A Recovery Blog

This blog is about my continuing recovery from severe mental illness and addiction. I celebrate this recovery by continuing to write, by sharing my music and artwork and by exploring Buddhist and 12 Step ideas and concepts. I claim that the yin/yang symbol is representative of all of us because I have found that even in the midst of acute psychosis there is still sense, method and even a kind of balance. We are more resilient than we think. We can cross beyond the edge of the sane world and return to tell the tale. A deeper kind of balance takes hold when we get honest, when we reach out for help, when we tell our stories.

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Poem: Sanctuary

Sanctuary

Do you pray, my friend,
When you rise in the morning from your bed?
Do you light a candle or some incense
And think of someone you hold dear?
Do you look up into the sky as I do?

I say to the sky,
"Great Spirit, thank you for my life.
Please show me the way."
And then I think of all that I have:
Food, shelter, heat, all wrapped up
Into a home for me;
My place, my sanctuary.

Where is your sanctuary?
Your wounded soul has gone
To many places both real and imagined.
Which places gave you comfort?
Which places give you comfort now?

So you were born with too much Saturn in your blood
And your tipping point came much too soon.
Given no choice, only an instinct for survival,
You fell into pieces you delicately preserved
And lived your days and nights fragmented.

But each fragment was charged with spirit
And each part contributed to the whole
And no one knew you were a kaleidoscope inside,
Shifting from one color, one shape to another
Within the flow of all those moments.

Where are you now, my friend,
Now that decades have gone by?
Your whole cast of characters I know still shines,
Some hidden inside,
Some coming to life in all of your senses.
It is amazing what you have done
Each time, after each instance of abuse,
To still turn yourself around
To still look up at the sky and the sun,
Then to wait to see the stars and the moon.


Listen To Audio Here

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