Doubt is the opposite of faith
and often has double the strength.
It wheedles, it whines, it stretches my nerve
from width to depth to length.
Doubt is the enemy of hope
and stamps on my self-belief.
It taxes my time, my gut, my soul.
It’s nothing but an insidious thief.
Doubt is the victor at night
as an unfulfilled day draws dark.
But it’s no match for a shiny new morning,
full of light and love and spark.
As you swing your hand against my chin
my babyish bones rattle within;
your palm so swift, so hard, so grim,
against my freckly, guiltless skin.
I bow my neck, cover my head
with foetal fingers that seek to protect
my sacred centre, locked from view.
But a curled-up child is always your cue
to parade your power, your strength, your hue
that bitterly, darkly claims its due.
Inside my head is light and free –
that’s the place you can’t reach me.
So, as thunder rams upon my skull,
and in your righteous fury I sense no lull,
I retreat to a place that’s barriered and safe
against which all love will lean and chafe.
I first published this poem as part of my MA Creative Writing project: Inktuition – Healing Through the Written Word. It feels appropriate to re-publish it for NaPrWriMo’s Day 12 prompt on saying things I’d like to say, but will never be able to say, to my mother. She is terminally ill with Pick’s Disease, an aggressive and early form of dementia.
NaPoWriMo sets the challenge today
to focus on ‘noir’.
How can I not obey?
A glamorous fringe, sweeping one eye
is hard to resist.
Like a bullet bye-bye.
What’s not to love about murders untraced
that whisper round corners,
waists unlaced.
But my kind of noir travels way within,
to the shadow of self
that’s my evil-ish twin.
Because dark in a mirror without conscience or soul
will haunt my life’s work
like irremovable kohl.
I’ve always wondered what was hiding in Good
about a Friday that foretells a death,
where a revered man is nailed to a cross
with the scent of vinegar on his breath.
Dying he destroys our sins
is the story I’ve been told.
But what the story means to me
is a transforming that will unfold.
I had to explain, one random year
To an au pair of Easter knew nought.
So I explained that trust and hope and faith
can get lost in the cycles we’re caught.
We’re meant to believe that all will be right,
when cometh that sacred relief,
But when agony pricks the white of my eyes
I’m tumbling into my own grief.
Metaphor’s the cross, I know all of that
because problems resolve in their time.
Let it go, they say. Let fate do its work,
let your bum note again find its rhyme.
A show-off moon looms loud above,
eager, serene and yellow with love.
The moon this year is bigger than most.
It makes me reflect on my unfulfilled ghost.
It stops my tracks, makes me stand in awe
at its light, its bright, its symbolic draw.
Not just your everyday, every-month moon,
the Paschal is rounder and makes me attune
to the wonder of nature, a great work of art,
to the bigger forces surrounding my heart.
Am I true to the light, the generous gaze
of her majestic roundness, her heavenly hurrahs?
“Superstition and accident manifest the will of god.” C. G Jung
“The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.” Aristotle
My car got bumped today. To be specific, the other driver thought he had more space than was actually there and, in his impatience to get through the too-tight space, his car gouged the side of mine. Or at least, that’s what it felt like as his metal got intimate with mine. It sounded as though he’d put a huge gash in the side.
He admitted liability and ran off to get his insurance documents. I stood there in wobbly shock, mind blank with what to do next in this situation, while other drivers in various states of hurry swore at me to move out of the way. Not a pleasant or uplifting experience for eight o’clock in the morning.
OK, so the physical damage was minor. But emotionally the bump has ricocheted through my day. I certainly didn’t feel I was handling this accident with grace or dignity. I’ve never had to claim on my car insurance before, and I’m loathe to start now. But more than that, I always interpret symbolically the events major and minor that happen in life, believing that Jung says about there being no such thing as an accident. If that’s the case, then what could the bump on my car mean, and what have I learned from it? Is there a deeper meaning? What’s my soul trying to communicate with me.
As I always do, I turn to my laptop for inspiration and insight. Through my keyboard I make sense of what’s happened and seek some kind of clarity and release. So, intuitively, here are the different levels of my thinking:
Points 4 and 5 have the most resonance for me. Perhaps this tiny little knock on my car was a wake-up call, bringing me back to the moment. For other meanings, I’ll let them meander into my head next time I’m on a long drive (as ideas usually do when I’m nowhere near a pen to write them down).
