself,
As if another “person” appeared out of the depths of my
being,
And I stood outside myself,
...
A something wholly other,
As if I swayed out on the wildest wave alive...
Theodore Roethke
Last summer,* I caught myself faking a laugh, feeling an
empty non-direction. My alone-ness stained by loneliness. After several decades of being a mother, painter, a life-skill coach, living an introverted life was freshly
soul-satisfying. Finding time to write,
travel, and sit on a desert mesa alone brought me sweetness. Yet this past
year, I recognize some “half-dead trees” of my own. What makes me alive one
season and not the next? Reading Roethke’s poem I wondered where is my “wildest
wave alive”? Where is that which teases me with mystery, love, and a larger
presence?
I consider myself reflective. I think I know myself - my
likes, wants, thinks, and feels. Yet maybe my self-definitions are too
small. Are these the source of my dull
cast? When I think back to the
sweetness, it’s the unexpected energy that breaks forth from my inner being
which excites me - gives me my creative edge, entertains me.
Sometimes this new aliveness surges in so gradually, I only
recognize it in hind sight. Other times
it crashes in. However the arrival, this energy is a fresh place to live, a
place of new decisions, new directions. I
become an observer, playing “catch up” because my likes of last season have
changed this summer. The tear drop is a little sweeter, a book once read
suggests a different meaning, and the color brown now is purple.
To be alive, is to be ever creating. Like the tsunami
gathering it’s power deep in the ocean depths, ever moving undetected until it breaks
on shore. My spiritual self has thankfully gathered undetected, thrusting me
beyond my self-definition; my stories of who I think I am. Riding this wild wave, I am discovering this
summer that the grasses between my toes are actually toes feeling back.
No comments:
Post a Comment