Someone may have told you
Perhaps long ago
That you need a man
To complete you
That on your own
You’re only half of what you will be
When you find “The One”
It was implied
By the tragic fairytales
And the Hollywood romance movies
But it was all a lie
Your power comes from no where else
From no one else
But from inside of you
You are here to stand whole
To emanate magic
First, on your own
With no one to save you
No one to rescue you from your own demons
Woman
It is no man’s job to break down your walls
To give you your sense of worthiness
To make you whole
Power like that only exists
Within you
At the very core
So stop asking yourself
Why am I still single?
Why did that man leave me?
Why aren’t I good enough for him?
When does life begin?
Because his absence says nothing about who you are here to become
Conscious
Empowered
Honest
Kind
A Boundary setting self protector
A Self-loving leader who trusts her path
Stop seeking
Conscious love doesn’t stem from that place
The man you deserve
He knows he is not someone’s better or worse half
He is whole too
And he will come ready
To do the work to heal with you
But he is not here to patch your wounds
A man is not a substitute for feeling your own pain
Woman
You are power
Don’t ever settle just to avoid loneliness
Because the worst form of abandonment
Is abandonment of the self
Sister
Do not wait
For anyone to light your fire
That fire within you is ready to blaze
Without anyone else to ignite you
No man, no lover
Can take that away
No one else is responsible for this
Only you
And that is the core of your womanhood
Your connection to the Goddess
The expression of Kali coming through you
The seductress and destructress
Your love and your heartache
Your passion and your anger
Don’t sweep any of it under the rug
Or spare your truth for fear of being rejected
You can walk alone
And be just as powerful
As when you walk in partnership
You are here to lead
So rise up and claim yourself
What message do you have for this world today?
Who will you choose to be
To leave your mark
And make this place better
Than it was yesterday
That is the core of your feminine essence
To teach, to nurture, to love and to heal
And that power is within you
As it has been
All along

Photography: The coldest day by Zhang Jingna

The post Woman appeared first on Venuskind.

„I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can’t bear without a friend,
I can’t love without a sister.
The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape, like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and eternity.
What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights with us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.
When we win it’s with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestlers’ sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.
Whoever was beaten by the Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.“
~ Rainer Maria Rilke

“This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings.”

What a poetic expression of the truth that growth is not found in our victories but in our surrender to life and its challenges! Reading Rilke’s poetry is definitely better in german as the translations lose much of the beauty, flow and subtlety of his word play, therefore I will post the german original in the comments.

Photo: Daphne Groeneveld by Peter Lindbergh for Numéro #126, L’ange 01

The post The Beholder appeared first on Venuskind.