Protection: A Poem

I don't usually blog this often, but when the poems come.... I woke up  with the beginnings of this one this morning, and wanted to get it down.  Then I did an I Ching reading in preparation for going to the hospital for surgery in a few weeks, and it completely validated what the poem needed to say.  Such synchronicities are worth paying attention to.

So, here's the poem:

All at once,

a hard shell

I never knew

surrounded me

cracked and fell

away in shards

tumbling to

the ground.

I pick up a piece

to learn its nature,

but it is clearly toxic.

I drop it to the floor

and carefully sweep up

all the pieces and

throw them away.

I feel tender, exposed,

like a newborn child.

No wonder I had difficulty

touching Spirit, encased

in a shell I must have erected

for my protection.

All the while, Spirit waited

for me to break through.

Suddenly, the question of protection

matters very little.

There is an opening, a softening,

a broadening clarity

about giving and receiving,

about what protection truly is,

about the significance of

an open heart.

Here are the ones worth my having an open heart for.