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Have you ever had a really random idea for no good reason, dismissed it totally, then regretted it later?
I'm trying to minimize regret these days, so when a random idea comes, I've been following it through.
A couple months ago, I had a random idea to connect two of my friends. It was a bit of a tricky thing to make happen, because I was getting a nudge that it needed to be more than an email introduction. This was an in-person meeting that needed to happen, but they live on literally opposite ends of the country.
And so began the unfolding.
After a few failed attempts, it's looking like the meeting could actually happen. More on the back story in this week's video.
But the real lesson for me through this is how profoundly things can shift when we are willing to do things in a new way.
This week, I am in Calgary with said friends, and so I wrote this newsletter in advance to make sure you get in in your inbox by Friday morning.
And as I sat to write it, the nudge that came was, "Share a poem."
I have been writing poetry since I was ten years old, and it was a tool I stumbled upon to process some complex and overwhelming feelings when my family constellation changed.
That was the year my dad left his marriage and moved to another continent, leaving my mother with three young children to raise on her own. What that meant for me is I stepped into the second-in-command-position in our household. Halfway through fifth grade.
Already an over-responsible, over-achieving, and parentified child, suddenly I inherited even more actual, practical duties of supporting my mom to raise this family.
Poetry was where I could escape.
The page gave me a place to thrash around the barbed wire and throw the acid, to say things with my pen that I would never say out loud.
Over the years, poetry has come as a balm during times of suffering and as a fountain of clarity during life transitions, deep loss, and the overwhelm and flooding of romantic love.
In the last couple of years, poems have come in the mundane moments, helping me give language to the subtle, the unreachable, the extraordinary in the ordinary.
And so today, I want to share a poem. I wrote this poem about a year ago, at a time when the old was falling apart and the new was not yet clear. As we move through the summer and into the Autumn, you may be feeling the changes inside you too. So sit back, relax, and let the words wash over you.
This Dragon's Breath
Burning away what isn't yours
The heat, bone-searing, eyes closed
Extra, excess, just baggage
You don't need to carry this
Where I'm taking you.
Evaporate their lies
Though you believed them
You gave them your precious mind
Your trusting heart
Your open soul
And they tricked you
Those puppet masters
Playing with your spirit
To keep you pliable
To keep you moldable
To make you theirs
But you are mine
Oh Fire Child
You burn hotter than their fiercest swords
You burn brighter than the white hot heat
Of rage
Oh Fire Child
You will grow new forests
And name new lands
You will take us where we've never been before
And we will bow and kneel
At the altar of our own wisdom
And we shall be healed
And we shall be healed
And we shall be healed
By this Dragon's Breath.
Are you a poem-writer too? Send me a reply to this newsletter and share a favourite poem if you like!
Enjoy your weekend, and we'll chat again next week.
Yours in The Great Weaving,
Dr. Saira
P.S. If you want to connect with The Expansion Project Community and ask your questions about Monique's first book ("The How" - available now on Amazon) join us on Monday September 1 at 5:00 - 6:00 pm PST for our live Q&A. Register here for the link!
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