Growth. Day 18.
a poem a day in the month of may
Friends,
How are we doing? We are pretty far into the month, it’s going by incredibly fast, and I feel like I can barely keep up with everything happening globally and in my own life/ community.
How do we hold it all, the ebb and flow, the emotions and realities, the fears and hopes? One way I do it is through words, of course.
Words help us get what we need to say out of our bodies and minds and out into the world. Words are medicine.
Today’s word is growth.
I looked at the seedling, hoping to see their growth, when really, they just reminded me of the seed from which they came, and I wandered backward, to myself as a seed, to myself as a child, and asked her what it’s been like to grow up and out of the spaces she once knew so well. She smiled, took my hand, and led me there, if only to show me that the journey continues, still, that growth is just an idea until we take a good look around and decide to make it our reality.
I knew I was healing
when I stopped acting
well-behaved and amenable,
smiling while receiving a scolding
even as a grown-ass adult.
Even if it comes with pain and heartache
I’m gonna relish the growth.
My inner child breathes more easy these days.
G R O W T H
Growth is often a mirage,
a trick,
a trap of discontent
when it’s sold to us as the definition of success
and tastes like forceful striving,
A pressure to yield obvious fruit;
to expand territory;
colonial,
deemed as progress because it’s measurable.
But growth as stillness within storms,
steadfast weathering,
roots clinging to cracks within the rocks against the odds,
deep, gentle foundations
pausing when instinct is to react
response time a more spacious place,
the periscope of self awareness more discerning of nuanced shades of lightness and dark
A patience generously covering desire like powerful, gentle wings
The goal or outcome is not credit-claiming
but a movement of community
Organic, slow, nurturing
A collective stirring, awakening, un-learning,
Values strengthening, embodied
This is the growth my soul seeks
(Wrote this last month - there is audio on this post 👇)
https://open.substack.com/pub/angedisbury/p/g-r-o-w-t-h?r=2qii2&utm_medium=ios