On Snowflakes and Vulnerability

This week I have found myself focusing on being more heart centered and less in my head. I find that when I get caught up in the news of the day my mind tends to run and I get caught in the anxiety of the world. I also work at a desk all day and have been driving more so I don't always engage with my body. On Thursday I went in for my massage (Megan Mackie at Community Chiropractic is awesome by the way). As usual although my mind felt like 70% sunshine and rainbows that day my body was a tense ball of stress. By the end of the massage, I felt a lot of the tension break and I felt more connected and open with my body. I laughed and I cried as we talked while she worked on my neck. I felt so much more alive by the end.

On Friday, on my lunch break at work I listened to this Tara Brach lecture entitled "The Revolution of Tenderness." Watching this called me back to the relaxation I experienced the previous day. In it she talks about how many of us act from our minds rather than listening to the wisdom of our body and our hearts. I felt so much more focused into myself and letting myself experience whatever emotions were coming thru rather than resisting them.

Saturday gave me so much hope. I didn't get to march but I the train ride to work was packed with awesome women heading down to the march. The energy on that train was so positive and inspiring. It's one thing to know on the surface that there are so many people that want to work for a more positive world, it's another thing to see a train platform full of people presenting this positive energy.

My goal as I move forward is to continue to relax into myself and be the positive person that I am. I will continue to be honest with myself and other people and work to listen to others as they share their thoughts and fears.

There is slang going around where bleeding heart liberals are dismissed as "snowflakes." I actually really love this label and would like to reclaim it. Frankly I think being a snowflake means that you operate from a heart centered place rather than being trapped in the mind (what I call an ice pellet). So I wrote this poem.

Snowflakes

I am reclaiming the term snowflake

Not just for people in my bubble

But for all of us

For our truest form is the snowflake

When we share our soul for all to see

When we embrace our gifts and flaws

When patterns form and crystallize

Into a unique constellation

So others may stare hypnotized

As we gracefully fall to the ground

Being a snowflake is knowing the soul

When the snow storm comes we all fall together

United in our beauty

But we aren’t always snowflakes

Sometimes we become hardened in the cold

Hardened by our fears and anxieties

We build a shell

In that moment we are an ice pellet

Rudely flung in someone’s face

Eventually, we melt we go back into the cycle

Ice pellets can be snowflakes

Snow flakes can be ice pellets

Some have more capacity to melt than others

In warmer climates we are the drop of water

That unites with the great river

We go with the flow as we are guided

Uniting with larger streams

We evaporate condensate

Precipitate again and again

So let us float gracefully on the air

Our hearts open reflecting on the unique patterns of others

Let’s cling to each other in clumps

As the temperature rises.