Out from the shadows and into the new,
I am on track towards what my heart pursues.

For my fourth year I asked myself to live and enjoy every moment. It took me about half the year until I could finally come around to that. The past year was filled with disillusionment and a feeling of being lost and restless. My plans evaporated and my dreams darkened.

Towards the end I did come to live and sit in the moment. To be thankful for that and not fill my thoughts with past or future; it was still a struggle. A lesson was learned throughout it all; a first step that I need to embark on to truly embrace each new moment. I have to let go.

I have to let go of the control I need over everything in my life. To let go of all ideas that I cling to in vain attempts to venerate myself and find validation. To let go of the child in me that has pulled me to the back of the shadows and step out into the light. To let go of being perfect and the worry that is produced by that in hitting failure.

I have to let go of everything I hold sacred and trust that I am enough. I have to let go of my ego. I have to let go of my heart. Sharing it with others and not demanding a certain way it be taken. I have to let go of all the fear that drives me. I have to let go of my dreams so that new ones can be made.

Only through that can I find my confidence. Can I find my inner strength and resolve; what I stand for. I feel as though I am stripping away the core of me but it is the lie. An infectious lie that has egregiously corrupted my soul. I must scrape the taint off the top to behold the hidden beauty swirling underneath.

It is long past time to define myself by who I truly am than the lie I’ve constructed. I have only hurt people with that lie not lifted them up. I secretly wrote that I was the bright and shining star and now it must break forth and spread its light. And it won’t be easy.

In various ways and in smaller chunks I have tried to do this before. I have to admit I have grown and I still have so much more work to do. There is a sense of clarity now. As well more force behind wanting to break forth than remaining behind my walled cage. It has already started and the more I step forth and let go and come forth anew the brighter the current moment is.

Six years gone by; been awhile. A group dispersed across the globe; lost a little. A door left open; desolate in the desert. No path direct ahead in which to bear my barren steps. A heart left gazing towards the open sea. I feel as though the hour glass of my soul lies in detainment. Anxiously awaiting my hand to turn its hyperbolic cage; resuscitating it from its stagnant state.

Facing in detached reverence the reflection of my dreams and current reality, I stand here fighting every urge to flee. I’ve cheated time and it has finally caught up to me—now tearing at my eyes to claim all that I stole so long ago. Forcing me to see the wasteful wake I have thus forged, and the despondency of my life’s dereliction. Surveying the solemn cells of my past memories knits together a discordant tapestry of tragedy.

The hope I’ve long longed for listlessly lies in between the cracks that run through this fractured form.

I was never meant to stay here.
I’m afraid to move forward into the unknown.
I’ve sat still in this stagnant theatre of my soul. Each burgeoning breath growing wearier as I struggle to keep open my weighty eyes to the growing dim that shrouds my heart.

I just want to know that in the end, when the gauntlet was thrown down, I reached out to take hold. That when my lip split open on the first punch thrown, I sucked it in and put my hands back up. That when the ground greeted my broken cheek as a pillow, my eyes still splayed wide. That I gritted my loosening teeth and sweetly sucked in one more nasally breath, to push myself up to my full height for one last go. That I let loose a final roar from the aphotic abyss within—shaking the foundations of my own soul before the curtain of the melancholy flood comes forth to claim these lifeless eyes.

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.

Joseph Campbell

I’ve watched the stars pass overhead through four different seasons now. It seems as though just last night I spied Orion’s silver bow gleaming far above me in this knowing night sky. His eye twinkling as though winking at me to tell me that his arrow will light the way ahead. Four years and still I have not found where it lays. And as night draws near the more dim the dark I descend into.

Have I wandered off the path again?
Have I lost the great light within?
Who shines down on me now?

I fear the night’s bright lights have been obscured by the convalescing clouds of my mind. Everything was so clear when arriving here. The path was straight and laid bare; well lit and full of promise. Now I’m surrounded by winding wilderness. Where this forest ends I have no clue: no guide above to see me through.

The brambles bristle across my skin; breaking through to brandish blood, as I slowly forward bore. My skin alights with fire as searing sores turn to scars. Layering on top of each other with each new daunting day. I know not what I toil towards, but fear to stop to never start again.

What was the reason why I started this journey?
I seem to have forgotten.
Who was I when I started down this path?
I seem to have forgotten.

But then I see, coming through this midnight mist, the formidable form of my partner in this craft. We dance and skip and move through a moment that withers not away. And standing there in quiescent time I see the light of that arrow shot, glinting in the eyes of my partner. Thus am I transported out of this trepidation and returned home: back to the craft I know and love.

For whenever I lose myself amidst the amorphous rabble that raucously roars through this laborious life, I have but only to look in my fellow artist’s eyes and the path I lost is once again exposed before me. I will always fail to tread this path alone; for the artist’s soul craves collaboration.