Week 87 - Sitting in the Power
- Shirley Riga
- May 9
- 3 min read
Wisdom Keepers
How many “start agains” have I muttered each new day I wake up and remember my pain. As I gather more days behind me than in front of me, I also gather wisdom, life experience, and the many wonderful, giving, caring, wise people I call my friends, colleagues, and inspirers that fill my inner file cabinet with tidbits of love and authenticity.
One of my wisdom keepers has lived his life, the ups and downs, gleaning the golden nuggets that have helped him feel more alive, worthwhile and vital as he maneuvers through his 68 plus years with illnesses that should have killed him but have helped define him as he continues to rise and inspire.
Another wisdom keeper is living with golden nuggets deep in his pockets, loves animals back to health, and practices daily kindness and love that remedies him with all he deals with. Being kind is his mantra.
We are wisdom keepers. Every one of us. We all hold such experience in survival and we haven’t given up because we are here. A wisdom keeper doesn’t mean you have everything figured out. A wisdom keeper doesn’t mean you sit back and sip margueritas on the beach with a wealth income that is sure to sustain you through your life.
A wisdom keeper is a survivor who holds memories of pain and suffering. A wisdom keeper keeps walking forward and moves beyond their pain, sharing their authenticity, kindness and care for themselves and others, and continues learning. A wisdom keeper is authentic always finding their way back to the light no matter how long it takes.
We all struggle, deeply struggle with childhood pain and suffering, loss, disappointment, never being good enough, not feeling well enough, no energy, heartache, heartbreak, wanting and searching clues to be successful, be healthy, be free. The unfairness of life defines the lens we look through.
Life is so challenging, so unfair, so mysterious, so mesmerizing in the many ways we weave our lives to find peace, kindness, fairness, all the facets of what our human hearts are capable of creating through it all. We find the beauty of nature, the bounty of friendship, inspiration and heart-centered awareness of our truth. It is always outside of us and inside of us.
And that is the core of it. We are all living warriors moving forward with our challenges, finding beauty, inspiration, community and caring. Therein lies the true wisdom of our lives.
For One Who Is Exhausted, a Blessing
When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.
The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.
Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.
The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.
You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.
At first your thinking will darken
And sadness takes over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.
You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.
Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.
Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.
Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.
Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.
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