Thursday, February 6, 2014

a fleeting moment

i don't even know how to begin here without sounding like
i went off the deep end.

so here's a disclaimer -
no one need worry, or call in the professionals -
i really am okay.

have i mentioned here that 'shame school' got changed to 'beauty school'??

i hope i've mentioned that as that's important.
it seemed like an important shift.
pretty good, huh?

thing is - there's a lotta shame roots to deal with, right?
and i've been tryin' to do some of that while at the same time lookin'
at the beauty inside me, and work on fillin' up with good feelings.

i didn't want to just sit in shame.
that didn't seem like a smart plan.

so i worked on feelin' good.

but then i got a setback.

poof.

sittin' smack in a puddle of shame.

setbacks can be rough.
and this one had me whirling inside.
i wasn't ready for it.
but then...who is ever ready for a setback?
that's why we call them setbacks.

the voice in my head was tellin' me i was handicapped.
like i was damaged and wouldn't be able to get this stuff down.

yeah.
how's that for a great voice?

and here's the thing - i wasn't able to argue with it.
i was believing it.

and now, i am totally convinced there's a gentle presence wrapped around me
thru all of this.

because as i was struggling with feeling handicapped,
i got an opportunity to open my heart in a way i could really see it.

it opened for a bit in a way that was so pure, so loving, so full of beauty -
and i saw it.

i saw it.
clearly.

now, of course, those moments are holy and rare - and fleeting.
but i got one.

and i cried.
cause in that moment i knew i wasn't damaged.
i knew i wasn't handicapped.

and while it didn't take long for my heart to go back to the every day way -
which has moments of great love, moments of complete fumbling love, and
moments of closing - i understood that was okay.

cause i saw my heart in one holy moment.
and i knew i could believe in it.

i am bringing that in to beauty school with me.
my heart.

and i think that's gonna help a lot.

4 comments:

linda marie said...

This is so me...

Merry ME said...

Hey Ter,
Reading your post I'm reminded of the Japanese art of mending cracked pottery with gold. Turning the "damaged vessel into a work of art" Perhaps all of us are a little damaged, or handicapped, or cracked. It's what we do with the cracks that count, right? You are working through the shame crack. I wouldn't be surprised to see some gold veins running through there soon.

I know I've read about this somewhere else. And I don't recall it being called kintsugi. But here's something I found when I googled it.

The image is accompanied by a few lines about Kintsugi, the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with gold-imbued resin.

With this process—said to have been invented at the behest of a fifteenth-century shogun, dismayed when a cherished piece of cracked porcelain was mended with ugly metal staples—a damaged vessel is transformed from something to be discarded into a work of art.

The process makes no attempt to hide the crack, but incorporates it as a design element into something simultaneously broken and strengthened by the break.

Love you my friend.

terri st. cloud said...

i'm hoping you saw that heart of yours, linda marie! :)

terri st. cloud said...

merry, that is an AWESOME image! thank you so much for typing that out. never heard of that! thank you!