Introducing Martine Weber — Writer for Illumination

A story about my Inner Child

Oops ……. an introduction of myself ……. That’s not the easiest thing for me to do. I write a lot, but not about myself …

That’s because I try to live in the present and not in the past. I don’t perceive time as linear or horizontal, but iterative, in a vertical and ‘stapled’ way. The present moment is where my happiness can be found, and I think that’s what your life is all about: to see and be inspired by the beauty that is all around you, to allow all feelings to arise in the present while opening your heart and embrace them while maintaining a feeling of gratitude. Including the not so nice feelings, because these are messages that tell you something along your path is or is not intended for you. Usually, that process in me results in a poem or two, but not in memoirs :-)

I feel, so I am. I have discovered that this is a much better way of living for an empath then my former exhaustive coping strategy of staying in my ratio and head energy all the time. That’s a lesson I’ve only recently learned, and it still needs a lot of practice … Which makes me happy, because that is what makes life interesting … the constant endeavour to refind the calmness of your peaceful heart.

When you write an introduction about yourself, one usually makes a resume of what you’re doing or have been doing in the past. In my opinion that soon turns into a story about what I do, not so much about who I am. Although I guess it is your actions that define who you become.

What I have done is an accumulation of consequences of the (re)actions based on my occurring feelings and consequential thoughts in those moments. From which I learn and choose what to create and become. That is a nice thought because it means that there is actually no cause, only consequences. And if there is no cause, then there is no one to blame. Unless you go all the way back to blaming the “Big Bang”.

I am therefore unable to make a chronological line of my life because I do not think linearly. In my ‘sofiology’ everything happens in the present moment, including my memories and the creation of my future. If I had to summarize myself, then I am a heartfelt ‘sofiologist’ and convinced that you create your life with your thoughts and that you have also chosen the setting(s) and timeframe of the life that you are currently living … (Sofie Weber is the pseudonym under which I write song lyrics and compose songs; hence ‘sofiology’).

I have always been a bit of a globetrotter. At the place where I was born, I mostly did not feel at home. Actually I did not really feel at home anywhere, I was always on a quest, only to discover that your real home is in yourself, in your heart.

I have traveled, seen, and experienced a lot. Basically, I was always looking for my “real home and parents”. I think we all do that, your heart always keeps looking for the security of that unconditional love where everything can be just harmonious and perfect, and where you do not have to feel touched by the lessons you have chosen to live in duality on this earthly planet.

I am a positive spirit that sees a solution for everything or possibilities in and for everyone. A statement from me could have been: “I have no problems, I only need people with problems that I can solve.” Well, that could be a summary of the majority of my (job) career and life: “solving complicated problems in organizations, a deep desire to solve the problems of humanity and vulnerable people, because I was and still am affected by that.”

I suspect that I have also looked after my (biological) parents more than they have taken care of me. But that was because they didn’t understand how to solve their own pain. I love them and I am grateful for the good that I received from them, and I leave the rest with them. They are in good hands now and no longer on this planet. Caring for others has made me very tired on occasions because I forgot that I should also take care of myself in the first place, that I was worth being loved. As a result, I’ve shut myself off at times. Even for myself.

Don’t get me wrong, I am and was a positively spirited person. That is because I have rock-solid confidence in our Creator, in the power of life, in the beauty around me, and in the inner wisdom and goodness residing in all hearts. And somehow the light always triumphs in me, despite the hard and dark struggle. Because I believe in it and because I’ve discovered that the darkness also is a needed friend. You need the contrast. The deeper the darkness, the brighter the light.

Okay then, a few facts about myself. I was born in 1967, I’m currently living in the Netherlands, and married with the love of my life. Our (step)daughter and foster child are now grown and flown. I recently moved to a multi-generation residential community of 32 families, where the idea is to share stuff, to look after each other, the children and elders, and to grow our communal gardens.

In daily life, I currently work as a coach and case manager in the field(s) of HR and Elder Care. For the benefit of generating an income, I have acquired business skills and enough diplomas and certificates. I am a bit of an “eternal” student.

