Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Final "Firing" Poem

The following poem is the final piece of what I call my Firing Trilogy - My Vein of Gold mandala, The Door poem, and this, Rainbow. They were part of my healing process and were important when I had a trial against my former employer. I used them to buffer the onslaught of negativity that comes with a trial, mainly an effort to destroy me as an individual and social worker. It took years of hard work to put things in perspective and move on. You may think that by revisiting this time in my life I am going backward, but actually it feels like I am creating the base for how I became a bead artist. I truly feel that sometimes profound events have to happen in our lives to wake us up and embrace what it is we truly want.

Rainbow

On a Sunday night I saw a beautiful rainbow over the autumn foliage at Gallup Park.

The sky was black, and from a break in the clouds the sun was shining just so it hit the tops of the trees, magnifying each hue of orange, red, and magenta of the changing leaves.

I have never seen anything like it before, the black of the sky, the brilliance of the leaves.
It was truly magnificent. It was like a message was being sent:

There is beauty in life even with change and loss.
From pain can come new energy and appreciation for the things that matter.
An ending can become a beginning, a time for growth.
The loss of old dreams can be replaced with new ones.

We don't always know what the challenges in life are going to be, there's not a script we can always follow. Our lives are constantly being rewritten and revised.

Perhaps the real challenge is to grasp the rainbow when we see it.

2 comments:

Carol- Beads and Birds said...

You are so right! And lots of people never get it. Sometimes it takes a lot of time to put these events behind us. I am a firm believer that these events shape us into the people we are and if we are lucky, we see them for what they are and are better because they happened. Some people never get that and never move on, stagnating in self pity and remorse.

Life is like the weather, especially in the area in which we live. Bright shiney days for a while turn to gloom and overcast mornings only to have the sun return again. Almost like its saying to us "I'm back. Did you miss me? Take advantage of my brilliance while you can because you never know how long I will stay".

Hey, that was good, wasn't it!?!

Glad you are a beader Susan and I am glad we met. Sun's out today!!

pam T said...

awesome, Susan. totally awesome and inspiring. thank you.