This is a vlog I did on my channel late last night and I wanted to share it here. I hope it will bring someone peace ❤
She Forged Power From the Dark
She could feel the world around her pressing in.
Like a vise slowly adding pressure to her chest.
Breathing became difficult.
Thoughts became clouded.
The anxiety was crushing.
A little voice came from her shadows “face me”.
So she stood tall,
a warrior,
a goddess,
a woman on a journey to heal herself.
She stood there and looked into the cool darkness.
Felt it all around her as she stepped into it.
This is shadow work, she thought.
She had been wondering how to do it,
what she was supposed to do.
This was her work,
Her medicine.
For everyone it is different,
for her, it was standing in her power,
as a warrior ready for battle,
but laying down her sword.
A white flag,
and also a fierceness that she would come out victorious.
This is how she befriended her demons,
her shadows.
By standing tall with them,
embracing them,
and calling them into her power.
For she would no longer be held as a victim,
no, not ever again.
Nor would she bloody herself in a fight that would only make the vice stronger.
No, this was about sweet surrender.
A warrior’s surrender,
to herself,
and an awakening of a power so immense that she radiated it through her whole world.
Those who wished her ill stayed away,
and those who needed her protection found solace under her wings.
But she would not let them stay there.
For they could not.
Instead, she helped them also stand into their warrior selves.
And through her strength,
she forged an army of warriors that stood tall with their shadows as their guides and confidantes.
She forged a mighty power from the dark.
And brought balance.
Lessons From the Dirt
Her roots wind and twist,
Through the dark rich soil.
Her branches reach into the wide unknown,
Like roots planted in the sky.
Can I be rooted,
And still, have wings?
I now know how caged birds feel.
Wanting so badly to unfold into the heavens,
To feel the breeze lift and sway their existence to a new place.
I pull when my emotions become too much.
I pull the long delicate strands of hair,
I pull weeds that fill my gardens.
I pull away,
I pull at the ones I love for answers,
That never come.
I try and eliminate weeds in my life,
But they inevitably come back,
with a vengeance that is untameable.
This is the true wild fury of nature.
I can find peace in this life,
For brief moments.
But only if those in it
can find peace and happiness as well.
I don’t understand…
why?…
There is rarely peace here,
Only brief moments of bliss.
That come and go with the passing winds.
This is where I am now,
This is where I live.
Learning the lessons that need to be learned…
The same lessons,
deeper lessons,
the spiral of the lesson.
The darker chapter that needs to be embraced,
Not forgotten or pushed away.
For I am the dark and the light,
I am everything,
And I am nothing…
I have lived with the roots in the sky,
Found shelter in their branches.
Felt the sun on my flesh,
And the winds in my hair.
But now it is a time to live with the roots in the ground.
To absorb the nutrient-rich lessons they teach.
To live with the dirt,
and all those that dwell upon and in it.
It isn’t in my blood to give up,
Giving up is never an option.
But I will no longer fight,
I am tired of fighting.
It is a time of healing and learning.
A time of letting go.
A time of embracing my ever-changing,
true self.
My Life Focus, Art
Good morning, all my lovely readers, I am inspired. Life inspired. I have struggled with ‘who am I?’ and ‘why am I here?’ for my entire life. Over the past couple of months, I have gone through some drastic changes in my life, and my outlook on life. One of the first lessons I was faced with was brought up by a song, by Macklemore, I heard on the radio. I am horrible with names so I can’t recall the title of the song, but of the lines was ‘well at least you’re happy’ and he was talking about an ex that was trying to be friends after she broke it off with him because she wasn’t happy. He was talking about how he was miserable but at least she was happy. At that moment I realized that I have only ever taken into account my own happiness, I wholeheartedly want others to be happy as well but not at the expense of my own happiness.
I affect everyone around me, and my love, hate, anger, peace will ripple. When I make a choice it affects everyone. When I was unhappy it wasn’t because of some outside force, but that is where I was putting it. I put my unhappiness on my marriage, the feelings of being stuck, feeling like my kids hate me, etc. This was all in my head and I was going to run, yet again. Because running is the easy way out for me, running lets me start over. But, I am grateful for the situation we are in, I have no easy way ‘out’ and it has forced me to face myself head-on. What right do I have to destroy someone’s life because I am not ‘happy’, especially someone I love? That is the easy and horribly destructive path out. But I don’t want to be out, I want to be all in. I want to live on the edge with love, with acceptance, with truly being a caring human.
I love my life, I love my family, I love myself. How did I get here you ask? By taking care of myself. By cutting out things that were drastically hurting my body, like caffeine. I have also lowered my sugar drastically, I still consume it and have moments of overconsumption but it is not daily anymore, and I can now go weeks without if I have to. I have also begun managing my stress. I do this by communicating, writing, doing art, getting the task that needs to be done completed (still working on this one). My anxiety is still here with me, it always will be, but by sitting around and just letting it take me has created some health issues for me, along with some bad eating habits and weight gain.
