Searching for SHE

Searching for SHE in the Poet Tree of Life SHE (soul’s highest expression) is a term I learned about from Ellie Drake, a doctor, female visionary, entrepreneur, and anchor for the Brave Heart Women Global Community. I realized I had been searching for SHE in my poetry. I broke down the word poetry into “poet tree,” because poetry reminds me of the trees. Especially the story of the tree of life and tree of knowledge. We are born with a clean slate, full of life energy: then we grow into a world of knowledge. This is where the challenge begins. We struggle to identify how to exist in two worlds. Trees show us how to exist in two worlds at the same time: a world above ground, where there is light, and a world underground, where secret things are working in the deep darkness of the soil. Both parts are necessary to make up the whole tree. Both the light and the dark sustain the life of the tree. Osho, a profound mystic, shares that if the roots wanted to come into the light, the tree would die. The roots serve a purpose in the depth of the soil nourishing the branches and leaves so they can fully flourish. Our human incarnation is the same. We have light and darkness within us. We accept the light but attempt to deny the dark. We are taught to value the light and detach from the dark because it is frightening to explore and therefore mysterious. We have been taught that seeing is believing, yet there is a pull from the depths of our souls to trust the unseen forces that are underground. These forces are the underlying order of the universe. The reality is, when you accept this truth and explore its nature, your nature, you are healing the split self. You come to realize that the dark nature, like any other aspect of self, requires understanding and acceptance. When you accept yourself as a whole person, the light, dark, and infinite spectrum that exists between, you move into the energy of synergy. I love the word synergy! Synergy is the creation of a whole that is greater than the simple sum of its parts. This is the goal. I write poetry to explore my parts and accept them so I can be whole. This process is a microcosm that will ripple into change for the macrocosm. When parts are denied, there is a hole; when parts are accepted, there is wholeness, and holiness. This is true for the self, the community, and the world. Poetry is a powerful tool for awakening to this truth. Poetry is more than words or rhymes; it is a way of being and seeing. Have you ever witnessed a breathtaking sunset and struggled to put what you experienced into words? The closest fit was, “How poetic.” Have you ever observed your beloved float through a room and thought “That’s poetry?” I equate moments when things seem to flow and are in synch as the SHE of poetry. In those moments, you are fully present and see with the eyes of the soul. This is something your mind wants to try to make sense of in order to label it, but SHE cannot be boxed in. In artistic surrender your SHE if free to use poetry and other art forms to explore, experience, and express fully. This creative flow can deepen our insight and understanding. In this poetic process, words build a bridge from the unconscious mind to conscious awareness. Walking the bridge is a journey from confusion and chaos to clarity and peace. I find the poetic process to be a practice of creative surrender, exploration, aha! moments, and awe. I believe poetry is a way of being open and willing to look and look again. A way of seeking to understand the world around you, within you and beyond you. Unity I want to swim in the ocean with you, Naked. I want to lie in the sweet spring grass and laugh for hours— Escape. I want to kiss under falling rain in sunlight … Rainbow. Hope Floats Audaciously Yes we can, they hum; Yes we can, They drum like my new heartbeat. Hear—we come, y’all a tribe on a quest; here we come, y’all, manifesting the best. Hope used to be cautious— slow-walking, back road creepin’; hope used to be tucked secretly in my private thoughts, whispered beneath dying breaths of middle-passage suffocation; hope used to be muffled in headphone speakers to drown out the sounds of a cynical world. But today, my day, hope plays in Beats by Dre, singing “Cuz I’m Happy” to be here today, to see Hope floating, out in the open, AUDACIOUSLY! Healed My soul was tender, like the center of an unhealed wound, And that’s when he stepped in the room: Eyes deep as coal, clouded window to his soul  I had visions of us growing old. He wrapped me in warm, ancestral memories Of black kings and queens ruling the ancient empire of Ghana. Not even the high of cocaine or marijuana could surpass his energy; In that moment, he healed me. Lifting me to a higher place, he made me a star inside his space; A light so bright it blinded doubt  Now I know what love’s about. Healed Explore: Is this poem a reinforcement of women needing men to rescue them? Or is this an example of how love opens doors? Maybe it’s both. Is it possible that as humans we receive constant opportunities to heal with love, yet miss many of them because of our programming? I believe love is a powerful and healing force. I have found it to be within us, around us, and beyond us. Often we have been trained to only look for love in expected places. This causes us to miss ways in which we have closed the door on all the unexpected expressions of love.