I’ve been questioning whether to publish the poetry collection I have taken several years birthing into existence.
A deeply personal, cathartic practice for myself that I felt called - no, compelled - to share. But where did and does that calling surface from? The soul, the ego, the collective need? Maybe all of the above at once, for we are messy, and I am no different.
I sense within myself a deeply tangled reasoning. I hear the soul calling to share as an act of service with the collective, through the depths of my despair, and the heights of my hope, to meet the deeply shared craving to remember ourselves home. This life, this path, was offered to me on purpose; the words that flowed through my fingertips have a purpose of their own. Yet I see the tendrils of my personal grief, longing and despair being fed by the dark side of my ego’s need for validation, recognition and pride; a strangled act of care that doesn’t serve as intended.
Our words are too precious to put a price on, yet I’ve been feeling great pangs of annoyance that the painstaking process of writing my grief out over many years would pay me so little, whilst being whipped up in 4 months to profit for another, with no emotional tie to the work. The published ‘product’ I will be offering is a vehicle of expression to meet humanity whole. I have been told poetry is not profitable, which I now understand: why would I want it to be?
The knowing which has emerged within me is this: My grief is not a commodity, but a gift I wish to share.
Let me peel myself back to stand in seperation from the egos desire for tickboxes such as wealth, status and achievement for a moment, to witness that these words moved through me to share and connect souls, so that both myself and others may not feel so lonely, and that we may remember to return to ourselves, again, and again. May I focus more deeply on the practice of seeing something through to completion, the boldness required to share my bruised being in service of hope, and the moments of connection I truly hope I receive in light of it.
I deeply desire to fill my belly well, to have warmth and a roof above my head, but I do not wish it to cost my soul’s integrity in line with neo-liberalism. Can I detach my inner expression from ‘work’, even though my work is a calling of passion? Healers and guides deserve to be well held in all senses, including financially, with dignity, rest and expression for its own sake to be folded within our path. My path is both that of sharing my story and guiding people through the wisdom of grief; they are woven alongside one another, exchanging, but independent hues; they are different practices, one pure expression, the other holding, guiding and teaching.
So a question for myself arises: how do I, as a messy human being, share the messy work of grief, in a way which does not commodify either my own or another’s?
The level to which that can be balanced with my own need under the present overculture is a question that I will have to deepen into across the next five months. What I feel with more certainty through this alchemization of thought is that my poetry is needed and will be shared, yet I must hold a clearer thread of intention through its publication, calling in an abundance of connection and hope, ready to be woven into our collective tapestry, together.