Well Ruth, I've finally decided to share the whole poem. It grew out of a lot of things but it all started with that conversation with the Redbud tree. Little did I expect that the most difficult challenge the tree would set for me was to be able to offer that unconditional love, not just to others, but to myself, with all my glorious humanness! That was an interesting learning that is ongoing.
One of the most surprising things that came out of that writing with the tree was that definition of love as simply a connection with someone or something that helps you to connect more completely with the love that you are. That rang so true for me because for a long time I have felt like the word love just wasn't defined correctly, that there was something more to it. I still do feel that way, but the definition that the redbud tree shared is the one that makes the most sense to me. As life would have it though, not long afterward I wrote the following poem as I was looking at the idea of love again and realized how limiting it is to even try to define it in human terms. It was so freeing to write the poem and celebrate not needing to define love or myself! Here's to Freedom!
Shedding Love
Lynda Allen
I define myself, for myself, by myself.
Then defy the definitions.
No desire to be boxed in
To what has been defined before
Creating new what is old
Love rigid and formed
Uninhabitable
I would inhabit love
Live fully within it
Until it is my very skin
Nothing touched without being touched by love
Then it is shed
And reforms
Gloriously new again
A second skin
Ever renewing, ever falling away
No solidity in love
Only the ever changing joy of wearing it
The light of the moment shifts the color
Of love
Until the next moment
Shadow cast, molting begins
Squirming and writhing
Finally allowing
One skin, one color never enough
To express Love
I begin anew
