breaking free

Beware The Ember Season

/ Chloe Kyle / 2 Comments

It’s Ember season and the veils are thin.

The warmth of summer and September days long gone,

A golden harvest gathered and shared.

Nights lengthen while damp, dark skies creep in.

Ghouls, ghosts and goblins rush out to play

In a frenzied riot around Halloween.

Tomfoolery, deception and delusion abound,

Tricking the mind in a maze of distraction.

Old fears resurface to haunt and spook,

The inescapable trauma, the inevitable bouts of chronic pain.

False beliefs rear up their ugly heads,

Entrapping you in a quagmire of fear, panic, shame.

Until you remember,

To return to the source of the Beloved within,

Feel the boon of His Presence and find the courage 

To look the reaper of death in the eye and wink,

Dance with the troll of doom,

And tickle the furry belly of the giant spider,

Dispelling her web of illusion.

For all this dross that is surfacing

Is yours to burn on Bonfire Night.

Effigies of past selves that no longer serve you

Feed the flames of fire, turn to embers

And transform in the crucible of love

To become the fertile ash of your awakening.

A Re-membering.

November nights draw long and autumn hues dull

As the stark chill of mid-winter approaches.

It’s time to reflect on your harvest

For all is laid bare in December,

A reckoning for the Soul,

Where you glimpse your truth,

And choose to step into your magnificence.

Or not.

Behold the Ember Season,

Trick or Treat

Fear or Love

Be aware.

A time to Re-member

Your Divinity.

A Carpet of Pearls and Treasures

/ Chloe Kyle / 6 Comments

The oak rains down her acorns and leaves

In a cascade of rustles and plunks,

Layering the woodland floor in an opulent carpet

Of crunch and colour.

Trees dressed in outstanding autumn finery,

Are shedding orange, green, yellow, copper leaves,

In a fluttering dance of startling hues.

It’s a mast year of exceptional abundance,

And the trees are in the process of a magnificent unrobing.

Months of bright sunshine and bountiful rain

Bring forth this sumptuous celebration of nature. 

I feel a sense of enormity too, an overwhelming fullness,

A resounding call from Grace to let go.

The vestige of head trauma haunts my left side,

Inflammation and pain flaring again.

Grief wells up, the loss of a friend,

The shifting tides of being a mother, wife, daughter,

A bewilderment of how to move forward.

The oak’s glorious unrobing looks effortless,

A wonderful retreat to her core within her bark.

On the woodland floor lies a splendid banquet,

Nourishing squirrels, robins, beetles and the tree itself.

I, however, have a pillar of resistance inside,

A pressing need to release a multitude of age-old beliefs. 

Subconscious patterns hold me fast,

causing me to wallow, distract, or seek outward,

For answers, relief, direction.

I reach deep into the beloved source within,

And see my leaves of creation from all angles,

The red tinge of despondency, bronze glow of misspent hope,

The headstrong tendencies behind them,

And the golden beam of divinity that runs through all.

A kaleidoscope of revelations lights up within,

A sacred gift that ushers such yearned-for release.

I too am laying a carpet of pearls and treasures,

A path of Grace to walk me home.

The Flight of the Blackbird

/ Chloe Kyle / 8 Comments

Claws entangled in webbing,

Wings and head strain against a crisscross of string.

A dog paws and pounces in play towards its prey.

The blackbird careens desperately,

Gold ringed eyes wide with dismay.

Recently tempted by juicy strawberries,

Now he’s helplessly caught in their net.

Werner Baumgarten

Hands reach in to hold and untangle,

While his yellow beak pecks in defence

To escape the restraint,

Only to dive into the net once more.

Again, hands hold, scissors snip at binding,

A wing is set free and he bursts away,

Still anchored by the net trailing behind him.

I too am stuck in a net,

A complex tangle of my mind’s creation.

Lured in by the desire to be 

a great mother, teacher, writer, homemaker,

I’m bound by the fear of not meeting the needs of others,

Threatened and toyed with by illusions of being better, 

Caught up in demands of society.

In chanting my mantra

I’m held by the hands of Grace within,

Who deftly loosens the cords that hold me.

Time and again I rail against them,

Unmoored without the age-old concepts

That have held me fast for so long,

Taken in once more by false whisperings of the world.

This time two hands hold the blackbird,

Another cuts away at the twine that binds him.

He’s momentarily still, surrendered to the process,

Until, finally untangled, the hands open.

He flies up over the oxeye daisies, meadow peas and clover,

Skimming the flower-filled field and

Soaring into the clear blue sky beyond.

Today as I tune in to Grace,

I lean into His hands and resist

The habit to escape to my mind’s desire.

Instead, I ask His Will for me, and hear

“Be still and know that you are God”.

My liberation depends on this belief,

On my trust in His skill to break the bonds that bind me.

Days later, again a blackbird

Is trapped in the net.

