Spiritual Freedom

slow ripening fruit of the seasoned soul

“Spiritual freedom is seldom secured in a tidy manner. It is neither grasped nor jumped into all at once, but it is rather the slow ripening fruit of a seasoned soul.”

— Rabbi Tirzeh Firestone, With Roots in Heaven

what does it mean — to be a seasoned soul? You’ve been around a while maybe many lifetimes — what were you before you met me? A fawn exploring the open forest until — a hunter came and shot you down or a monster under someone else’s bed —

perhaps something inanimate, like a live-wire — or a converter they say there is freedom in rebirth — you get to be someone new every time you take a breath — but I don’t want to lose you If I become new, I will —

evolution is terrifying perhaps there is no way to prevent it at least not fully what kind of fruit does the soul ripen?

guava — its sweet pink flesh, mysterious taste or pineapple — a spiky outside, sour inside banana — its inedible peel, the bruises that form so easily — yes, that’s what it is for me

I traveled searching for the final verdict on God — and what I found was no verdict — nothing absolute the transformation transported me back

to who I was as a little girl maybe there was no reason to transform at all I was perfectly fine the way I was at 6

building cities out of legos and folding comic books of crayon before I understood the transformation would come without me knowing

in the dead of night, in the absence of color when all that came of flight was crashing down and those I trusted made their way to memory the trauma of betrayal, of how the happy travels

turned dark, so quickly — finding myself, spiraled into losing myself — so quickly — and like that, I lost you what can it mean to change all at once?

the Phoenix, that cliched image emerging from the smoke and ash unscathed something possible only for a fantastical creature manufactured to inspire

back then, it was possible to embody the Phoenix to appear in costume and render costume home to cloud the spirit in an impenetrable foam avoid the devil and all her tricks

abroad, all this and more was possible and made sense I’d get on a plane and become a new woman Faith would render me indestructible

superhuman

all that I feared in myself would become past tense with you, nothing I had was haunted at first, I was selfless, I made you my queen all along the angels staring from behind the screen

knowing what would come next. I was not daunted. It caught up with us, as always with God’s will our love glued me to the floor, I could not move I’d given all that I could give, and still believe

If not for God, I would be giving still the false beliefs plagued my every breath thoughts that rendered me helpless, silent, utterly lost O God, I did not know your true nature, and what a cost

All those years spent believing that fear was Truth the spiritual is useless without Justice as the bird is useless without wings faith only as good as its action

who we chose to protest, or to bless the self is only Godly through service authentic love of all shining through each word nothing fake, only the deepest truths within us

bleeding through the page with every line not to preach but to take in all there is the trash and tumult with the prophet’s wisdom all are tangled together in a messy truth that remains

inextricable, bound to every soul No One is like the Other No universal anything, don’t believe a word of it the uniqueness of each being the reason we’re alive