Looking Beneath the Surface
Treasure is buried beneath what you see — in things, in others, in ourselves.
I found the piece of palm tree bark (in the first photo) on my walk up the road to the elephant exhibit at the zoo, where I volunteer. It was lying there and called to me.
How could I resist? A piece of bark that had contained in it, to my eyes, an elephant that wanted to be encouraged to come out.
The second photo is what I was able to help emerge from that piece of bark. A powerful elephant had been hiding in there all along, waiting to be discovered and brought out.
I am honored to have been the one to find this amazing gift. And delighted to have had the creativity from a Source (that is so much more than me) flow through me. Creativity truly feels like it does not come from me, but flows through me, if I open myself to it. I am humbled and grateful. Both to feel this and to still be alive to be able to express this.
My path of aging is teaching me so many things. One of them is to stop and let the playful and imaginative side of me come out and see what it might have to tell me. A side of me that I learned to discount when younger as I tended to serious things and adult matters.
I have always seen shapes and creatures in nature. And others would at times smile indulgently at me, subtly discounting this piece of me. I learned to do that to myself. Discount, but not completely ignore or destroy. I learned to just keep this part of me more secret. Only for my eyes to see and my mind and spirit to enjoy.
Now, being retired, I have more time to play. Now I have time to become reacquainted with this piece of me and to see what has been there all along. Waiting patiently for me to come back to it. Waiting patiently for me to bring forth its creativity and delight in what can be possible. To see more than what may be initially obvious. In things. In people. In myself.
I am older now, and tired of hiding, tired of discounting myself and of following all the almighty shoulds and should nots. Such deadening rules.
I realize now that these parts of me that I learned to hide and to keep safe from the world are some of the best parts of me. Parts that make me unique. Gifts to be expressed. Because I am still here to express them.
So now, in my elder years, I come home to those parts of me. Come home to the playful child inside. Come home to the artist within that sees with her own unique vision. Come home to what longs to be allowed to come out. For no other purpose than to come out and be seen. Be expressed. Be appreciated, perhaps, by some others. And by me. By me.
To be honest, I had originally picked up this piece of bark and heard the familiar symphony of voices within telling me that I didn’t know what I was doing, that I had no idea how to even begin such a project.
I still held onto the bark and took it home with me. Because there was something in it that was speaking to me. And I decided it was high time that I listened.
One of the gifts of aging. To finally listen to me. To hear what was not heard. To see what was not allowed to be seen. To bring forth what was perhaps shamed and belittled. To encourage full expression of this gift of self that we each have been given while we are still here.
For me, this means allowing art to come through me. Allowing writing to come through me. Allowing what has been hidden inside, out of fear, to come out. To see beneath the surface. To hear beneath the words.
Because it’s time. Aging teaches me the depth of what now or never really means.
I am so grateful for the gift of being able to create my vision. For the wisdom that the years have brought me, where I can finally learn to pay attention to that intuition, that gut sense, that message and random thought and feeling that may come up. To pay attention to what is inside me. To what I see that others may not. To what I feel.
To finally see with my own unique eyes.
In random gifts from nature.
In others, and what may lie beneath the surface that the world sees.
In everyday things that hold miracles within, if only we take the time.
In myself and all that I am meant to be and to express.
There is a wistfulness with all of this in me. Wondering what if I had reached this understanding about myself sooner. What if, what could have been, what should have been done? The melancholy of regrets and things that might have been.
I acknowledge all of this. It’s real.
But it’s not the final chapter. Not yet.
I am still alive, after all, and there is still time to finally allow this self to emerge fully. Gloriously. Creatively.
We are still here. Still alive. To see, to hear, to listen, to embrace, to express, to live. With all of our unique, and gloriously imperfect, quirks and gifts. To appreciate these hidden gems within us and to share them.
To see what has been hiding in plain sight all along.
Our genuine and authentic selves.
Finally.
