Is it a voice?
A passage of words, a diary of keepsakes?
Is it designed to be a different kind of voice,
because it will be heard in a different way?
I guess that’s what I hope for as the stream of energy flows through me and onto every page.
Sometimes I imagine those faces looking at me,
observing the inner dance going on and finding ways to absorb the information.
A channel of light, I like to think.
And I know some of it will meet with resistance and even criticism;
do I care?
What business is it of mine anyway?
But do I care?
Of course I do, could I be anything else but
human on this journey.
I know it is all good teaching though,
I remind myself that it all helps me find ways to improve what I do.
My school teachers would be quite proud of me
– I kid myself;
but there may be some truth in that.
The school report regularly updated
“Caroline could do better”

More effort was needed,
I’ll give them that – well effort  was made in doing things
the only way I knew how to.
But effort for efforts sake, is maybe not the best reason for doing anything.

My mother would not be happy, I am sure.
I imagine her wondering why I didn’t just write a nice story, as I did as a child.
And I would remind her that ‘I am a story and life IS a story and we all live in that play called living.’
Some of us a little closer to the edge of course.
My edge is a precipice close to the sea, where sometimes different beings are buried or lie sleeping.
Yes, that was my dream last night – a recurring dream,
but sometimes the graves are deeper and I have to work a little harder to uncover the sleeping being who lies there.

The dream ties in with the feeling of needing to hold back – as I walk through my life, this story; I begin to feel that pressure of stepping forward as if there is a shroud of energy, making the atmosphere around me heavy and difficult to pass through.
Still, one step at a time, as the aching in my bones and joints yell out, one breath at a time as tiredness try’s to close my eyes to it all,
I know I can bring myself to the other side and move beyond its enforcing control.
One step at a time!

The emotion of course may wish to show itself and that is part of the dance,
the fear and resistance
can have their say,
but cannot be an excuse for stopping dead in those tracks.
Many times I would call to this fear
to lessen its hold on me.
It replies with its usual voice
” but I am one of your very best friends, with out me there would be no journey to explore, nothing to learn from, nothing to move beyond!”
I agree reluctantly and thank my friend called Fear, for reminding me of this and having the good grace to speak out, rather than simply be an observer from the back ground and corners of darkened rooms.
Those areas that I call my ‘shadow’ that will always be some where not so very far away.

Of course in the midst of this my strong and trusty ego flatters herself that she can take charge in those more vulnerable moments and do the work necessary in the world and of course she is right.
She loves that more soulful part of my psyche, the one that every now and again needs time to play in the shadows and drink from the deep pools of forgotten lakes.

But my ego knows that without the delivery of ‘her’ work, all would remain floating on the surface of some obscure little drama pretending that ‘nothing really mattered’, all was as it was meant to be, provided no risks were taken and certainly any kind of ambition would be put firmly to bed.
This she cannot allow to happen!

So as I stir up all these ingredients that are my own stage of heart, body and a rather contemporary mind of more or less than normal function (depending on ones social class or opinion on these matters) it becomes very clear to me that I might just as well get on with it and rather than worry or drop into the possibility of feeling any level of shame – which of course if one starts to  be concerned about what others think then the only emotion to explore IS shame –

I know it is better to make and leave my mark,
leaving something behind after my death than just pretend that I feel nothing at all, even though all the time my own little dance knows better.

And that dance, though moving through its own heaviness now and again
certainly gives this kind of voice a great topic to channel its information from
and without it, maybe not that much would really be brought to life and offered
as a different kind of poetry
for a similar kind of mind as my own.

For sure the rumblings that emerge in these writings
do often come from an un-still mind and the wanderings of a lonely heart,
for this is the way of many melancholic minds
who  awaken quite frequently out of some of the deepest sadnesses
and moments of grief,
into the astoundingly beautiful life we live and simply wonder
how the human race became so unbelievably ridiculous,
themselves included,
they retreat once more into the depths of the heart and soul to gather up the medicine ways of the mind,
the poetry and the dances that is an outlet for those same hidden depths,
seeking the truth of our own existence.

From ~ ‘The Circle, The Fire & The Phoenix’

written by Caroline Carey