Collapsing into peace and relaxation,
Brick by brick the old house falls,
They say it was brave to destory this lair,
But it felt inevitable in every way,
For is it brave when a rusty leaf falls to the ground?
Is it brave when the caterpillar cocoons itself in darkness?
Or is it just nature following its ceaseless course?
Necessary endings are the norm you see, you hear,
For in this way is the soil tilled for seeds of future growth,
In this way our hearts are scoured of the crust of pride,
That which tempts us into a false magnificence,
Today our grip on the wheel is loosened at last,
So collapsing into peace and relaxation,
We admire the view from the Director's chair.
(This poem was written in a time of personal change. A time when it felt like things were collapsing around me. Others felt I was being brave in choosing change but that is not how it felt to me. It was just a natural process governed by the heart. Also, I was being humbled (again!) having got used to the status and the status quo of an easier life. To build something new can often involve demolishing something old along the way - that doesn't always feel great at the time. But if we had the faith of a caterpillar, the faith of a leaf, then we would trust the ultimate outcome of a process of transformation. Endings are part of the cycle. The 'letting go' theme runs through this poem strongly as it does with others I have written. I love the idea of being able to take up a perspective from the 'Director's chair' - as well as the religious connotation the image reminds me of the NLP technique of dissociation and hence gave the poem its title. If you dissociate from an experience then you step outside of it and observe it from a distance. This is a good technique for reducing the emotional impact of bad memories. In contrast, it is great to associate with good memories - step inside them and look at the scene through your own eyes. For more info see http://www.nlp-mentor.com/submodalitytechniques/association-dissociation Caterpillars must be great at disassociation as they sit in that cocoon wondering what the hell is going on, don't you think? :-) )
