Journey of the Heart

John O'Donohue, the late Irish poet, philosopher, and former Catholic priest... ...taught that we should welcome, embrace, even protect and celebrate our contradictions. As I seem to be full of them, I have found his teachings on the subject to be incredibly healing and liberating. The following piece of writing is an exercise in making peace with some of my seeming contradictions; a celebration of the complexity of the human soul.  "Two Sisters" by Cheryl Anne I dance. I pray. My dance is prayer. My prayer dances its way to Heaven. I sing. I am silent. My song is woven with passionate pauses. My silence is the deepest song of my soul. I am pure and chaste. I am wanton and wild. In chastity, I give myself to all the world. In wildness, I am virgin, belonging only to myself. I am nun. I am gypsy. My cloister is the greenwood. My caravan is an oaken pew. I am these Two Sisters. I am One Woman; whole, complete. Photograph of Sophia Sundar...

I titled this poem "she" as a reference to my own self, to the woman that dwells in me: that innermost part of me that remains often hidden from the world… This is a poem that came to "life" few weeks ago and it is a deep expression of a tumultuous time I was going through, and still am. It is that point in life many of us reach (once or many times in a lifetime) in which we don't know who we are anymore. Yet inside something is very much ALIVE and wants to be expressed and sail into the river of life with all its mysteries, agonies and joys. This is a poem dedicated to that inner Me that at times get confused about her soul, and her life and that questions everything! Then after the questioning process she comes out with a more solid knowledge of who she is or might be next. She by Ilda Dashi She is afraid, scared of what her inner treasures might contain: gems and diamonds or demons traveling on a train. She is terrified, of wh...