Showing All The Way Up

What does it take to show all the way up?

To show all of ourselves, our pain, and, our beauty

To cast aside what we’ve been told we should look like, what we should think and want and need

What we should grow into

What we should ask for, and when

What we should feel grateful for

Reach Up.

Up, sideways, and around

Reach for the sun, the moon, the stars

Like the stem of a new plant searching for light, for life

Keep going. Keep growing

Grow your new leaves, grow your new branches

To keep a plant healthy we sometimes pinch off the shoots. We prune.

The energy comes from within, from below, from the Earth, from the cosmos

How much energy do we channel into keeping all our leaves, our branches, intact, pristine, on display?

Maybe to show all the way up we might choose to prune ourselves occasionally

Choose our shape, ever-evolving

Choose the space we take up

Choose our own growth, our own direction

Be sometimes big and bold

Sometimes fragile and delicate

Always firm. Unbreakable. Our roots holding us steady. 

The trees talk through their root system, sending messages on regeneration from generation to generation

Like the growth rings of a tree, we are layered

The body holds our stories deep within

History, HER-story, OUR story, our ancestry

Holding us Guiding us

Helping us

The pain and the beauty

The shadows we cast,

The branches we hide fearing they are not perfect enough

We grow layers

Only show what’s acceptable

What if, to show ‘all the way up’ we grow wild and free,

Take up space, dance in the wind

What if we support each other with a root system so deep when one of us falls she is held up by the tangled web of love

love that is us, that is them

Her story. Ancestry. Our story

Showing up in this pivotal moment

Roots and branches. Roots and wings

Showing up whole.