But my passion goes out to the art of creation. Do what you love and the money will follow. Besides being a poet, I every now and then compose a song and sometimes even dare to sing one of my composed songs myself. If it were up to me I would spend all my days pondering, musing, philosophizing, composing, making music, and writing poems about the beauty of life, about peace and harmony, and about unconditional love :-)

I currently reached the beautiful age of 52. I can recommend it to anyone, the wisdom of this phase in your life in combination with a form of cheerful youthfulness that never really leaves me. In my heart, I always remain an adolescent and a student of life.

About 3 years ago I was literally stopped by — what’s in the name, there’s really no such thing as coincidence — a Weber fracture. That was the moment where I had to lay in bed for a long time, physically incapable of moving myself around, but mentally still capable of handling a computer. That’s where I started to write and compose songs. It took me 2 years to recover and I still live with chronic pain. That is if I decide not to do anything about it today because there are also solutions for this challenge in my life, such as this brilliant article of Quinton Heisler:

After my mother passed away on June 8, 2018, my period of caregiving to our parents was over and the (song)writer and poet in me were born. I owe the fact that I started writing and publishing on Medium to Anthony Moore.

Leaves me for now with a story in a parable that perhaps describes the core of how I look at my journey so far from this point in my life:

Renaissance

Once upon a time, there was a girl who played a wooden flute all day and often walked the same path towards the forest. She kept playing, searching for her music. For that one beautiful melody in harmony with everything around her.

Nobody understood why she kept playing. The church thought she’d better play in church, her parents thought she should play different music, her teacher thought she should play technically perfect because he wanted to deliver at least one student to the music academy. The other children didn’t understand her very well, because she often played alone.

Until a wise woman walked by who heard her play and said: “The flute is not yet fully tuned to you. Do you know you can tune your flute the way you want? Here are a very small hammer and a very small nail with which you can carefully tap the block out of the flute and make it exactly the block that suits you. Of the type of wood that you like the most. And a ruler to position the holes exactly on the flute, so that all the notes you play can sound melodious and harmonious.”

And the girl went to work. But it turned out not to be that simple. For, how did she want it to sound? Warm, cheerful, or a bit melancholic? What and for whom did she actually want to play? And what is precisely harmonious?

She found out that the wooden flute, her mood, the music she played, and also her life are to some degree malleable. That was a hopeful discovery, for she was not attracted to the straitjacket of dogmas and precepts she grew up in. She wanted to be able to make her own choices. And so the search for the music in herself began.

Now, in this phase of my life, my thoughts go back to two moments. To the moment when a veil lifted in 2017 and I realized that the “light” around me changed its colors to suit me.

For a long time during my life, I had the feeling that the light, as I perceived it, was veiled. It just wasn’t right. Until in the summer of 2015, I literally asked the question: “let me perceive what I know is there, but what I can only imagine in a veiled way.”

Two years later, in 2017, the answer came. Not exactly the answer I expected, but the answer I had been looking for and waiting for. It was as if my foundation crumbled completely. As if a haze disappeared before my eyes and the light took on a different angle.

I received an answer that allowed me to see more clearly, in a light that felt right to me. For me, that was the moment of my “Renaissance”, the moment of coming home to myself, in which I could grow and flourish, instead of only taking care of others or for the profit of organizations. At that moment it was as if the path to my home was finally shone, the way to my own home. Because your own temple takes shape when you invent yourself.

The second moment was when I started looking for an answer to the following question: “Why did I often choose the hard and long way home? Why can it not just be effortless, straightforward? In harmony with the rest of the world?” I realized: “life has no shortcuts.”

Reflecting on that question, an analogy came to mind, expressed in an internal dialogue between a hammer and a nail:

“Yes,” says the hammer to the nail, “but I have to hammer you on your head …”

“Is that really necessary?”, says the nail …

“Yes, that’s what I’m made for: hit the nail on the head. To rivet and pin something for longer or shorter periods of time.”

“Are you nailing at random?” does the nail ask?”

“Well no, I feel called to create and form something from elements and matter. For example, to shape a flute from a piece of wood to our standards.”

“What standards?”

“Ha, great question! Well, we all have methods for measurement. Rulers, time,…. Instruments to help you do everything in moderation, values by which you measure, and consider your own standards and those of others. The choice of your measurement is up to you.”

