Everything starts somewhere,
and at some point you find yourself standing at a distance from where you were
When you look back, do you see the path clear
or are there too many horizons between now and then?

This notion of beginner mind is one I must return to
time and again
Because it’s there that I have less cause to find complaint
With the way I manoeuver,
meander,
and mind the gaps between those things that feel like success.

I did a book report
in the once upon a time
time
Yes, that long ago.
The subject of success is one that has gathered at the fringes
And frayed at my edges
Because the definition of it changes with the wind.

Some days success looks like getting through the day with a smile on my face
and a sandwich in my heart
or belly
Either way, sustenance is important.

And some days it demands that I be aiming for the kind of wealth that stops car payments in their tracks
keep the larder full
and dust off the plans for a booknook with a whirlpool.

And so what if i get myself
back
to a place
where I hadn’t yet determined
that success should
look the way
I’d been told it should.
That it didn’t encapsulate champagne wishes and caviar dreams
That it didn’t come with a caveat of
‘satisfaction guaranteed, but perhaps at the cost of your soul’.

This duality of doling out comfort in a world that suggests I should demand more,
and take it,
but only if I’m brave enough to believe that I deserve it,
and that dessert is something which should be saved for later.

And so maybe some days success tastes like cake for breakfast,
And other days it looks just like this moment does,
with space enough to breathe deep
exhale fully,
and repeat.

 

 

Today’s deck is the Vertigo Tarot