Claws ensnared, webbing overhead,

Dog teasing him playfully.

Hands reach in to untangle.

He stills and offers no resistance.

Moments later, he’s free once more.

Such is the play between entrapment and emancipation.

With practice, the balance between 

The lure of the old snares

And the trust, belief and movement into Grace begin to tip.

His hands gently open and I am set free

To glide up and over the roses and thorns of mind’s creation

And soar into the boundless blue sky of Grace within.

Comments welcome

Soul Fire

/ Chloe Kyle / 8 Comments

She has fire in her feet

And sparks in her hair

But nobody sees the furnace inside.

The crimson flames burn through

The entrenched roots of her grief.

The bright orange blaze incinerates,

The bindweed of her anger.

The wildfire consumes the shackles

 Of not being seen, not being enough,

Which have held her fast to the muck and mire,

Of mismatched ideals, beliefs and concepts,

Borrowed from others, 

Embedded in the fabric of society.

All this dross buried deep in her cells,

Finally set ablaze.

MISHA

A torch flares deep within.

A white beacon of truth and love

Ignites the radiance of her soul and 

serenades the flickers of light in her eyes.

This is the passion that fuels her purpose,

Fanning the flames that twirl and swirl,

Burning faster and faster through all that is not true,

Dancing on the ashes of what once was.

She has soul fire in her feet

And divine sparks in her hair

Alchemising Her presence,

To Reveal her essence.

Lighter, truer, stronger, more vital,

Effervescent Love in the 

Music of the spheres.

The Tremble for Love

/ Chloe Kyle / 1 Comment

I hear it in the rustle of the Beech hedge

 As the chill nip of autumn air loosens her leaves.

I see it in the heaviness of November clouds

As they gather to release their burden.

I sense it in the fabric of the world,

The unrest, the tumult, the upheaval.

Do you feel it too? This tremble inside.

A hard knot of unease

 You’ve been endlessly running from,

Growing bigger, more demanding of you.

Yes, you, sweet one, with your lion’s heart, it’s asking you

To draw up your courage, turn in and tend.

I reach in for Grace and it flows up through me,

Bidding me to feel the grip of panic,

The fire of anger, the smothering of shame,

To name the ways they pin me down,

Or sway me sideways, trip me up,

And to love them for this.

I see the truth of it now:

The vital role these wayward parts play

 In life’s divine orchestra,

How they bring me to my knees, 

Bruised and battered, bare and broken,

To this holy ground within.

It’s a sacred summons to dig deeper into Grace.

To grow the roots of the mighty oak,

Feel the flow of this immense Love, and welcome,

The grief-stricken child, the pain-ridden teen, 

All the sweet children of human existence,

To the infinite warmth of this hearth within.

In lovingly listening to their stories,

Through the eyes of Grace,

Comes the beauty of revelation.

Dead leaves of age-old concepts, 

Worn out beliefs and mistaken ideas,

Fall away in the magnificence of autumn.

Tinged with orange, red, bronze and gold,

Fluttering gloriously in the winds of change,

A kaleidoscope of human experience,

In a divine dance with the Beloved within.

A letting go of all that is untrue,

A stripping bare to essence, to Love.

Take heart, dear one, this tremble inside

Is an invitation from the Divine

And it is wonderous.

Comments and contemplations welcome

Rewilding into Grace

/ Chloe Kyle / 5 Comments

There’s something about her, this magical pond,

Deep in the heart of acres of rewilded land,

Where the farm’s fences have been pulled down,

Penned-in animals are no more,

Once-ploughed fields left fallow,

Taken over by brambles, dog-rose and sallow.

Now Longhorn cattle are free to roam,

Droves of Tamworth pigs rootle the ground and

Herds of wild Exmoor ponies run free, 

All tending the grass, the bushes, the earth.

Wild swimming pond at Knepp

Within this magnificent splendour of nature,

The pond invites me into her autumnal embrace.

I glide with mallards, bask with moor hens,

The ice of the water chilling deep into my cells.

The branch of an oak extends over us like a graceful arm,

Adorned in leaves tinged with orange, yellow and brown,

Gifting acorns in gentle plops, rippling the still reflection.

Squirrels scamper by our side, a robin hops, a redwing watches.

A peregrine falcon soars in the sky above,

Where gathering clouds roll in to drop their burdens. 

From deep within, I too am replete with harvest.

The depth of Grace from this year’s reaping, 

Has given space for so much grief to surface.

The grit, the muck and mire of life’s daily toil,

Past and present, float like jetsam to my attention,

Where upwelling Love recognises the gifts they are.

The bile, the aches, the pain my body holds,

All just a signal to call in the Grace,

To look Grief in the eye,

And walk me home.

I hear Love’s whisper in the wind as I swim,

Feel Her soak deep into my being.

