The Alchemist Said…

The Alchemist spoke to me

In the Language of the World, he sang

Foreign speak to my untrained ears

Treacherous words to my lazy, scared heart.

Give all up for the One

This is the only lane of dreams

A pathway each child should follow

A cross God’s child must bear.

I listened to the Alchemist

Because he spoke words I knew

Knowledge I had long ignored

In favour of everything easy and cheap.

I have started to listen again

And my heart can no more be silent

Than sheep can build brick pyramids in the meadow.

It will soar; yes, it can fly

If only I let it beat its long – leaden wings.

But I am scared, tempted to be my own Judas

For the path of dreams demands courage

More courage than I want to give

But I will go; yes I will fly

Because the Alchemist told me I can

And once again, in myself, I believe.

Amen.

Epiphany.

I dream.

I am water, flexible, flowing, common

A drop in a deep deep ocean

 Sometimes I splash
I fly high, I soar
Free and unique above the flowing mass of ordinary
Then gravity pulls and, smack!
I am no longer me

There are times though
Those beautiful moments I splash high for

When I see

When the rays of the sun vivify me with amazing clarity

Those moments, I see

I see I won't be ocean forever

I see that I will splash far, high

Soar to the clouds

And there I will be

Till it is time to float higher

So when I wake

I know that I will be

And though now I flow with the ocean,

This vision is enough for me.

I Dare You.

‘Haayyya!!!’ ‘Kinsh! Kinsh! Kinsh!’

We all grew up with variations of these silly expletives. We’d leap upon our beds with fiery expressions, our ‘swords’ (usually rulers bought with our parent’s hard-earned money) held in a death grip, fighting our enemies (our poor younger ones; we never could win against our elders- it was too unbecoming to see them crying to report to Mummy or on the flip side, turn the play to a real fight…) with the surety in our hearts that we would win because we were the good guys, and the good guys always win, right? And even if we didn’t win that day and we had to weep our broken little hearts out, we’d still try again the next day, and the next, until we were finally able to conquer ‘the Boss’. Yessssss!

I think it was then that we had the real capacity to understand true heroism.

We hear all these stories that take our breaths away, that inspire us but it was only when we were children that we ever thought of taking it beyond a smile and a sigh at the end of the tale. Who wasn’t Jackie Chan when they were little? Who wasn’t Sinbad? Who didn’t try to use the Tortoise’s cunning to outwit his/her family? I even remember wanting so badly to be an Avatar after I watched the movie (and that was in 2011. I could even speak Na’vi!)

When we were little, we tried. We understood that we had to work to be heroes, that we’d have to fight against the world if we wanted our names to be remembered. Now, all we do is live average lives in an average environment and we are OK with mediocrity. What happened to our valiant little hearts?

Everyone talks about how they would prefer to leave Nigeria because other countries are better; how many have stopped to ask, ‘Who made those countries better?’ Rome wasn’t built in a day and it was by the concerted effort of each individual that it was built at all. Come on people, listen to Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror! It is you who can make it better by being better, by doing what you can to make it so. Why would you go enjoy the fruits of the greatness of others when you have all you need to establish your own name here?

You admire heroes because you know that is who you should be. God has blessed you with the capacity to be amazing; do not bury your talent. You may not be able to conquer the world, but if you can conquer yourself, if you can make just one person’s life better, if you can swallow your pride and forgive, if you can love unconditionally, if you can desist from putting others down, you already are. But one thing you must know, a true hero is one who can sacrifice everything for what they believe in, for who they believe in. Unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains no more than a single grain, but if it dies, it bears fruit in plenty- John 12: 24.

So I dare you today. Make the world remember your name.

For death and for glory!!!

Musings of a Dreamer

Hey. Was musing…

There is something about life that is… what’s the word?… eerie. It is alive. It is inside you. It can die. And still be inside you. It can pass you by. And still be inside you.

I have this recurring horrible dream. In this dream that has no form, there is a certain nameless terror that I am fighting. It is choking me, drowning me, sitting so heavy on my chest that I cannot breathe. I fight and fight, and claw my way out of the dream, breathing heavily. And when I wake up, I know that my horror was me. The me I know that I will become if I continue to sleep my life away. The dead me that would simply exist, a shell of who I am, who I am meant to be.

I am scared of myself. I dream so much that I forget to live. Then live so much that I forget to dream.

I mean, do look at my blog for example and appreciate how choked up it is with all the thousands of articles I’ve been bombarding it with since it’s deflowering last year… #rolling my eyes.

Hmmm…

If you are like me (and I know we are so, so many in this seductively deceptive life) know this: it isn’t time to wake up. The time for that is long past and we are still here, dreaming. Why? Here’s the answer to that- we hold a gift that many who scorn us don’t realize.

Dreaming is our strength. And when we stop dreaming, we stop living.

Our dreams are our reality, our connection to true living. When I stop dreaming, I get nightmares where I fight myself. When I dream about the amazing things I can do, I actually do them. My entire being comes alive, I am a success, achieving and more importantly, I am real.  Until I once again stop dreaming. Then reality disappears. I become gossamer thin shell, a ghost even; light as air and with as much substance.

I am scared of losing myself in a world where there are no dreams. And I worry that I will one day give in to the temptation to simply shut my eyes and roll over, sleeping until I forget to think, forget to dream.

I know I’m just one tiny person in about 7 billion, and I don’t really matter to you, but you matter to me. It is much too easy to give up and sink into depression if you are a dreamer; the world isn’t very kind to non-realists. Saying that you are not the only one doesn’t really help much sometimes; you probably already knew. More than wanting you to live, I want you to feel alive. I don’t want you to know that you are not alone; I want you to fight the good fight even if you feel that you are the only one left and the world is beating down hard upon your shoulders. So I’m going to say this to you instead -

LIVE YOUR DREAM.