I can already feel that the act of letting the ideas flow through my fingertips has restored me to some kind of dignity, and the bump no longer has its insidious grip on me. Perhaps it was no accident after all.
If you’re thinking of taking a pen
To explore your innermost thoughts
Then today’s the day to do it:
It’ll help unravel your knots.
The UN’s World Poetry Day
Is a chance to feel what’s real
In the deepest darkest depths
Of your starkest startling dreams.
Whether rage takes hold in angry red
Or the blues cry over the page
Trust what comes, let it all spill out:
Free your soul from its strangled cage.
Tune into that intrusive music in your head to hear what it’s got to say. (pic:istockphoto.com/SilverV)
Oh, it’s SO annoying. Your head can’t switch off the replays of the most popular song on the radio you heard before dropping the kids off at school, driving to work, or running an errand. The catchy tune and chorus stick in your head ALL DAY. You think you hate the song, but the melody bounces around in your brain and chatters into your ears like your new best mate.
But apparently the tune that bangs on your eardrums all day – the so-called ‘earworm’ – is a song you actually know and like, according to psychologists from Western Washington University. Intrusive songs are most likely to turn up their volume when we’re relaxed and doing downtime activities like walking (or maybe the washing up) as well as when we’ve got a lot to do (like homework) and our minds are prone to wander. Annoying songs can creep in then, but are less likely to invade our ears when we’re focused on tough mental jobs and our minds are fully engaged. (If you’d really like to zap an annoying song from your inner playlist, here’s an article on how to get a song out of your head).
But how about a deeper viewpoint? What if the song that’s stuck is trying to communicate something else? What if the only way for your soul to get a message through to you on a particular day is by annoying you with seemingly inane lyrics and by banging your auditory door down with a song that has a deeper meaning for you? Listen in closely to hear what that repetitive chorus might be whispering to you.
When I need inspiration or insight, I trust that the lyrics from a song – popular or otherwise – will spring into my head. It’s a form of clairaudience, where intuition can guide me in a way that’s most meaningful for me that day. The message may not always be profound, but then symbols (visual or auditory) are often clever and subtle and need you to pay attention, interpret and trust them.
So, next time you can’t get words or music out of your head, remember to take note. It could be your inner voice trying to tell you something. Don’t drown it out.
I’ve fallen in love with works of art in my time. The kind of all-consuming ‘at first sight’ love that has to possess – at whatever cost – the object of beauty. I’ve bought paintings that made me stop still in my tracks, that reached out and tickled my spine and twisted the valves of my heart. Oh, and maxed out my credit card. But for me, they are priceless because I remain in awe of the way the art speaks to me on a level of colour and soul that black-and-white words can never quite reach.
Once I’ve fallen in love with a piece of art, there’s no going back. And I don’t care whether the artwork is considered ‘good’ or ‘bad’ by critics or experts. I love it, and that’s all there is to it. (Even these cute pieces by my daughter, above).
Which is why I was fascinated to read about an experiment carried out by the University of Leeds, which asked if increased exposure to a piece of art will make us like it more. The experiment pulls on the theory of ‘mere exposure‘, which says that we’ll start liking something if we keep seeing it often enough.
Except that we don’t. The 100 students who took part in the study still hated the ‘bad’ art even when exposed to it, and the researchers concluded that “quality, and not just familiarity, remains in the picture”.
The full findings appear in a paper, Mere Exposure to Bad Art, published in the British Journal of Aesthetics. But I think the key point they make is this: “At issue is the role that artistic quality plays in determining our aesthetic tastes.”
Quite. I think they’ve proved my point.
When somebody makes me feel less than,
Says I’m too much can’t, not enough can,
There’s a fear that jellies my thighs,
And my heartbeats double their size.
My essence of soul gets lost
As my fingertips turn to frost.
And I scrabble to save my self-esteem
As it’s chased by monsters in my dreams.
My sense of self loses all its shape,
My presence shrivels like a sad old grape.
As I creep away, full of blame and gall,
The shivers of shame make my skin cells crawl.
I feel nothing of worth, my confidence kicked,
My value rusted, my optimism pricked.
I retreat to a cave, all dark and dank,
Knowing I’ve only got myself to thank.
But at my core there’s a flicker of flame.
Really, this time, is it same again?
Will I let them all tread
On my bowed, mournful head?
Or will I rise from the wreck of this feel-sorry stuff
And say to the world: “I am enough!”
inktuition 