Welcome to this reading today and thank you for being here.
This is a poem I wrote called Bury Your Dreams.
I hope you enjoy it.
Bury your dreams,
The wise woman said to her.
The words echoed in her mind as she tried to decipher their meaning.
Bury my dreams?
Why on earth would I do that?
She silently asked herself.
She didn't want to bury anything.
She wanted her hopes and dreams to be out in the light where she could dance and play and share them with everyone.
She wanted to work as hard as she could to help those dreams bear fruit,
To keep creating,
Only resting when she needed to.
But mostly she wanted everyone to know the value of her dreams,
But deep down,
The value of her.
Youthful and foolish,
She didn't notice the shadow of her longing and so onward she walked,
Trying,
Failing,
And sometimes even giving up completely.
Each time she started anew,
She brought seeds and showed them to everyone she met,
Telling them how they would blossom into the most beautiful flowers the world had ever seen.
But many people laughed at her enthusiasm,
Squashing her hope.
They're just seeds,
They said.
How on earth are you going to make those work?
What if they don't grow when you plant them?
What if there's not enough rain and sun?
And what if the wind blows them away completely?
Each time the seeds didn't sprout,
She felt the sting of those cynical words and began to believe them.
She began to lose faith,
Not only in the potential of the seeds,
But in the deeper potential of herself.
No amount of those seeds ever felt like enough,
In the same way that no amount of effort,
Faith,
Or hope ever did.
Exhausted and empty,
One day she decided to surrender.
She let go of trying so hard,
She let go of effort,
And she untangled herself from false hope.
Just like the last few seeds buried cozily in the earth,
She decided to finally let things be,
Allowing the rebellious energy of her dreams and desires to settle for a while.
She welcomed stillness and silence and began listening to her own inner voice,
The one she realized she hadn't heard for a very long time.
Whilst on the surface,
It looked as though nothing was happening,
Underneath the quiet,
Soft earth,
A transformation was taking place.
As she returned to herself,
As she tilled her soil,
As she chose to take deep and radical rest,
An unseen power was returning.
One morning,
After winter's blanket of snow had begun to thaw,
She noticed a bright green shoot.
To her amazement,
One of the seeds had effortlessly sprouted through the cold ground.
As she watched the sprout mature into a stem,
Grow leaves and eventually new hopeful buds,
She began to remember the wise woman's words.
Bury your dreams.
Bury your dreams.
The words landed softly in her mind,
Body and heart in an entirely new way.
She realized the words hadn't been ones of discouragement,
Or advice to even keep her dreams hidden from the world.
Instead,
They were the words of invaluable wisdom on protecting what was deeply vulnerable.
The wise woman had been warning her not to share her dreams too early with others,
Before they had taken root,
Before they were strong and steady enough to withstand harsh comments or be damaged by the piercing blades of doubt and fear.
There had been no need to shout her dreams from the rooftops,
Seek acceptance or ask for opinions.
All she had needed to do was bury the seeds deep in the soil,
Planting them where they could lay untouched,
Protected and out of sight for months,
Maybe even years,
Nestled and cozy in the soft dark earth.
She needn't have worried,
Tried harder or given up and started from scratch each time the seeds didn't seem to be growing.
All she had needed to do was lovingly tend to them with trust in her heart,
Nurture them,
Water them and whisper to them,
Even when nothing had appeared.
As more shoots began to sprout,
The shoots turned into stems,
Leaves and eventually into buds,
Growing higher and higher,
Taller and broader,
Until one late spring day,
They began to turn and open towards the warmth of the sun and the first flower that bloomed was indeed the most beautiful flower ever to be seen.
Not because it was especially exotic or unusual,
But because it held within it the love,
Hope,
Magic and possibility that she herself had imagined while she tended to its growth.
So bury your dreams,
Nestle them deeply in the earth,
Tenderly love and whisper to them and know that unimaginable growth is taking place just below the surface.
Don't tell anyone about them yet,
Don't go shouting from the rooftops about how beautifully they're going to flower or how much they're going to change the world,
Just lean back into trust and faith and let them unfurl on their own.
Let nature work her magic and let them simply and surely speak for themselves when they are ready,
Divinely timed and steeped in a sacred beauty that can only be born from authentic,
Unwavering,
Unconditional love.
