Day 24 SOS – 1999 Poetry Project

The Next Step
By Barbara Brennan

Honor this divine uniqueness within you.
Recognize yourselves.
Recognize the divinity within you.
Honor, listen, and very gently, take yourself through the door into self -acknowledgement of who you truly are, including all aspects of your being.
All aspects of your life.
All aspects of your humanness.

You are divinely perfect in your imperfections.
And so, as we take the next few steps together
in this learning process, enjoy!
Give yourself the freedom to test, to choose,
to be, to surrender, to what is.

It is your life.
It is your predilection to choose.
No choice is wrong.
Every choice simply leads you to the next step.

Surrender to what that next step is for you.
Leave all expectation behind.
Step deeper into the self, and open to what is.

Gayle’s Reflection:

“Honoring the divine uniqueness within me.”

Opening with this line gives me permission to love and understand myself. Honor myself. Love myself. Choose me first. Barbara is telling us to see ourselves as we are in every detail and honor it as sacred.

Self-acknowledgement was not part of my vernacular growing up. Attempts to “claim” myself in my favorite choices were met with accusations of selfishness or overpowered my mom claiming that uniqueness of me as her own. After all, I was “just like her”. This caused me to stop trying to choose my desires and direct myself to pleasing her alone.

By doing this I created an inner conflict of needing to be exactly like her in order to survive and be loved. This went against my true need to self-express and NOT be just like mom. I only recently learned that inner conflict creates confusion within the mind- body, prevents alignment and misdirects creative choices.

Years later the patterns of following in the footsteps of parents become quite clear. Seeing them now, I am able to improve some aspects of the well-worn path of single parenthood. It is a part of my humanness to want to stay true to the tribe even if it is a difficult and painful path.

Now, I reflect on these perfect imperfections and inner conflicts, and pray that by the end of my time on Earth I will fully understand how perfect it all is. I use the phrase every time I feel I may have made a mistake or wrong choice.

“You are (I am) divinely perfect in my imperfections.”

Wow it lets me off the hook doesn’t it?
It allows me to surrender into God’s divine plan for me. I feel a sense of relief around being perfect. That is the freedom to choose from the heart…to dare to take another step away from expectation… Go ahead Gayle…You can do this…I got your back. . . There are no mistakes. . . See who you really are. . . Choose what you really desire. . . Be open to your next step.

Thank you Barbara, I walk my own path with ease, more confidence and grace.

See you tomorrow.
Love, Gayle

Day 23 SOS Poetry Project (2000)

Reclaiming Your Creative Seed
By Barbara Brennan

What are your sweet longings
that you have not been able to create?
You will find them in your time capsules,
covered with dualistic debris
in the form of good or bad judgments, emotional reactions
and all of the effects that have resulted
from acting out your judgments and emotional reactions.

Burn your time capsules with heart fire.
It is the debris that burns,
not the original seed kernel of your creative longing.

Direct your mind’s attention to the seed kernel longing.
If it is difficult to recognize,
simply look at your life.
What have you not been able to create
that you have longed for, perhaps for centuries?
You will find it as the seed kernel
buried deep within your creative debris.

Gayle’s Reflection:
These reflections I have been writing is a reclaiming process for me. Allowing the opportunity and discipline of writing regularly has uncovered some dualistic debris. This practice of showing up to write to share to feel, to know is a joyful habit for me to develop.
It is evidence of a longing I buried long ago.

My father was a writer. I never saw what he wrote, love letters to my mother, short essays, and letters home to parents and siblings from Korea. These writings never met my eyes, they were lost like everything else of his. I heard he was good at it. I have kept myself from accessing the dualistic debris of loss until now.

Now I am choosing to be free of the sadness of connecting with him… to be like him. Now I am choosing to write and asking him to assist. My father’s spirit has come to me of late as a guide for me. Can you imagine over 50 years after his death he is now ready? It’s a long time right?

I am ready now to receive my sweet longing to connect on the paper with myself, my dad and all of you. Whoa – who knew I would do this in 2014? Seems my heart fire has cleared the remaining debris away from that tiny mustard seed and kernel of my unclaimed longing.

I now recognize it and am regularly filled with joy and anticipation each time I open to write. I open my heart to speak to the words of Barbara and Heyoan.

The debris is removed.
My heart is readied.
The pencil flows effortlessly.
I choose to nourish the tiny mustard seed
of faith that I can do this.
I must do it now.
My sweet longing is here.

Thank you Barbara and Heyoan, I am now ready to access and claim my sweet longing.

See you tomorrow,
Love Gayle