I have also rekindled my spirituality, I draw an oracle card every day to set focus and I do tarot readings when I need them. I am trying to get back into my Yoga and I focus on positive intentions every day. All these have helped me crawl out of the hole I have been hiding in. Because I have in fact been hiding, I have been hiding since I was a little girl and it is time to emerge from my long slumber and set my mighty roar upon the world. No more hiding. I got a message the other day from some readings and it was ‘What would you do if you were not afraid?’ This message stuck with me for weeks! And last week I finally took the leap and went for it. I created a YouTube Channel, a Patreon page and I started converting my social media accounts to serve my artist purposes. I also started listening to friends instead of taking their constructive criticism as an attack. I feel strong, vibrant, rested, and I am ready to attack my world and make the best life I can. This being said, my passion is art or anything that lets me create. So come along the adventure with me as I document my art and the process that I go through to be who I am as an artist. I also talk about what I do and what helps me heal. I hope that my life inspires you and thank you for reading! ❤
My YouTube: Art with Anna, Dragonfly Rose
My Patreon: Anna Burdette is Creating…
My Facebook Page: Dragonfly Rose Art
Daily Focus Oracle Card
Today I drew “Mental Repetition” out of The Whispers of Healing oracle card deck. The card suggests that I’m holding onto limiting beliefs, that it’s time to embrace a healthier philosophy about my life. Holding myself to impossibly high expectations, fearing failure, or an inability to control my emotions are examples of my limiting beliefs. I have latched onto unhealthy beliefs or thought patterns. The Spanish moss on Mother Nature represents protection, cobwebs indicate issues in my life that feel overwhelming. This is an ideal time to create a shift, time to clear out the cobwebs in my mind. Compose a powerful statement that I can repeat whenever necessary.
The statement that is choose today is:
” I find deep inner peace within myself as I am”
Empty Explanations
I wish I could explain how much anger and frustration hurts me,
How it breaks me down into some hollow shell of a being,
How it turns my heart black.
I wish I could explain the way my heart breaks when my children don’t want me around,
Or my very presence seems to annoy them.
I wish I could explain.
I wish you could see and feel through my heart and soul.
Today, I just want to run away from all of it.
There is more anger and frustration here than love at times,
And it is too heavy to carry.
I wish I could explain how the years of trying to make everyone happy,
every single day,
has worn me to the point of unhappiness.
I wish I could explain that I know it is of my own doing.
But the explanations have become exhausting,
I am so very tired,
And I have been reduced to nothing more than this hollow empty shell.
I Am Lake Natron
I am being swallowed,
consumed,
by a blackness that I cannot escape.
I feel it hanging heavily from every limb and organ of my body.
I am like the Lake Natron,
A beautifully deadly water,
I will turn you into a calcified corpse.
Maybe I myself am just that.
Where Medusas stare once held me,
I now float through life,
a lifeless statue.
I know so many methods,
and have so many tools,
To help me escape this.
But I am trapped,
Trapped by the black tar that holds me.
I don’t expect you to understand,
I don’t talk about this because you can never understand.
You cannot walk my shoes,
You would never survive the maze of my mind,
But I don’t blame you,
I don’t hate you,
Even though at times I do.
Even when good things happen,
The joy within me is only temporary,
And It fades like the moon fades from a clouded sky.
I am stuck in a loop,
A hallway that continues forever with no doors.
You will never understand me,
and this is where love dies.
I cannot be what you want me to be…
Hell on Earth
I meant to post this yesterday but spent my day painting instead!
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Violence
Hate
Rage
Rage rooms
Fighting
Bullying
Hurting
Controlling
This is what we are as a people. Capable of so much beauty and peace, but stuck in a loop of destruction. The world is changing, becoming more violent every day. There is no place for kind people anymore, we are a dying breed. I am tired of all the hate, of all the anger, I feel it welling inside my soul. The empath that I am feels all of this as if it were my own.
Like cancer Upon our species.
Why is it that we can’t live in peace? Why can’t we let the anger go?
Fighting for a Cause,
fighting to be heard,
fighting for respect,
fighting for rights,
fighting, fighting,
frightening.
Is this all we know? It seems to be what our species knows how to do best. I don’t believe that we will evolve. Even if our species is all but wiped out, we might change for a time, but jealousy, anger, and greed will creep back in. The need for power, the need for control, that fight, that violence seems to be innate in human beings. We have created hell, and we are angrily living in it.
Victory in The Small Things
My mind is tired,
body sore.
My cat’s purr rumbles like mini earthquakes through my flesh.
Almost ready,
to stretch my body
and put my mind at ease.
Flowing Flowing Flowing
Breathing Breathing Breathing
I meditate on the movements of my sore tired body.
These small moments,
Where I push through.
Push even though I’m tired and hurting.
These are the moments in which I feel victorious.
Happy Birthday My Sweet Brother
You would be 28 today, and there is not a day that passes where do not think of you. I wish this world was not so cruel to you, I wish your body was not cruel to you. I do not know why you had to suffer the way you did, I wish your life could have been better. I wish so many things but in the end, I am happy that you are free from the shackles this world put on you. I love you forever my little brother, you are my light in dark places.
