May We All Speak Our Truths

 

So many people get judged when they refuse to put their pain away. They get judged for showing it, for speaking it, for insisting on sharing their memories of abuse with those they know. I am not talking about those overwhelming strangers with their stuff—I am talking about legitimate sharings with those they are connected with in daily life. All too often, they are fed one repressive message or another: “Don’t look back,” "What’s done is done,” “Don’t be a victim,” “Your feelings are an illusion,” “Be strong.” What is ironic about this is that those who insist on embodying and expressing their feelings are actually the courageous ones—unwilling and unable to live a false life. Their stuff is breaking through their defenses because they yare tired of carrying the weight of buried truths. They want a healthier and more authentic life. Those who seek to shame their revealings are actually less courageous, turning to repressive mantras in an effort to bypass their own unresolved feelings and memories. If they can shut others down, they can remain shut down themselves. But shut down doesn’t take us anywhere good. If we don’t deal with our stuff, it deals with us. May we all speak our truths, before our buried truths destroy us. Out with the old, in with the true... (~an excerpt from 'Spiritual Graffiti')

~ Jeff Brown 

Words Dying

there are words

dying in my throat 

to say to you

that i need you to know

five days

may not be enough time

to tell you

what's been lodged

between my heart and mouth

for what feels like a lifetime 

if i get them all out

(and i don't want to rush the moments i have with you)

but i feel if i don't tell you

that an opportunity may be missed

and those words

that cause heat in my body

and burning on my heart

will choke me

The Urge to Die

The urge to die is the urge to disappear as a separate self, to vanish into the vastness of Being, to rest deeply, as we have never rested before. 

The urge to die is the wave’s urge to return to the ocean... forgetting that it was never divided from the ocean in the first place.

The urge to die is not negative, sick, dark or sinful, but a deeply, deeply misunderstood aspect of our being. We ignore this urge, push it away, hide it, medicate it, keep it a secret, try to numb ourselves to it or even philosophize it away. But when acknowledged, honoured, brought out of the darkness and into the light, even the “suicidal” urge, the urge to shed our false skin, contains infinite intelligence. All feelings do. 

(I’m not talking about acting it out. I’m talking about facing it, understanding it, hearing its deeper call of transformation.)

The urge to die is the urge to awaken, to come alive again, to restart life, to stop identifying as a separate body-mind, to remember our original nature, vast and free. 

It is the urge to shed the false 'me' (ego, self, persona, mask) to stop pretending to be something we are not, to let go of all that is second-hand and inauthentic, and to live, to really live, fearless and free, as consciousness itself, full of life and potential and cosmic creativity!  

The urge to die is not our enemy - it is not to be annihilated and not to be feared. It contains a profound message of awakening and change. It says, shouts, screams, "You are not limited to what you think you are! You are a child of the Universe, remember, deserving of all its riches! Only the false can die, and you cannot be false!" 

Can we hear its deeper call? Can we listen, really listen to what’s underneath? 

The wave cannot return to the ocean, cannot get Home. It was never divided from its Home in the first place. You are already Oceanic, you see, and the true “suicide” is not the stopping of the body-mind but the remembrance of your original and unblemished nature, here and now, beyond the ravages of time, beyond what the world wants you to be. 

LIVE! LIVE! LIVE! 

NOTHING TO LOSE!

- Jeff Foster 

Nervous Pleasure

 she feels

nervous pleasure

surging through her body 

anticipating 

what his touch

will feel like

there's a flame

of desire

that burns for him

and just the notion

of his hands

on her body

sets the flame ablaze 

she knows

her bones may burn

and her heart consumed 

but she also knows

he is the oxygen

that she desperately 

wants to inhale

A Man Who Takes His Time

 

Have you ever met a man who takes his time? A man so in tune with your energy, your mood, your expression that he knows what you need without an explanation?

A man who doesn't push you away when you're upset or frustrated. A man who knows how to stand with firmness and calm in his masculine while your feminine works it out.

He's taken time to get to know your mind and your body. He sees you, he listens to the little things, even when you don't know he's listening.

He learned how to connect with your mind and he's learned how to touch your body. He's able to slow things down and read your body's response to his touch. He doesn't rush, he's not pleasing you for his own release. It's for you with no expectation, no pressure, no manipulation, no games.

You can let go because he's created a space of absolute respect and trust. He knows when to kiss you softly, when to hold you gently or when to consume your mind and body with masculine power and intensity.

Only a man who takes his time gives a woman time to experience every level of response, layer by layer, deeper and deeper until her mind, body and soul all explode together.

Only a man who takes his time can give her a release of what lays caged beneath her surface. And only a man who takes his time will ever glimpse the heights of ecstasy a woman is capable of, her secret remains hidden to all others.

Author: Jennifer Funk 

At the Heart of All Trauma

At the heart of all trauma, a terrible sense of isolation, disconnection, loneliness.

Follow your trauma to its devastating core, friend, to its heart of darkness, and you will inevitably meet the abandonment wound, the pain of all pains.

Abandoned by mother, father. Forgotten and misunderstood by the world. Cast out of heaven and separated from the Godhead. Divided from life.

Of course, it’s an illusion. You were never separate from the mountains, the forests, the diamond drops of morning dew. You were never broken, never rotten at your core, never separate from the One. You were always loved. The terrible heart of darkness was always your own exquisitely beautiful heart of light, so fragile, so powerful, so loveable, so real.

Ultimately others cannot save us. Each of us are called to confront our aloneness, dive into the heart of our trauma, and find solace and sanctuary there. Others can hold our trembling hands but they cannot travel for us. 

There is no external saviour, and the lie of love is that another human being - parent, partner, guru or god - can complete you.

No. Your completeness is in your brokenness. We cannot save each other but we can weep together, walk together, share our terror, our horror, our shame, our hope and our awe. 

Walking in the forest at dawn, our eyes meet. 

I recognise your longing as my own.

Love is a recognition.~

~Jeff Foster

A Timeless Love

she imagines him

carrying her away

and losing track of time

her safely in his arms

letting go of all the years of pain

of brokenness 

she imagines he is the answer

to her dreams

and like her

he has longed

for a love

that feels safe

and timeless

A Knot of Anger

there’s a knot

of anger

that lives

inside of her

she feels its heaviness 

but can't untangle it

because all her thoughts of him

are knotted in it

she's holding on to it

to remind herself

how love can betray you

she doesn't react to it

instead her body goes numb

at the sound

of his name

as she refuses 

to feel anything 

for a man

who did not choose her