Is your cup half full or half empty? Are you a vessel that others pour into? Do you have holes where water uncontrollably leaks out? Who controls your cup, its fullness, or who gets the benefit of your cup’s content? Can you grow your cup, shrink your cup, put a lid on your cup? Do kids have sippy cups, adults coffee cups, and parents wine cups? What the fuck is up with trying to equate our state of being to a simple vessel? Why must we simplify ourselves down to pour in, pour out, half full, half empty? We are too amazingly diverse to simplify. We are full of rage and sorrow, ecstasy and joy, curiosity and wonder. We change and move weekly, daily, by the minute, down to the second. A cup cannot contain our multitudes, only a living, breathing, quiet and loud, soft and hard, loving and pissed the fuck off off entity can contain us.
I am a storm and my energy flows through the thunder I roar and the lightning I throw.
For a good portion of my adult life I’ve quietly and diligently rained down on gardens while trying not to flood neighborhoods. I’ve witnessed many births and many deaths, countless sunsets and incredible sunrises. I’ve grown dandelions and blown away umbrellas. I’ve had short seasons of much rain and sorrow and long periods of just shading over the pasty humans so they won’t burn. I’ve held back my roaring thunder because it scares the cute kittens and havent thrown bolts of lightning because the years of comfortable shadows have turned the terrain into kindlng. I fear my power now. I’ve done what was expected, what was comfortable, what the tiny fleshy Gods have asked of me. It feels as if I have two choices for my future; fade away into toxic comfort or wildly grow.
Down below, the humans with their simple cups are pouring less and less between themselves and hording more and more. Change is apparent, but they cannot do it. They are too stuck with their small vessels and short visions. Contained by false comfort and fear, they walk in circles, talk in circles, live in circles, and perish in circles. I could help them by helping myself, I can disrupt the circles and give them new shapes and ample fulfillment. I can give some of them full cups while at the same time violently rip gold encrusted chalices completely out of other’s hands. I can wash them, scare them awake, and show them that the world is beautifully diverse and that they are meant to be together. Many of them deserve more.
But wait, I am a storm, my life isn’t actually controlled directly by these fragile humans. I am here for more than them, I am the lifeblood of all that I cast shadows on. Human comfort isn’t my problem, yet I have a soft spot for some of them and definitely the cute kittens. My job isn’t to provide comfort, I am here to wash off the muck, water the dandelions, roar, shake, and burn the old trees down so that the new healthy ones can reach of the sun. Human comfort is a biproduct only if they put down their stupid cups. Their cups are silly vessels of transactions that hold them back from being truly alive. Their energy isn’t poured, their energy is lived. In every moment, every smile, every hug, every laugh, every shared story, in every “hell yes” and “hell no”. Those that dance in the rain get it, those that hug trees understand, those that share their cups figured it out. I can’t lead a horse to water and can’t lead a human to truly living. Stubbornness isn’t a disease I can wash off of them. They will have to figure it out while I grow.
With roars and lightning,
A. Storm
Hello, I am Shelton. 