Shadows & Bends

A new & unpublished poem for you

Do you have a piece of artwork (written/painted/danced/sung/cooked) inspired by one of my meditations or poems? Send them to me by replying to this newsletter and I will share them with the community here ♥

“The home within” By fellow reader & artist, Maii, Inspired by Sez’s poem, The Humble Gardener. “I felt like everything inside of me found a home again.”

There is no part of nature
that ever gives up on itself.

No plant that resigns itself
to the conditions of its hardship,
nor the impossibilities it must face.

Nothing in nature
diverts from its purpose;
to fully and unapologetically
bloom...

Nor does it want to extract
that painful seed from deep within itself
that longs for its expansion
because that is eactly what it uses
to grow outward even more.

There's nothing out there in the wild
that does not swell and sprout 
into what the Great Mystery
has asked of it.

No green-bodied being 
sees the shade as something 
against it, as a thief of its light,
but grows through it, stretching towards 
the lonley sunbeam cast upon the floor.

Patiently, nature always extends itself 
beyond what restrains it 
by deepening its roots, and taking up 
more space...not less.
Never less.

The only difference between us
is that we want control over our conditions, 
we want ownership of the sun,
and in that small desire
we lose the big truth;
that everything in life
comes with a shadow 
we must bend beyond.
 
Because that's what shadows do -
they make us apprentices
of the light. 

You are no less capable 
of growth. 

No less nature, 
less guided, less intuitve 
than that of your kin.

Use the shadows. 
Trust the seed.
And if you do collapse
as you journey beyond 
the darkness,
do it determinedly 
outward.