Unfettered – A Rant to set myself free

As you read this rant, imagine that I am talking to myself out loud,
waving my hands back and forth in fuzzy slippers and leopard robe
with hair all askew.

I have a pencil in my hand and I am writing down thoughts as they press through. There is an extra cup of coffee on the counter for you if you want to join me in this rant or create your own.

Yes, I am talking to myself, about the overculture or innerculture that often defines me, but I might be talking to you too if it unhinges something within you. Forgive me any irreverances that you may find.

 

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Unfettered

A Rant for Overcoming

 

Shiloh Sophia

 

Release me from beneath your gaze,

your view of me, and your ways.

I am coming out from underneath

the layers of consciousness, not mine,

that I have taken on without my choice,

and those I took on by choice too,

I release you.

 

I don’t want your concept of fear

of what will happen if I do this, or that,

or don’t do this or that, just the right way,

to create a desired outcome in this

world or the next. I am not here

to gain or earn a reward, but to live fully now,

and in that living, express my gifts freely

without apology of fear of repercussion.

Though I know repercussion always comes.

 

I don’t want to be in fear that

blessings only come to those that think

and act in “this particular way” each day.

Or call on this concept or that one,

inside of this system or another.

I don’t accept your definition of beauty

or success or right living or wrong living,

for that matter.

These definitions are trappings unwelcome.

No I am not a victim.

I have chosen willingly, but now also choose,

to let them go.

 

I don’t know very much. But I know this:

Everyone here is on a journey

and we have no idea whatsoever

about the one they are on

and speculating

about why things aren’t going well

for them and why it is,

is just another made

up belief system in an effort to make sense

of the madness or make ourselves feet better.

Admit it. You don’t know why in any real

sense, why she died of cancer or why he

had a stroke. There is really now way to know

but strangely we long for reason which

can only be explained as unreasonable.

What of the mystery my friends,

what happens if we surrender our need to know

or better yet, a need to be right about anything

at all. If you don’t want

to acknowledge there is madness,

then we have very little to talk about.

 

Yes, I am shaking my beliefs free.

I am letting go of the impact

of “positive thinking” on the psyche

of the soul, that just needs to mourn

however she needs to mourn

in whatever way for however long

and no one needs to interpret that

for her. She needs no interpreter.

Only the sacred spaciousness

to unfold herself as she sees fit.

 

I don’t want to be defined by

mercury retrograde, what is in

my seventh house and where I am

in my hurtle through space

and time towards womanhood

or where I should or shouldn’t

be by the age of 43. Or when

gray hairs come for you or me.

 

I particularly don’t want to live behind

a concept of keeping up –

that one just bores my muse and me

and drives us to inactivity.

 

I am sick and tired of those I serve,

who are sick, fearing the condemnation

of the positive thinking brigade.

What a relief to them, when I tell them:

This might have nothing to do with you

or karma or your childhood or your thoughts.

This might just be chaos and crossfire.

Wide eyed, they lay their burden down

and proceed with the work of healing

without the shame of personal causation

or persecution from an invisible god.

This does not change the power of

good thoughts on our challenges.

But. Every tragedy is not self induced.

 

I shall think my own thoughts.

Or at least attempt it.

Here I go:

I choose not to live in any fear.

There I said it out loud. Did you hear me?

I don’t know how to do that

but I ask this now of my soul and body:

Lead me to the path unfettered

that I might walk freely upon this earth.

Knowing the nature of what is fallen here,

does not keep me from reveling in the

majesty of this creation called home.

 

I am untieing the ribbons that

have bound me, silk ones and

chain-linked ones. Taboos are falling

from my ankles as I pace

new paths in the floorboards

through the pressure of poetry

pressing through me.

 

I write this for me, from me

but I hear the voices of many behind

and beside me acknowledging

this desire together:

 

a soul unfettered.

 

Lift me up, don’t weigh me down.

I will do the same for you.

Let us move away from seeking

approval and into authentic expression.

Authentic expression can set us

free from the need to be seen

by others because we finally see ourselves.

 

I choose not to live through fear.

Though I know fear is a present teacher.

Jesus said perfect love casts out fear.

What is perfect love that I may cast

fear out from me? Or at least choose

to live from the space of that perfect love

He has for me. His love isn’t based on

my performance or yours. This is not

a performance at all. This life is a learning

of how to lean into the great big love

that is everpresent despite our selfishness.

 

I choose to live beyond cause and effect,

there is so much more going on here.

I do not want to protect myself in case

of disaster or attack because I don’t

like the way it makes my mind work.

And no I don’t think my fear of it or denial

of it, creates more or less bad things

happening to me.

The Blessed Mother also knows

there are riddles afoot in these hills.

The Universe does respond to me,

it is true, if I gaze at the electron

it also gazes at me, but it does

not bring me harm if I fear harm

or bring me harm to teach me a lesson.

Whoever thought that up needs

to come for tea so we can

set the record straight and liberate

that belief from the cage.

 

I am writing this because

I want to walk fearlessly.

Not because I am not in awe of God,

(did you know that in The Bible,

the word fear is often translated as Awe.

Reverence and Amazement?)

 

Grace is either grace or it isn’t.

And yes, grace, is amazing.

You cannot earn it, it is freely

given and it is everpresent and

all we need to do is allow

ourselves to enter into it.

It is not a reward.

For this I send up a shout of praise

to the Most High.

And what about Faith?

Faith isn’t something that

comes because everything goes

as you hoped, but something

that is created because it doesn’t

go as you hoped, and still

you don’t lose your mind

and the crack in your heart lets the

light in and breaks you open.

But really I have no idea what

faith is. I still choose to surround

myself with it like a garment,

having no idea what it is

and I am not required to know.

Don’t take on anything here

that doesn’t serve you. I am

neither teacher or guide,

but fellow traveler on earth.

A poet perhaps.

I am not someone who thinks

I belong somewhere else.

I am from this earth and this is my home.

I refuse to feel displaced

and fear the life to come if

we do this or don’t do that.

I can love this earth and work for

her wellness without needing

fear of her ending or mine,

as motivation. I love because I love,

not because fear of what will

happen, motivates me to action.

I am motivated through unreasonable

love for my fellow travelers.

And yes it is the Beloved’s love in me

that makes my eyes to see.

This is my rant for overcoming

overculture and innerculture.

An attempt through writing

to get free of these proverbial

‘ties that bind’. I am not calling

for a new belief to settle in

or a change to finally come

or a new declaration to live by.

 

I am calling, at least for a cycle:

no belief system to define and confine

my restless heart. That’s just it.

 

She wants to roam free.

 

I just want to experience

being free from ideas

of being or not being.

 

I want to feel unfettered.

And.

 

I do.

 

Shiloh Sophia

 

Out beyond ideas of right doing and wrong doing.
There is a field. I’ll meet you there. ~ Rumi

 

Dear One,

This cycle for me has been very intense and curious and I have no other response but to create. A dear friend of mine gave birth to a child three days ago who didn’t have much of a chance to live – and thankfully he was with us for 3 days. This painting was inspired by him, but also the rant was informed by his fleeting journey. He helped to dislodge something in me. As I stood at the foot of the bed praying as he took his last breaths, the unfettering began to happen inside the beauty and the tragedy.

Light a candle with me for this family and his little Soul.

And wherever you are and whatever you are doing, I also send YOU my prayers. Somehow, someway, I still feel like we are all in this together.

Shiloh Sophia

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way.”

Charles Dickens (155 years ago)