The View by Catrin Welz-Stein via Red Bubble
Day 5 – A – Z Challenge
“What you seek is seeking you.”― Rumi
What’s your idea of bliss? What do you envision when you dream of that perfect place where you are most sure, most at home, most certain of yourself?
Be Yourself.
I often think of my current home as a kind of Eden. It’s a place where I feel free to be myself, without artifice, without worry. I can let my cares unravel. I can remove the mask I wear out into the world (sometimes) and air out my soul, without fear.
When you think of Eden, what comes up for you? What surfaces about that mythical or symbolic (or downright real) garden of delights? Was there such a place?
Did humanity start in that garden? Were we destined to be banished? I rail against the notion that my girl, Eve, messed up humanity’s access to paradise simply by following her innate curiosity about life.
Why should a woman asking questions, or kicking the status quo to the curb, be branded as an outlaw? Why should she be sentenced to pain and sorrow, simply because she wanted to name things, see things, understand things?
In fact, where would we be without her bristling, maverick marvelousness?
Eve taught women to listen to their inner life, to embrace the ‘still small voice,’ to move out into the world with snap in their step and a sashay in their stride.
Wondrous Eden-Child.
She’s my hero because of that.
How many women spend the whole of their lives trying to stay small, trying to be nice (even when things are decidedly not nice), trying to fit their size eleven foot into a size seven glass slipper? How many of us struggle to stay inside the lines, to never stray, to never speak our truth?
Wouldn’t we be better off if we embraced our curiosity and embraced the life that that would bring?
An unconventional firebrand.
Husky, naked, true, Eve devoured apples and let juice run down her arms. She shimmied through that garden.
She wasn’t docile. She wasn’t quiet.
She didn’t hold her tongue.
She spoke her truth.
In other words, my kind of gal!
“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.” ― Rumi
Leave Your Mark.
Make some noise. Build your own little Eden, wherever you are.
It can be anywhere where you find peace or solace or a living dream.
It is the means to write that book, hook that rug, paint that mural, watch that sky.
It can be found in the rooms inside your heart. It can be found on a rock by a river or in a high branch in an old-soul tree.
It can open to you in your lover’s arms.
It can reveal itself in your child. You can find it in an aromatic coffee cake or a bowl of fresh grapefruit or a perfect cup of tea.
Notice your little bit of heaven.
We’re all surrounded by it if we bother to look.
If you’re anything like me (and if you read my work, it’s likely you are) you’re an outsider with a wild heart and wilder notions.
You have questions. You can’t sit still.
You’re busy living.
You’re opening the door to Eden, every single day.
It heartens me to know you’re out there.
Because of you, I am not alone.
© 2015 Shavawn M. Berry All rights reserved
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