It has been a while since I have written anything. So Strange because there is always so much inside of me. I just have to wait till it pops out from need to expel, to make room for more thought or maybe I simply need to apply discipline to write. In truth I love to share all that I hear, all that I see and maybe in expelling my life’s stories, I help another travel this life or simply spew enough to help me sustain the journey.
Today’s topic… My Tribe. I have been looking for a bit, traveling and fellow-shippin . in many places. I love to watch people. It helps me in trying to find answers to some questions that have been gnawing at my brain for years it would seem.
I start here…A definition: TRIBE – a social group comprising numerous families, clans, or generations together with dependents OR adopted strangers ,a group of persons having a common character, occupation, or interest.
Interesting is it not.. I am seeking and always striving to find pieces of life’s puzzle that come together and finding one’s tribe is a step in that direction. Finding place, finding peace. In a place of peace, one is not fighting one’s humanity and all that comes with it. You know, those pesky emotions, voices that pick like vultures, tearing at every aspect of you.
Each and every day during our daily gift of time, purpose, hope and dreams, one can be flooded with distractions. Those thoughts, events or people who knowingly or unknowingly break our journey to peace. Wow, went way out there on that thought, but welcome to my mind! Bringing it back in…so not to travel a rabbit hole..maybe later, for now…where was I.
I do not have a “social” group, nor family to speak of and sadly no generations or, dependents. HOWEVER, I believe I do have a few adopted strangers, which in point, keeping with the definition of TRIBE, are those that I have found common interest, ground and occupation. Our occupation is surviving life, finding joy and peace.
My developing tribe is one of broken, fractured, torn apart, rejected, off center human beings that bring the color to an otherwise black and white life. Whew! That is a revelation just to write it down. I find these “strangers” everywhere but the oddness is they are not strange to me. However, my Tribes seemingly keep breaking apart. Life moves us…and I am left standing (or sitting) in the alone. Alone frightens most, in truth, I have come to like and understand alone. The quiet of alone is really not so very quiet. Clearing ones mind to complete “quiet” is simply IMPOSSIBLE. Our minds were made to wonder and seek and find.. again welcome to my mind, it is a most dangerous place for most.
In random, but so very important, I will say it takes a really strong tribe member to sustain relationship with me and in raw honesty, to love me. I am OK with this statement. I have known love both authentic and counterfeit. Learned hard but valued lessons from both. Love is indeed a valuable and painful piece to peace. Love is another topic for another days write.
Heavy stuff is it not…the prisms of thought that circles my brain. It can exhaust me if I do what my human nature wants..to figure it all out.
And now, I use two phrases most will have heard before.. “PEACE, be still”…”BE STILL and know” I hold onto these wonderful words for dear life..because if not, I keep riding the roller coaster and it makes me sick. Sick in heart, sick in mind, sick in body.
OK…being raw and real, we all want to belong. We want TRIBE.
Random (again)… Finding ones Tribe thru life seems to be fundamental. The key, it just can not be FOREVER. Time is a constant. Tribe is not stationary but fluid.
So as I close, TRIBE is a constant fluid beautiful thing to embrace. Tribes alter, memories take hold as each moves into their next level of life and pursuit. It does not mean that you no longer belong or that you are completely forgotten. If you have given your gift of self, your memory will arrive in another one’s thought to to whom you have journeyed with. Hopefully a smile will be the gift left from being present in your Tribe. If not a smile, then a thorn which in itself is a gift of lesson learned.
Selah…for now