“But who or what shaped this piece of wood like this? I mean, it isn’t shapeless … Why can’t it just keep this shape? Anyway, is this piece of wood destined to become a recorder? Is a wooden flute the highest goal this piece of wood should strive for?”

“Highest goal, highest goal … what fast ambition you have! Are you one of those who want to walk in ten-foot-tall? Then I have to hit you hard, dear nail, and you might run the risk that I will bend you and cause irreparable damage so that you will never be able to achieve the desired pure form or fulfill your destiny. No nail, it’s about our journey together. We are going to come up with a concept together to help this beautiful piece of wood become a recorder. So you know exactly where you want to place yourself and I know exactly to what extent I have to hit at which angle.”

“Yes, but how do we know that? Where’s the grand design, the blueprint, the plan?”

“Gosh, dear nail, you really want to know everything at once. What is still imperfect points us to our dark sides. When the moment arrives, it will unfold from within. As an inner knowing perhaps, something like that frayed edge, that can now be removed. Or, we have found that piece of the puzzle”.

“Are we puzzling then?”

“What a difficult question… if that appeals to you, you might be doing exactly that... Solve the puzzle of your life …”

“Is there a picture with that puzzle?”

“Oh so many, but they change every day.”

“Then tell me, how am I supposed to work on a perfectly tuned wooden flute, on a shape that is so clearly defined, if the puzzle of my life is always such a changeable picture?”

“Aren’t you happy that you can at least hold on to something, that you can just work on a recorder? Nothing more, nothing less. It can be that simple, why do you want to make it even more complicated?”

“But why a recorder, I don’t think a recorder is the best form to work on. So linear … I like more, well, round shapes for example …”

“You really don’t want to conform and fit into any pattern. Because a truly beautiful recorder can play a role in the harmonic symphony of life.”

“Oops, will it be in that harness forever?”

“Sweet nail, you should not see it as a harness, as a new straightjacket. The important question is which flute you want to create. An orchestra has a variety of flutes.

Do you want it to be a solo flute, where the spotlight is always focused on? Or do you find it lighter to have it play a more modest role in the ensemble? Do you want it to be a flute that sounds powerful or a flute that occasionally drops a silence out of wisdom? Do you want it to be a flute aspiring to the perfection of beauty? In that case, know that you learn to develop strength and wisdom from within yourself, but that beauty can only be achieved if there is harmonious cooperation between wisdom and strength.

You know, sweet nail, it’s not about perfection, it’s about wholeness. You strive to become a better person … at least one that doesn’t get in the way of itself. And so for the moment, I have tuned my ambitions and I am satisfied to create together with you a wooden flute that plays a more modest role in an ensemble of more or less like-minded flutes, in a solid and harmonious context.

So, dear nail, do not worry about the result and whether you fit anywhere in between. Just make sure you don’t break another leg by dwelling off your path. You don’t have to cross your own boundaries or walk the path of another to fit in. You’re in already, one of us, part of the deal!”

“Ow, that’s nice. But what actually inspired you to think like this?”

It started when I was studying philosophy and came into contact with Plato’s ‘Theory of Forms’, also known as the ‘Theory of Ideas’, and the Socratic method. The Socratic method is a way to arrive at true knowledge about the world of Ideas by philosophizing. Part of the method is the “Anamnesis”, the “remembering” of the forms of the world of ideas. In the Socratic dialogue, these assumptions are revised based on alleged knowledge, opinions, and customs. Socrates brought his students to do this by refuting the answers given to his questions. With which he illustrated which kinds of questions lead further towards deeper self-knowledge.

The Using the Socratic Method in Counseling">Socratic method makes deeper self-knowledge a precondition for developing wisdom. It is all about the process, a learning process, aimed at becoming a better person who can contribute to a better society.

Socrates was condemned to drink the cup of poison in 399 BC. because he would have no respect for the gods of the city. Socrates is the biggest example of Plato who kept him alive by using Socrates as a facilitator in his works.

Plato was mainly concerned with the relationship between the eternally unchanging and the concrete world. In a metaphysical world, accessible only to thought, according to him primal forms of the concrete things can be observed in everyday reality.

That explains why things are and remain recognizable, but also constantly change. In this way, a horse can still be recognized as a horse. Although it has 3 legs, it is brown or black-and-white and it gets older: the essence of the horse remains.