Allow Her to rewild me to my true nature,

Surrender to the breaking down,

Of boundaries within,

Unshackling beliefs, concepts and unhelpful patterns,

That have gripped too fast for too long.

There’s a lightness now to my stroke. 

I too am living wild and free,

 Immersed in this boundless pool of divine Love.

Comments and contemplations welcome

Taking Flight

/ Chloe Kyle / 6 Comments

The last chick flew the nest today,

Leaving the comfort, security and nurture,

Of all she knew to be true,

Opening wings and trusting flight—

A leap of faith into a brand-new world.

Mike Laptev

Yesterday, she teetered on the edge,

Reluctant to swap the warmth, the on-tap grub,

The protective shelter of her cosy abode,

For a life of foraging and fending for herself,

In a limitless land of hedgerows, trees and sky.

What does it take to finally fledge,

To heed the call from within and make the leap?

How much courage, strength, trust and love,

Must be coursing through your veins,

To surrender all that is, and take flight?

It’s time to stop wavering on the brink. 

Let go of old reasons to be, concepts and patterns,

Summon your spark of divinity, feel the power of your potency,

Open the wings of your potential and take flight,

Into the vast, boundless unknown.

You already have all that it takes,

 To make Grace your sole partner in flight,

To salvage the treasure from the deepest parts of your being,

To soar and shine with it from the uppermost heights,

To become the Radiant Love you are.

Comments welcome.

Re-membering

/ Chloe Kyle / 2 Comments

This is for those of you tending your wounds,

Not just the cuts and the bruises, but

The hard long-held welts hidden deep inside,

Too harsh to forget, too frozen to weep.

rudall30

I see the pain you stashed there, your aching sorrow,

The voids in your childhood where love wasn’t felt,

The harsh words which siphoned the sparkle from your eyes,

The well-concealed traumas, shrouded in mistaken beliefs.

I see where your needs to be heard were neatly paved over,

The gaping disconnect between authenticity and expectation,

The truths you swallowed and caged inside of you,

Drenched in grief and cloaked in darkness.

And now you stand in the empty halls of your being.

I see you change your stance as you call for His guidance,

Move from the shadows of distress into your divine indomitable light,

Finally ready to love yourself whole and set yourself free.

I see you draw on His strength to raise your sword of truth,

Cut through the shackles of fear and self-loathing,

And beam with a Love so strong it melts the orphaned parts of you,

The fragmented capsules of stardust awaiting liberation.

Some call you wounded, but I see you as blessed,

With the courage and power to embody,

His great Love for this sacred re-membering.

You have been chosen, Dear One.

This is for you.

Comments welcome

Awakening

/ Chloe Kyle / 2 Comments

A part of me wants to stay curled up under the cover,

Eyes tight shut,

To block my ears from the jostle of noise,

To hide from the starkness of light.

fszalai

A part of me wants to wallow in the sticky goo of victimhood,

Enshrouded in pain, grief and shame,

Entrapped in stale beliefs and worn-out concepts,

Of how to play the game of life.

My truth, my essence, is bold and courageous,

She fiercely yearns to live in freedom,

She knows of the magnitude of Love deep inside,

And delights in sweet, tender glimpses of liberation.

Grace nudges me to gently pandiculate my weary body,

To hold His hand as I face the seeds of resistance, 

To be responsible for tending the wounds, 

And loving myself full—to grow.

I call into the deep expanse of my being,

And feel a powerful upsurge of Love wash over me,

Soaking into every cell in my body,

Scintillating, radiant, enlightening.

I sense the cover, these layers of illusion, 

Slip gently away,

Such sweet surrender to be reborn.

To uncover who I truly am.

I open an eye,

And rise.

Comments welcome.

You are Stardust

/ Chloe Kyle / 3 Comments

I know how darkness envelops you at times,

That you exist in a void, lost in space,

Reaching blindly in front, behind, to the sides,

For connection, softness, understanding,

Finding only a lack, an emptiness.

titoOnz

I know how you’ve flirted with anger, grief, misplaced affection,

How you’ve disliked their poison so shut yourself down,

Unwittingly choosing numbness over pain.

I tell you, there is nothing drab in this experience.

It’s a sacred nudge to remember the source of your being.

For you are made of stardust; it’s in your DNA.

Elements within you have been forged in the fiery heat,

And furious death throes of celestial luminaries.

It’s time to stop treating yourself like dirt and coal dust—

You’re being asked to rekindle the flames within.

Accept the heartache, the shame, see the purpose behind their rising,

A burning away of the dross you are not. 

Feel the intense fire of your inner divinity.

Let this supernova be the source of your guidance,

Blazing though barriers of time and space.

You are in a cycle of death and rebirth,

A falling away of old concepts as you awaken to your own radiance,

Creating the divine connection, the understanding you strive for,

As you shine and dazzle with immeasurable light,

Illuminating your own universe and galaxies beyond,

Powered only by Love.

Comments welcome.