Our farmer would happily feed us and give us all we needed. A wonderful protected life.
Then one day something terrible struck the land, rains stopped coming, the ground turned hard and bare, the farmer became sad. It was almost as if our beautiful land turned bare. The farmer stopped working, he became angry and would throw some food at us from time to time. People came every week and took one of us away.
I was devastated, my parents were gone, they said they were taken to a butchery to pay for food.
I decided I couldn’t take any more of the greyness, the hurt, the anger, having things being thrown at me, starving on every other day. I said my goodbyes to those that were left.
They all called me crazy. ‘You don’t know how it is out there. It’s dark and scary, rather stay here, we know what to expect here. This is our destiny we have to stay here and accept it. It is what it is.’ They all said.
I could feel something deep inside me calling out and every day it was getting louder and louder. I knew in my heart what they were saying was only their own fear as they didn’t have the courage to stop and change their path.
I did, I knew things were meant to be better and more beautiful as they once were. I had a choice, I could stay, starve and eventually be sold for food as I became greyer every day, or I could listen to my heart and follow that song to find my beauty once again.
I was called the most beautiful swan in the land. But as I stayed around all those bad and grumpy words, I started to lose my beauty. I started to turn grey and gloomy. I just couldn’t let that happen.
I saw my friends start to fade away into the grey fog. The unhappier they were, the greyer they became.
I left everything behind me, I took to the skies, said goodbye to the grey, goodbye to the gloom, goodbye to the abuse, goodbye to the doom.
As I soared in the sky, the higher I flew the freer I felt. I soared over the land, I could see beauty in the land beyond.
I could see it, it wasn’t grey and gloom everywhere. Like a rainbow of colour filling the sky. I knew that was where I was headed. Towards hope. As I soared towards the rainbow I looked out at my wings and suddenly I saw beauty once again. It was incredible, that the further I flew away from the grey land, the grey on me was disappearing. I was connecting to myself again. My inner magic and beauty were shining through.
I knew at that moment, that I was never grey inside. It was the greyness and dark and gloom of everyone else’s hopelessness that I was holding onto. The more I held onto their gloom the more the gloom was attaching itself to me. Just like walking through a field of Blackjacks, a weed with hooked bristle seeds that hook themselves onto you, you can’t brush them off, you have to pull each seed off you one by one. It started with the farmer, then it went onto his dog, his cat, to the chickens, to the cows, then to my parents, how contagious this gloom really was.
It was the most freeing moment of my life. I knew at that moment that the inner voice within me was singing my true song to help me connect with my own truth. With a purpose to go out and find my beauty and keep it.”
-----xxxx-----
Angela had kept so quiet through the whole story, deep in thought. She asked softly “If you learnt how to free yourself from the gloom, did you ever think that you could go back and help free everyone else?”
Soary spun her head around, “Oh no, no, no I could never. If I go back I will get sucked into the gloom again and maybe I won’t have the courage to free myself again, never mind everyone else.”
Angela became quiet again. Feeling within herself what was the next thing to say to help Soary. As she sat on Soary’s back, Angela saw before her eyes one feather turning grey. Did she get Soary to shift her colours just by asking one question? She thought.
She slowly called to Soary, “Soary, do you know that your words about refusing to go back turned one of your feathers from white to grey?”
“OH dear, NO I didn’t realise, but I did feel the greyness enter my heart again. I am so scared of going back I let in the greyness once again just by my fear. But I thought I flew away from it all?”
Angela replies, “You may have flown from the place, but you still carry the feeling in a box in your heart. It seems that by one question I opened that box and let it out. Is that box called scared?”
Soary stopped and suddenly realised something, wow how amazing, I flew away but I always carried that part within me.
“I think that is called fear, Angela! My fear, being scared of doing what is right, turned my feather grey. Now I must find out how to turn it back before the other feathers turn grey around it. I saw this happen with my friends. They all started with one gloomy thought and that one thought turned one feather or one hair grey then it went to other gloomy thoughts and another grey hair or feather and it kept going until they were only grey. The power of listening and agreeing to the one gloomy thought, one gloomy story, can turn everything into greyness.
“I won’t let that happen here. I will step into my courage once again and face that negative fearful thought.