Imperfectly Human
With heart and soul
“Embrace the shadow self”, gather dust on the shelf,
Life is a matter of choices.
Fearful or brave, it’s ourselves we can save,
If we tune in to the right voices.
Standing tall, or cowering low
Rests on the past
And the limits we’ll go.
Accepting good and bad
With a healthy dose of sad -
A concoction of proof we are real.
Elation, frustration, guilty jubilation
Compliments the depth of pain we may feel.
Depressed, or impressed, let’s party — Go get dressed!
Which side shall it be today?
Whatever the mood, there’s plenty of food
For thought to go around
Each day.
Wild traces of cowardice, laced with visions of power
Can hide behind curtains or walls
Screaming out, falling down, jumping back up -
A renewal? A re-birth? Insanity calls?
Aggression, regression can come in succession
While fear or endear take the lead.
The sound of quiet, or starting a riot
Paradoxically can plant the same seed.
Submissive or bold, creative or cold
Perception comes in a wide range of sizes.
Understood, contented, or mis-represented
Life is full of surprises.
Keeping up a pretence, or tearing down the fence
Hurting oneself just to feel.
Excitement, desire, raise the roof, quench the fire
Hope that the feelings are real.
Mistake-maker, heart-breaker,
Playing the field.
Heart-broken — A token
That love can exist.
Satisfaction — A fraction
Of kindness to yield.
Determination that makes one persist.
“Running with the wild”, “embracing the inner child”
Forgiving to fill that black hole.
Denying, implying, or kill oneself trying
To prove that love is the food
For the soul.
“To confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light. Once one has experienced a few times what it is like to stand judgingly between the opposites, one begins to understand what is meant by the self. Anyone who perceives his shadow and his light simultaneously sees himself from two sides and thus gets in the middle.”
– Carl Jung
“Healthy wolves and healthy women share certain psychic characteristics: keen sensing, playful spirit, and a heightened capacity for devotion. Wolves and women are relational by nature, inquiring, possessed of great endurance and strength. They are deeply intuitive, intensely concerned with their young, their mates, and their pack. They are experienced in adapting to constantly changing circumstances; they are fiercely stalwart and very brave.
Yet both have been hounded, harassed, and falsely imputed to be devouring and devious, overly aggressive, of less value than those who are their detractors. They have been the targets of those who would clean up the wilds as well as the wildish environs of the psyche, extincting the instinctual, and leaving no trace of it behind. The predation of wolves and women by those who misunderstand them is strikingly similar”. — “Women Who Run With The Wolves”, by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D.
