I used to walk the trails behind the Historical Mansion called “Orianda House” after work from time to time, even going so far as to take pictures because the walks were always so pretty. I took a lot of pictures for inspiration. This image was one of them.
I don't know why I took the picture. My best guess is that I took it to scare myself. It is a nice enough photo, and the tree is kinda cool. I stare at the growth coming out of bark, and I think of my personality. I think of the large birthmark on my face, and my scare-away-the-posers-and-freak-the-mundane approach to people. It is an image that has struck something in me. I am unafraid of it on quite a few levels, and yet it scares me because it says something I am still trying to figure out how to say.
My voice is somewhere in this image. That, in its way, scares me. I want to find my voice, and yet there are times when I want to run from it. This image is a point of reference when I think about who I am and what I want to say.
I want to talk about hard truths, and I don't know how to do it in a pretty way. This image is so important to me, and I can stare at it at length despite how uncomfortable it makes me feel. It makes me feel how full I am of hope, and inspiration, and love, and how it can spill out like meat out of a sausage skin.
FAST FORWARD TO 2/27/2011
I'm revisiting this image six months later, and my thoughts about it have grown, and shifted into a new, yet old thing. It does talk about my voice. My hurts and frustrations at the idea that I must be both loud and quiet. That I must give so readily to other people the kindness and grace that I have been refused by the very groups that claim evolution and love. I am unsure about the way that it comes across to others, but I am sure that my ability to be so honest, even at the expense of my comfort is in itself a performance. It's not fair that I have this voice, and yet it is as scary as it is beautiful. It is unfair that this love I have is as awkward as it is embracing. It is unfair that I must be seen as only two sided, but I don't have a way to define myself yet, so I feed into this “labeling” of myself, and I get stuck there.
This is actually a relatively accurate representation of my G2 Residency. I would feel safe in my own skin and then WHAM! Something would trigger a newer level of development that I must feel, review, respond. Unfortunately a lot of that happened in rapid succession, and I was responding before I had a chance to review what it was I actually felt. My gnossis was pinging left and right, and at first it was as natural as breathing. Then the pings started getting deeper and it was past a point that I could or would want to deal with. It was the best place for me to explore what I felt, but unfortunately my loudness brought a lot of attention to it, and many who didn't understand (or who did and fed it with their own issues) were witness to it in a way that made me feel like shutting down and saving it for a “better” time.
I respond this way:
The art of shutting up
Is a disease sometimes
You can only have attention
if you take it
if you are quiet
then you are nothing
if however
you are too loud
you should be ashamed
or obnoxious
I don't have the art of shutting up
I don't have a face
I am only a mouth
only
you don't hear this
word
me
you say shut
up
I cant
ju
s
t
be
you make me feed
for life
well
forget it
you won't listen
anyway
may as well
enjoy myself
making
you
as
UN
comfortable as you make
me
even though I love you
and am only trying to
ju
s
t
be
with you
ju
s
t
be
with you
just be
all sides
of
me
Imagine, plan,
prepare, execute...
"And you will know them
by their fruit"
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