Guiding and Healing Messages in Poetry

 

Diminished

Diminished! Diminished!

The  wind calls out as it passes by,

tugging at my weathered bark,

urging me to cry: 

 

I was once  a flowery beacon,
for all the world to stop and praise 

but I lost all my precious blossoms

to the weather's   wicked ways.

The fruit  my limbs  once proudly bore,

thinking it was mine,

was swept away by greedy hands

for someone else's wine.

Leaves that danced in lively costume

against an Autumn sky,

have crinkled up, have fallen

and have so sadly  died.

My arms now bare and empty

reach up into the atmosphere

and as a  ghostly form of less than

my silhouette will so appear.

Diminished! Diminished !

The wind calls out as it passes by,

tugging at my weathered bark,

urging me to cry:

I  will  no longer cry out my wrath or

my need to make it right.

I  will just bow my weary head

and exhale remaining fight.

What I had  is gone now.

I stand in my new pathetic  form.

Naked, exposed and all alone

I am vulnerable to the storm.

Yet as the earth below me chills

and freezes with the frost,

I feel my roots open within the ground

and know that I was never lost.

Diminished! Diminished !

The wind calls out as it passes by,

tugging at my weathered bark,

urging me to cry:

There is a healing within me there

coursing through the veins,

opening up to allow what simply is

to free me from my chains.

This Life force travels up into my trunk

and to the very tips of what I knew,

replacing the  surface illusion

with what is surely true.
 

 "I am." My branches cry out with joy as

I bend  to Life's  true song.

"It is as it is", the wind calls back

and it happily sings along .

Diminished?  Diminished?...

It may appear to the eye that does not see

but  the Self within me knows,
that loss has set me free.

Dale-Lyn , February 2020

I felt compelled to share that poem, written when I felt the heart wrenching realization of what getting sick without support had cost me: the stripping away of financial stability and professional roles that helped to create this costume I wore. It was a slow and painful diminishment, the physical world cost of which carried on for years taking me to the point I am at now. Yet, through it I was able to see the gift in such a "diminshment". 

And this following poem was writtem when I had to make a decision about leaving work a second time to preserve my health enough to parent effectively at a very trying time. I knew that the insurance company would be even less likely to support me the second time because that would mean retroactive support for the first time I went off. The only reason I went back when I did in between these two times was because I knew I couldn't go another year without a cent of income, as I was doing. I was determined to push past symptoms. I wasn't strong enough to do that. At the same time the body and psyche were battling over what would be best for this family in the long run, the Higher Self within already knew what I had to do. It was no longer just a question of physical survival but a pull towards Something Greater. 

No one can take that away from me.

Ego Hisses

whispers from that place of secrets
become screams in my ears
twisting, turning messages that
express the truth I fear
I suddenly decide to listen
to stop, head stilled to the side
while I decipher all the wisdom
and put away my pride

ego hisses at me with its
desperate pleading cries
to ignore the truths I’m offered
calling them foolish, new age lies
it warns me of the darkness
the desolation I will face
if I go forward with these directions
and leave this warm, familiar place

yet I find myself moving onward
pushing ego’s carcass to the floor
and taking slow, hesitant steps
I move through the open door

I don’t know what I will be facing
what is on the other side
but I know the door has been opened
and it is open very wide.

Dale- Lyn, Nov 2013

All is well!