Love is the catch in your chest
Sometimes painful
It’s the emotion that runs fingertips through your flesh
And grips
It’s nothing you can control
I feel it when I think of this earth sometimes —
People disappearing down the plughole of the internet
Resurfacing “elsewhere”
Uncaring for this aliveness
Out here
I try to bring it to their attention
But they look away
Look down
And I think of all those frowning
Or worse —
blankness
The glare of a million screens
Beaming back at a sky that is never seen
Anymore
All that is
Disappearing
And it’s devastating
But that’s why love hurts —
To get our attention
Sensitivity is a super power
That I never wanted
Emotions that run so deep
I have to stand back
A few feet
Try to numb myself down
I used to drink
Smoke
But that was all a long time ago
And none of it worked anyway
So I had to learn how to dip in
And dip out
I can write on many different levels these days
Write just fine
But when I begin to write soul truth
I hear locks unravelling
Turning molten
Everything I feel
Smouldering inside
If I’m not careful
I catch fire
Cry at the steering wheel
But the words —
That run through my head
And onto a page
Are magical
It is always there
Even when neatly boxed
Taped down
Labelled:
Don’t open
Until you can handle it
Lightly
But I’ve never been able to
Handle
It
Lightly —
Until now
When I trace the outline quietly
Write just one post
And then leave it alone
Tell the super power
It is owned
How?
I don’t know
One day you just finally
Own it
Own yourself
And after that
Nothing needs a box
Just a small shelf
Where it can shine
Brightly
As a child I always felt different to everyone. I felt things really deeply. Really deeply. Inexplicably deeply. And with all such inexplicable things, it then felt weird. I felt weird. Other.
I have led a turbulent inner life because of it even when I learned to be disciplined and calm on the surface.
With writing I have had to discern what is for me, and what is for others. This poem is a gentle version of a massive download I had this morning driving. The words in that download were powerful, I was crying and I often do when I have those sorts of moments and break throughs
I think a lot of creative or sensitive people have this, it is both their superpower and their kryptonite. All in the same package. Diabolical. Chaos. Yet if you learn to manage it – and I am not suggesting I have fully – you may find, as I have that the medicine is in what first appears to be poison.
But the medicine is never in artificial poisons – it shouldn’t be numbed or tuned out – it has to be felt, acknowledged, deciphered, processed and then transformed into just the right medicine – for others and for ourselves.
Our medicine comes from the alchemy, others, from the art we have created. When grief or pain or love – any great human emotional event strikes – they go looking for words, art, music in order to understand themselves.
If there was no art
No poetry
No music
No words
Then the people have no access to the medicine they require
And it is the creators that make the medicine for the entire world. If they make it right, they get to carry the medicine and therefore be healthy and transform. If they do it wrong then there is no medicine for themselves and they become toxic and then there is even less medicine for the world
And believe me – this world needs medicine now more than ever
And why do you think there was ever such a thing as a medicine man or woman in indigenous culture and those that live close to nature?
Because people were wise enough to know they needed it.
So
Artist | writer |poet – allow the download – give it some time – and then gift your own version – that is your medicine to this bleeding world.
This is why a lot of creative or sensitive people have addictions or big ups and downs – they haven’t learned to handle their own creative source. They become toxic when they can’t create alchemy.
There would have been times in the past when I would have wrote exactly what I was thinking. I would have thought because it was powerful and felt brilliant – it was for me to share. And it would have burnt me. Like uncured spirits, fatal to the craft.
This knowledge – more of an inner knowing that feels slightly weird to say aloud – has made an enormous difference to the way I create, write and share. It’s not that what I’m sharing is diluted – it is just the human processed version.
But it is my medicine – and now it’s yours. Just like others that I read here when I’m feeling a bit low who manage to lift me with their own particular brand of alchemy.
Header photo: Gidgee tree – Alroy Station – it’s a stunning tree and an old one – it feels magical.
The scent of the Gidgee tree is polarising – people love it or hate it. I have always adored it but then I love the grounded scents like Buddah Wood and Abivortae in essential oil form too. It’s a base note.