At the top of this transcendent World of Ideas are “the good, the true and the beautiful.” They fuel the desire to do good, the urge for true knowledge, and the search for beauty. The seat of this urge for the higher is the soul, the immortal part of man. The body, according to Plato, is a dungeon from which the soul escapes at death.

In the famous The Allegory of the Cave">allegory of the cave, Plato likens us to prisoners in a dark state, who, with their backs to the light, mistake the shadows on the wall for the true reality. Philosophers search for the source of light and try to save people from this false knowledge.

Plato often wondered how best to live as an individual. He thought that was only possible if you followed standards and laws and were not guided by your physical needs and desires. He thus placed the psyche and ratio above physical well-being. If it were up to Plato, a human consisted only of a head and nothing else. He wanted to prove that philosophizing was the highest that a person could achieve, whereby the ideal psyche had to design an ideal society.

And that brings me to the concept of Utopia. Thomas More’s book Utopia (Penguin Classics)">Utopia is a terribly brilliant book. Extremely progressive for the time in which it was written, but when I read the book I felt an uncanny feeling.

Certainly, life in Utopia is much better than in the actual early 16th century, because at least the basic necessities of life are met. And there are reasonable laws and regulations. But still… the state determines almost everything; how people should live, what a good life is, and what happiness and pleasure are. The state does not exactly prescribe what God looks like, but it does have very strong views about it.

It is not without reason that I call Utopia a terribly brilliant book. Brilliant because of More’s thought exercise. Terrible because of the all-encompassing role of the state in which society is almost completely equated and the existence of the individual is almost completely denied. No room for your own inner process. I wouldn’t want to live in Utopia for the world.

That raises the question in which world I do want to live. In other words: what does my Utopia look like? My Utopia is a world of free people, who search for their own wisdom, without wanting to impose that wisdom on others. A world of free people who choose their own life path and continue to ask questions with an open attitude and genuine interest, without wanting to judge.

I think it is a nice idea that in this future world everyone can find their own wisdom and destiny in this way. At least I hope so. The benefits of being able to deal with people who are genuinely willing to listen to the other person’s quest.

For me, my ‘theory of forms and ideas’ is a symbolic way to travel back to the origin. From an inner suspicion or an image of something we can’t grasp very well. This image takes us back through the concept to the thought that is innate in the core of the image. With which I cherish the peaceful certainty that my own life partly extends to the hidden spheres of the world, in which symbols are the only form of expression.

I have discovered that my path is not straightforward, as I always imagined as a child. In my life, I never wanted to be guided by fear, but fear and loneliness, being alone and not daring to trust and rely on anyone, were abundant in my early life. That meant that in many ways I had to find my own path, without a compass. I searched my compass in ratio and closed off my feelings because they were too confusing or overwhelming.

You could say that in my past I often chose the difficult road with many bumps. Actually only recently in my life, I discovered that I had my own compass, my heart, which I can always rely on. If it feels light, it is meant for me. If something feels heavy on my heart, I probably live too much in the melancholy of the past or worry too much about the future. It is therefore an art to discover and experience the light every time in the here and now.

And oh, one last thing … Do you remember the beginning of my parable … the wise woman who offered the little girl a little hammer and a little nail to tune her flute so she could create her own sound and music? I fulfilled a promise to that little kid and created a piece of music for her. It is called “Inner Child”. You can find it underneath. Here and there a bit out of tune and fortunately not perfect yet!

I regained my inner child. She has often felt confined in a dark vault. Now she can be out here, playing freely and happily, just as she is, in the loving and safe environment of my heart, marveling in the flow of light. She likes to express herself in music. That has always been an anchor in her life. I love her and that tunes me into a happy state of mind.

Stay safe and be well! 💕

I’m supporting the wonderful initiative of Martin Rushton ‘Share The Love — May 2020’:

So with every poem or post I write, I’m adding in a poem that has really touched me. This one is from Ciaran John Kieran. He recently started writing on Medium as a poet. This is his first poem:

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this, enclosed is a link to a few if my stories and to one of my recently published Poetry bundle ‘Celestial Days: Spirit of Hope and Happiness (Illuminating Poesy Book 3)">Celestial Days, Spirit of Hope and Happiness’: