The posts you read here are AI Free, unadulterated, raw, authentic and vulnerable. I challenged myself to write a free verse first thing every morning before I journal. Letting the words flow without edit or critique. In addition I decided a daily image shall accompany the piece, taken that same morning – unedited, simple and pure.
Time…
Elusive and quiet
Yet poignantly consistent
It ticks past with no concern
It tocks while your head is turned
In a blink you realize your children are grown
You are no longer a child
And the gray hair is real…
At other moments it excruciatingly lingers
Mocking the pain, loss and hurt
A jester with the full deck of cards…
How we dance with time is the trick
Can we surreneder
Let go of our addiction to its control???
In the free fall space between
A sweet suspension offers itself
Here I hold my breath
Will it see me?
Will it hear me?
Will it smell me?
Or can I go unnoticed, quietly stealing an extra tick tock…
A precious moment to linger in the arms of a lover
To gaze into the smiling face of a child
To joyfully listen to the sound of laughter
The call of a whippoorwill
To soak in the setting sun and rising moon
To just BE…
Those moments are rare
They taunt me with a closed door invitation
Maybe if I hold my breath longer, exhale slower
They will not disappear…
If I manage to wrangle time
It may ruin everything
For then flow would cease to exist
Setting into motion a stagnation I do not want
Okay, I hear you time
I acquiesce
You have your role as do I
I am learning how to honor, respect and play with you in a new light
The hour glass of life is what makes it such a grand adventure
Timeis a funny thing, it is slippery, invisible and elusive. I stare out my window, watching the summer leaves dance in the hot breeze. What does that feel like? To be stationary and at the mercy or celebration of all that is around you. A reactionary component of the big picture. Often ignored, barely noticed by the person walking by on the sidewalk. Like an individual leaf, each person floats in a world of billions. We are tossed and turned upon the breezes created by others and ourself. We react or obseeve, we cry or laugh, dance or stand frozen in the quick sand of our own indecision.
What drives us, calls us, whispers to our very soul? Can we hear? Do we listen? Are we so numbed and stuck that like the leaf we stay even though our heart beckons us to move. A victim of our own paralysis. We put our dreams upon the shelf with the other knick knacks, letting them gather dust, becoming regrets lost in time.
Dreams dance upon the wind of our heartbeat, they sparkle in the light of our imagination, and beckon in a quiet whisper…
Patience, time, faith, belief and persistence keep the spark of a dream alive. Like the farmer who plants the seed knowing that with consistent nurturing the tiny nugget will blossom into a magnificent plant. Too often we are impatient, we give up, let go and deny ourselves the opportunity to believe in the dreams that stir deep within.
I often meet people who say, “well I don’t have any dreams,” or “someday I will go for it,” or “I can’t possibly follow my dreams right now, I have all these responsibilities…” I myself have mouthed such phrases. Thank goodness the tiny voice inside never gives up. The child within me always believes, sadly sometimes I gag her wisdom and pretend I cannot hear her haunting call.
Who knows what shall grow when we believe, nurture and cultivate the seeds of our soul…
Today I sit here smiling at all the little side paths I have enjoyed in my life. Little adventures to keep the wandering spirit in me alive and curious. In high school it was to be an exchange student, my year in Australia was incredible! Last year I moved to a farm to intern, learning so much about myself, farming, and rekindling my inquisitiveness about the world around me. In college I could never decide what I wanted to be when I grew up. It took me twenty-eight years, four campuses and over 240 credits to “finish” my bachelors degree. I have loved following my muse into diverse jobs, exploring new places and spaces. Yes, my inner sprite has joyfully kept me open and engaged with the dance of life.
Growing up I was taught that life is a linear experience, you do this, then this, and then.., all of it focused on some destination in the future. Why?I have asked this question my whole life. Why?What?Why do we put such emphasis on tomorrow instead of being present today. Why do we spend so much time achieving instead of enjoying the journey. What is that destination? What will I feel when I get there?
Life is an invitation to question, explore, investigate, play, imagine, believe, create….
Gratefully I gave up on that paradigm, well maybe I never believed in it. My curious, inquisitive nature could not be held to the worn and trodden path. There is nothing wrong with this path, for many it creates and offers immense joy and pleasure. For me it felt like being caged, confined, and tamed. That’s what glorious about our individuality, like the leaf on the tree outside, we are each rare and extraordinary.
Time... hmmm…how do we want to live in the time we have? We do not get it back. It does not slow down. Personally I find it to be ambiguous in nature, sometimes frozen and suspended, at other moments it’s a speed zone, blurred and lost in the rearview mirror. Before my time is up, I invite the dreams from within to find their operatic voice, it’s time to enjoy the blossoming of seeds planted years ago…
Dreams are not about what we do, they are about how we feel as we bring them to life…
I close today wondering how you –
Spend your time?
Live life? In reaction or choice?
Engage with your dreams?
Dance with contentment, joy, love?
Paint your life canvas – is it your paintbrush or someone else’s?
Watch for my upcoming online courses and the opportunity to work with me – Dream Whisperer and Beingness Guide.
Her eyes sparkle with joyful trust, her feet skip with abandoned freedom, her voice rises with no apology and her hands reach for the dust that dances with her in the glittering sunlight. She is free and wild an ecstatic expression of the bliss which always is…
Life is dancing dust particles – floating dreams that point the way…
Her face was lined from years of living. Her eyes danced, bursting with memories etched like fireworks on a dark night. Her smile beckoned one to sit and listen. Her legs no longer danced, they lay bent and disfigured on the bed with raw open bed sores seeping at her hip joints. Her vibrant spirit encircled you the moment you stepped into her space, there was no victim in this room, no woe is me, instead one was greeted with dynamic passion, simple happiness, and a peacefulness that gently kissed you on the cheek.
Life is but a blink, gaze into the infinite possibilities…
Who are the “her’s” I speak of? The first is me, dancing in my childhood living room, chasing the sun dust I stirred up with my exuberant joy. The second “her” is a divine woman I was blessed to care for in a nursing home years ago. Her aliveness, grace, peace, and love still dance in my memory. She and others I cared for knew a truth, as did the child in me.
What did they know?
They knew that happiness, love, peace and contentment always exist.
They knew that it did not exist in things outside themselves.
They knew that it was accessible in all moments.
They knew that no one could give it to them, yet they lovingly shared it.
They knew it was a choice.
The years and space between innocent curious childhood and the wisdom of one’s latter years is full of “shoulds”, “comparisons”, “judgments”, and the measuring of the self against a society often ruled through fear and distrust. I do not have to sit very long in a cafe before I can hear someone criticizing themselves or attacking someone else. Stories swirl around like the sound of the espresso machine, surging with blame, shame, hurt, victimhood and discontent. It breeds like the flies on the patio tables, snatching up every scrappy morsel to add fuel to why their life is so miserable.
Why do humans choose this?
A question I have pondered since I was five years old.
Why do we let go of our passionate desires to instead choose to fly someone else’s kite?
Why do we slam the door on the pure potential of joy?
Why do we kick happiness to the curb, to welcome and invite stressful frustration?
Why do we say “have to” instead of “get to”?
Why do we choose going through our days and moments on auto-pilot, waiting for someone or something else to make us better?
Do we prefer to wait, to lie on our deathbed watching the autobiographical movie of regret?
Why do we look in the mirror with such self contempt, as young children we loved our reflection?
I ask all of this with curiosity and a desire to understand.
In my sophomore year of college I was blessed to work at an international daycare. Here I witnessed children from all over the world. They danced, played, laughed and cried, living their moments very presently. They saw the world as a frontier to be explored. I sensed that the older children were on the fringe of losing this curious wonderment for life. In their play I observed them mimicking adults, their eyes would change, their jaw would set tightly, their voices would take on a serious tone. The joy, spontaneity, compassion and kindness evaporated, leaving behind a robotic body, controlled by the “taught” mind.
The fleeting metamorphosis…
Three years after working in a daycare, I found myself working in a nursing home. Here I discovered the grace and vengeance of aging. I was gifted to share time with souls who lived a full passionate life and others who were embittered with regret. The extreme chasm between the two slapped me stingingly as I would leave one room to enter another. My heart and soul ached for those fighting their own shadow. They carried their anger and sadness like a suitcase loaded with boulders, burdening their final days. These souls expressed through pinches, punches, and verbal abuse while you assisted them to the toilet, shower or dining hall. Off the clock, I cherished the moments I got to sit and listen to the stories from those celebrating life. Stories of falling in love, having children, riding in a car for the first time and rising above struggle. Reflections of the gentle flow of seasons, years, experiences and the pure grace of a life lived fully.
Precipice of time…
In my forties I found myself teaching language arts to junior high students. Here I witnessed the cross over in technicolor poignancy. A few young people desperately clung to their innocent pure belief that anything is possible, that one could reach for their dreams with unbridled passion. The majority of the students had given up, they did not dream, instead they chased visions of their future painted on the wall by parents and society. They swallowed hard the doses of expectations fed to them with the famous mantra, “When I have lots of money I will be happy, when I get my degree I will be happy, when I buy a house I will be happy, when I marry I will be happy, WHEN I… I will then be HAPPY”.
Ironically the joke is on us, for much of life is lived between the wild child and the wise elder. Thus I am forever grateful for the life altering gift of witnessing snapshots of age through my diverse professional life. They have graced me with an awareness and microscopic view that life is really just a brief sojourn. A brief interlude to experience as I choose.
Today I watch the sun dust with the pure delight of my four year old wonderment, I dance with unlimited joy, for I am not young, nor old, I am in between, kissing each with gratitude for their wisdom.
Today I invite you to join me, breathe deeply into the child you once were before life manipulated you.
Today I encourage you to take back the string to your own kite, feel it dance freely upon the wind.
We may not control the wind, yet we guide the interplay…
I wrote this piece originally over a year ago, today it whispered at me, beckoning me to share in this time of change upon our planet. We all sit unexpectedly in a space of suspended uncertainty. As we float between what was and what is becoming, we are being graced with a crystal ball that plays scenes from childhood, while positioning the paint brush towards a canvas of our elder years. Posed on a precipice, can you hear the whispers of grace and freedom? Or do you cling to the chaos of fear?
The wise gentle elders I was blessed to care for no longer inhabit this plane, yet the way they embraced their journey is written in permanent marker on my heart, soul, and mind. I shall not lie on the bed sores of life embittered and shriveled, I shall dance vibrantly in the sparkling company of dust particles…
A time to dance…
If you ache for some soothing quiet, please enjoy some of my recorded guided meditations at – “Dawn with Fawn”on YouTube channel or read more at The Beingness Project.
Simply Fawn 