So much in this world to feel, to hate, to run from, to chase.  Have my deepest desires been rooted in my efforts to get away?  Has the motivation for my achievement been the fear of being with my wounded soul?  What are you retreating from?  Who’s chasing you?  

The demon is within.  

Everywhere I go I bring it.  Failure and falling on my face serve to stop my feet and I finally acknowledge what I’ve already known……I am the chaser, the demon.  It is not a parasite or uninvited guest, it is very much the other half of my heart that has been starved from light, love, attention, and allowing.  It has become so disfigured from my lack of care for it that it is now foreign and I no longer recognize it as me.  Running from the creature that is my own unacknowledged self. 

Insanity.  

 

Come into the light dear one.

Come be fed and washed.

Let me remove the stains and dirt from when I have attempted to entomb you.

Let me touch the face that I have cursed and struck.

Let me kiss and embrace the foulness of what you have become so that you and I both may return to how we were born.

 

Like a prisoner of war released from captivity there will be a time of recovering, reintegrating, and it will not be without resistance, night terrors, and moments of disorienting agony or panic.  But these too are now part of our intentional way being.  Our dance is complex.  We unwind and begin to return to as it was in the beginning without hiding the truth of how we have lived with each other.

 

Teach me courage.

Teach me to stand no matter the abandonment.

Teach me to forgive and to restore.

 

I have embraced the demon, invited it to table, and now ask for him to tell me the story of who I was that we may become again. How ironic for the dark forgotten and broken part of me to be the guide I follow into wholeheartedness. 

 

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