Beneath the poetry
The Immortality Of Your Words, read the new poem & discover why what you share with the world matters
POEM
I implore you to look beyond your own life and ahead - towards those furrowing ripples that fan out from this sunken body. Your life has weight - and it offers itself as an anchorage against the crests and nadirs that swell heavy from far outside your reach. In a day where our words are immortalized by what’s digital & death-defying, make what you share count. Tell your story to the forgotten hearts of the future, who turn to the past in search of setting suns and solace. Give these aching valves - theses burgeoning vessels clamped up in self-doubt and fear - something worth opening for. Speak of light, the hard truth about finding it amongst darkening times - cast seeds beneath your feet with the pith of your words, dig wells of hope where thirsty wanderers may lose their way, and flare your way through this life, so that those who come after may too, find themselves being guided by starlight long departed. Because when you see your life as not only your own - but of service to souls yet to inhabit this earth… when you are no longer the short blossoming flower in high summer but the golden pollen carried forth, long after its own bloom - you will glimpse the truth about immortality: that your work, your words, the way you loved, lives on in the very folds of time itself.
(listen to this poem come to life on Insight Timer on Friday 4th Feb!)
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Hello, beloved community,
I read this week that leading scientists at a recent climate change summit were interviewing keepers of indigenous knowledge so they could learn how to think more long term.
We seem to have lost the ability to look beyond our own lives into a future that is well beyond our reach. Our single-use life and our short-term comforts have created a disconnection with the longevity of our earth - and now our greatest hope comes from those who know how to care for more than their own immediate needs.
Living sustainably and in balance with the earth means not only considering what impact we are making on it right now but also how we can touch those who are yet to feel this land beneath their bare feet.
For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples have planted climate-resilient and biodiverse foods, stored away seeds, whispered wisdom into waterways, sung prayers into plants, protected sacred lands, and made peace with rivals for the benefit of future generations.
How do we extend our own hearts beyond the fragility of our form and how would we live differently if everything we did was a seed for a future lost soul?
Delayed gratification is something we teach our kids when we want them to do their homework before playing outside. But true delayed gratification would be to plant something that we know we will never enjoy ourselves.
Maybe this is the truest form of Love I can think of…
It’s like the monarch butterfly I refer to so often. One full cycle of migration takes 4-5 generations to complete and each tiny butterfly has a sacred duty to hold strong to their path - otherwise, they’d never find their way home.
I wonder how our social media feeds will be looked upon in the future. If someone 200 years from now looked back at our online communication, what would give them hope?
For me, it’s like taking on one big existential responsibility. But it also takes away the need to be someone now so that maybe I can be a solace to someone in the slow-brewing future.
Many artists, writers, mothers of change-makers, soft speakers of hard truths believed their work wouldn’t matter - and only in their passing did their work touch people beyond measure. I believe it’s because when we create from the soul, we touch every soul we come into contact with. When we mother from the soul, we nurture every generation that ripples out from beyond us. And when we tell our stories from truth and Love, we touch the very truth and Love that exists within all Beings.
Immortality lies in every word we write, every piece of art we cast out into the world, every child that is sent forth from our bow, every seed we save for the ones awaiting life. Make what you share matter, even when especially when you don’t believe that it does.
The documentation of your life
can be an archive of wisdom
to a soul you may never meet-
but may very well
land up saving.
Who/what has passed on in your life but still influences you today? Let me know in the comments if you feel called to share!
Love, Sez
For myself: Rainer Maria Rilke, Mary Oliver, Kahill Gibran, Henry David Thoreau, Hunter S. Thompson, my childhood dog, the bushland I grew up on, …oh, the list could go on!
As always, Sez, you express the sentiment beautifully! Our deepest truth, our soul, is connected to that universal wholeness that is timeless -- so we don't have to go far to touch the immortal! When you strip away the many layers of artifice we are all so very similar.
You've got me imagining a new social media platform that is only expressions of truth in poetry. Wouldn't that be something!
You have an incredible way with words Sez!
I grew up in Hawai’i, the most beautiful place on earth. The native Hawaiians have an old adage that became the state motto: “Ua Mau ke Ea o ka ʻĀina i ka Pono,” which translates to “the life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.” Hawaiian is a multilayered language, and it has deeper meaning. Nevertheless, sustainability is the most notable theme. I feel grateful to have grown up with this wisdom.