“I had a revelation, like runaway horses
Took to the road with a carnival show, roll on…”
Robbie Robertson’s Testimony is one of my favorite songs, and it is stampeding through my psyche this morning. “Come bear witness, I’ve danced among the ruins… I’ve walked a crooked mile…. In my soul, I’m howling at the moon…. Declare yourself, I will testify. ” Spirit speaks to us in so many ways - through oracles, through synchronicities, through the raw genius of artists who move through the world without armor, their souls shimmering and fragile, chronicling the experience of our shared humanity in the beauty and tragedy of their art, song, or story, reminding us that our very existence is Art, is an act of creation, of devotion, of intention. I write this morning across from an ancient wonder, the Colossi of Memnon, once again humbled by their presence, by how they have remained stalwart in the thousands of years since they were formed by hands that likely did not realize they were paying homage not just to a king, but to our eternal humanity.
I had lost my voice recently, not physically, but in the sense of my verbal expression. I find myself in a vortex of toning and light language, yet unable to form words that are in coherence with my soul. I have been overwhelmed by sound - screeching motorbikes, rattling tuk-tuks, rumbling tour buses, howling dogs, crying children, animated conversations in a language I am barely beginning to understand. And then there is the land itself, the holy mountain singing a lament so powerful my heart drowns in an echo of inexplicable and relentless sorrow. Present day life at a sharp angle to the resting place of kings, the birthplace of my soul. No wonder words failed me. In the cacophony, I had both lost and rediscovered my resonance, returning to an elemental frequency that transcends my verbal self and communicates fully through vibration. A single note, held until the breath leaves my body and my heart gasps for the next inspiration. The song of the cosmos, sung in unwitting chorus by a planet tenaciously maintaining its rhythm. A raptor circles overhead, reminding me that from his perspective, the colossi are small, a simple guidepost on a landscape that unfolds far beyond my view. We are of both heaven and earth, Divine and Human, cosmic and terrestrial. As with the juxtaposition of past and present, the invitation is in how to honor both.
So I sit here, the cold and dusty Luxor wind prompting a flood of tears from my dry eyes, the sun warming me as I sip yet another Nescafé, honing inward to hear the seemingly distant song of my soul. It is a precarious thread that binds us to this ephemeral voice, to our own eternal whisper. It is easy to lose your voice, your essence, in the chaos of a world on fire. It is a privilege to even be entertaining the thought of it, and one I do not take lightly. It took walking away from everything familiar for me to realize that I exist to create beauty for the sake of beauty. For so long I have struggled with “finding my purpose”, when the answer has been at my fingertips, in the letters that form words that form sentences and paragraphs, expressions of my soul in beautiful cadence and rhythm, a song of story and voice, of perspective and view. It doesn’t matter how my words are received, if they are loved or hated, if they are a welcome resonance or are a wildly rejected affront. It only matters that they live outside of my body, outside of my mind alive with a cavalcade of musings, in full expression of my soul. They are my Testimony. And so, I testify…
Much love. Blessed be.