My writing too is probably a little polarising – it comes out raw and is rarely edited once I get to putting it to page. But this last trip taught me that’s okay. I’m okay in this form because it’s simply who I am. Not everyone likes the smelll of Gidgee and not everyone likes certain art or expression – and those that don’t like coriander don’t eat it – it makes the world of sharing very simple and peaceful.
I like how you describe the phenomena of feeling as alchemy. i often find myself working towards some inarticulate endpoint and now that you’ve mentioned that word, it gives my sense of direction a name. Mike
That means a lot, Mike — thank you. I think so many of us are doing exactly that, shaping the raw material of experience into something finer without even realising that’s what we’re doing. Naming it alchemy helped me understand the process differently — that it’s not just about feeling, but about transforming. I’m really glad the word landed with you.
As always your words are deeply penetrating and I’m so glad you are not in a box, have been uniquely you and sorry it was odd for you growing up. I for love celebrate your uniqueness and ability to share without filter and editing, Kate. It’s just beautiful!
No one will ever put you in a box! Me either!
“And it’s devastating
But that’s why love hurts —
To get our attention
Sensitivity is a super power”
🩷🩷🩷
Oh Cindy you are a treasure. Thank you so much for this beautiful note — it means more than you know. I think those of us who’ve never actually fit in a box recognise one another across the noise. I’m so grateful for your presence and reflection — it makes the sharing feel worthwhile, like medicine that landed where it was needed. Here’s to staying unboxed and walking gently with all that feeling — it really is a superpower, isn’t it? ❣️
So true!
Sharp senses, sensibilities and greater sympathy with the world: a gift and, yes, perhaps a burden too.
~
You, Kate, are brewed, not instant, if you’ll forgive such an analogy.
A post that will reward rereading, thank you,
DD.
Thanks DD and I love that analogy 💕
Everything you’re saying here is so relatable. I am often cryptic in my posts because I know the world doesn’t need to know me the way I do. But isn’t it freeing to spill out what we think the world can handle. Everything else stays close to the heart, protected and then only released when the right time comes.
Exactly Michelle – I was talking to a wise friend about this the other day – they said that things shouldn’t be shared u til they are processed – which got me thinking about all of this and is where I have ended up. Some people never feel anything nearly as deeply nor think about this sort of thing either and I used to envy them until I also realised that if you don’t experience things deeply
You
Don’t
Experience
Things
Deeply
I would far prefer to experience things deeply and put up with burnt fingers and heartstrings then to cruise through life blissfully unaware of all this feeling and meaning. There are thousands of different species of birds and I think there are at least that many different species of human.
this is such a ;powerful post, Kate, I didn’t know where this one was going but I went with it all the way. It left me breathless. Too good to be read just once. I’ve bookmarked it and back for another read. Now —
❤️
…and that line ‘when I begin to write soul truth I hear locks unravelling’ !!!!
“Sensitivity is a super power” – I know you didn’t want it, but it remains powerful. powerful post, Linda xx
Thanks Linda, I think with age it has become one of my favourite things, but it wasn’t great when I was younger and surrounded by lots of “cool” people. There is so much pressure to fit in when you’re younger.
You worded it so well … ” it is both their superpower and their kryptonite.” I can’t remember the author that told this story, but for the first couple of decades of his life, he had thought women’s emotions made them weak and vulnerable. Then one day he had a moment when he felt something deeply, and it hit him like a thunderbolt – “I’ve been missing something all these years!” For me, those moments of emotion – I think of it as intimately connecting with my Creator – are well worth the tears of the not-so-wonderful emotions. Both are signs of life. 😉
I have a deep appreciation for nature – it is a running theme throughout my life – whenever people connect both to their own nature and the nature that surrounds us we step into alchemy – every strain of spirituality tells us this.
“Man follows the earth. Earth follows heaven. Heaven follows the Tao. The Tao follows what is natural.”
— Tao Te Ching, Chapter 25
We don’t own the land. The land owns us.”
— Uncle Bob Randall, Yankunytjatjara elder
“I am the taste of water, the light of the sun and the moon… the sound in space, the ability in man.”
— Bhagavad Gita, 7:8
A return to nature, both our own and the eternal, always connects us to the source of all things. And therefore ultimate peace.