Day One

From day one, I did not understand why there was a split between the inner life and the outer life.

I did not realize this would end up being a creative tension point - a living, breathing process of soul education. 

I was wide-eyed, young, and full of fire.

I wanted to fight everything and everyone around me.

I wanted everything and everyone around me to change so my inner worlds could finally feel safe.

I wanted someone to tell me why the universal principles in my heart were rarely reflected in the world around me.

As a soul, I believed I lived in a culture where everything was transparent.

Where there was no separation between private and public.

Where there was no dominion from one part of the eco system toward another.

Where hurt people didn’t hurt people.

Where someone didn't say one thing but mean another.

The veils seemed thin between stone, plant, animal, human and beyond.

I always knew them to be in harmonious song and dance with one another - an interdependent web of life.

My soul knew tales of dragons, giants, ancient mysteries and lost civilizations, but I was not taught much about the giant whose heart I’ve always been living in.

I was not taught much about the song this cosmic artist is learning to sing out toward the darkest of space.

I did not realize that the magic I always felt in my heart was not the reality on the outside.

So I became a rebel.

I learned to fight.

I challenged those who were supposed to be teaching me because my soul knew the sound of wisdom and this did not feel like wisdom.

I skipped a lot of school. I tried to be free and I learned to lie in order to taste that freedom.

I went on late night escapades with friends, climbed rooftops, and tried one thing after another to make use of the fire inside of me.

I tried to find freedom in the ways I was not taught.

But soon I taught myself that I too could become the very world I became afraid of.

I too could become the person who says one thing but means another.

The one who finds a safe room of eternal isolation between my public self and my private self.

The one who projects out because I'm sure I would never be met with an outer reality of what I hold sacred on the inside.

So I kept holding on.

I could not tell the difference between the battlefield of love and the warzone of survival.

I did things I was supposed to do at times to fit in, but I always knew that was not going to last long.

I experienced crisis after crisis and learned to trust it as a source of wisdom because, step by step, it brought me closer to the world I did not believe was here.

I learned that this world has always been inside of me, even if it is a small puzzle piece.

I learned that one of the cruelest acts is to forget that every human being has a puzzle piece of something that is not yet here.

Some know it. Some don't.

Some want out with it now. Some will take their precious time.

But regardless of what someone says or feels or thinks, I stand with the puzzle piece that lives in there.

And sometimes I forget.

I forget how terrified I can be and how good I am at hiding that terror.

I forget how intricate my armor can be.

I forget that we are already inhabiting the world we long for.

Maybe I don’t need to protect anymore.

Parts of my nature only know war and battle.

But maybe the new battle

between the inner life and the outer life

is letting the world inside.