I love to dance

 

I once was a little girl that believed in things magical

Music and dance was my song of life

Then I became a bitter woman

Wrestling with life to give her what she deserved

But not knowing what that was

 

Now I am changed again to the simplicity of a child

Seeking new things

I want boundless things

I want the things that connect me to life’s streams;

Where light meets darkness.

I want to be where things begin

What’s in a name?

 

 

Jul: What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet; so Romeo would,

Were he not Romeo call’d, Retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title.

Romeo, doff thy name; and for that name, which is no part of thee, take all myself.

Rom: I take thee at thy word. Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptiz’d…”

Romeo and Juliet, Act II Scene II

 

This has to be one of my favourite scenes from Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet. In a world of titles it just so beautifully illustrated what titles mean to human beings. Titles will lead people to war, titles will cause a person to take responsibility, titles will give security and unfortunately titles are used to hurt and bind. So it goes without saying that it is important what you are called in this world but more importantly it is important what you call yourself. When a child is conceived people want to know whether it’s a boy or a girl because that is one thing that will determine the name and the clothes they will wear at the least. Eventually his or her parents will choose a name that people in the world will call her legally. There are other titles that are given that denote the social status of a person and they are just as important. Are you single, married or divorced and once again these titles will determine what access you have. Some titles are cruel and are solely designed to hurt a person. They are either created by people around that person or in some cases by the person themselves.

 

One thing I realized when I fell pregnant was how important the name I would give my daughter was going to be because it would tell about my attitude towards her and the circumstances of her birth. In retrospect the names I chose for her ended up defining my experience of her. In my naming her she was my blessing, she was a light in my life, she was the very thing that changed the course of my life for the better. I told her before I met her how proud I was of who she was and who she was going to be. I told her that the circumstances of her birth will be nothing to the world changer she was going to be. At 10 months she is like the rising sun itself in personality and in appearance and I am already proud of the woman she is becoming. Every milestone I wish I can record and just keep as a reminder but then I am reminded that she will do more and I don’t want to keep these moments as a standard for her.

 

The way she has impacted my life has been phenomenal. In giving her these names; she made me conscious of the names I had allowed people to give me and the names I was giving myself. I did not like any of it. I wanted to be a light to my daughter, a shining example of a woman living her life unapologetically. I wanted her to be proud of me and for her to take pride in her circumstances. Something had to give and give it I have. This past year has been full of challenges but I can honestly say I would not have had it any other way because beauty and love has come out of it. As Romeo put it ‘call me but love, and I’ll be new baptiz’d”.

 

My old names still want to lay claim and somehow they still find expression in the most fascinating ways that you realise that the things we speak to ourselves truly becomes a living thing that has the ability to determine the things we believe in, what we believe is possible in our world, how kind we are towards ourselves and others. I have decided for myself that the words that reside in my mind are subject to my authority, I qualify them and they must be worthy to be in me. The question on what am I to call myself came up because of the transition that I am going through and I realise how insufficient the names I have been calling myself are. They do not describe the wonderful, intelligent woman that I am. They describe a woman who was just never enough in a situation however untrue that was.

 

The names you give yourself determine what you permit people to do in your life, the words literally become flesh. If you are asking yourself ‘what did you do to deserve this?’, ‘what do you take me for?’ the words you speak to yourself could tell you why that is happening. I must however be honest and say sometimes a situation will happen not because it is invited but to test the validity of your words because sometimes in good faith we speak words to ourselves but have not anchored them in our reality. In other words we are living them superficially. I had a lot of those and things in the past year have happened that have forced me to either walk the talk or discard the description.

 

Your name or what you call yourself should be so well chosen that anyone who encounters you would know who you are without explaining yourself but do not be scared that if people don’t get it right you must show them who you are, unapologetically. Your authentic self is just too valuable to be subject to apologies. So just be and the rest will be with you.

 

Love and Light

Thembile Cele

A Woman Re-Imagined

I see God in you, Queen

Orbit

You were made in the image of me, so I see God in you, Queen. You are beautiful, and I’m stuck like a deer in headlights. What does your soul taste like?

Treat yourself as the person you want to be, and you will become that. I want to be free. Pictures courtesy of Bella Kinks.

Music and a book.

SZA!

Dear God make me a bird, so I can fly far, far far away

Call your phone on a late night
I recall your soul and it taste like
Gardens, flowers, Warm Winds
Quit clipping on your feet
Quit clipping on your wings
Sometimes we hate to leave somebody
Whats happening to we?
Warm winds on a space ride
Sometimes, I call your name out loud
Just to make sure it’s you
Sometimes, I crack my veins so bad
Just to see if it’s blue
You clean me up

Sometimes…

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House of Mirrors

It’s amazing the perceptions we hold of ourselves whether true or not. I was having this conversation with my beautifully crazy best bud last night and I guess on the other side of the line she must have fallen off her chair that’s how hard she laughing at me. You know the laughter that says “oh but you are so special”? In the process of telling each other how amazing we think the other is, I started telling her how I genuinely believed that I was a very shy and quiet person until I had my daughter who is a loud and rambunctious little creature with too much personality in her chubby 10-month-old body. She has an extremely independent and very happy disposition. When my daughter pulls one of her special stunts I often ask her “whose daughter are you?” and often the silent response I get is “Yours”. I realise now since she came into my life how much I reflect and mimic her personality and the more I peel off my supposedly ‘shy layers’ I find I am more comfortable in that skin than in my previous one.

 
So there was Tanya laughing at me because she was like in what Universe did you believe you were like that? Clearly in my self-created universe I thought I was like that. Somehow this perception was confirmed by my high school teacher who in my year-end report in telling my parents what a joy I was to teach said I had a very “placid and quiet nature”. After that I did not need further confirmation, it was done “I was placid and quiet”. I swear if you have to go to my CV right now, my personality profile has ‘calm’ somewhere in there.

 

 

The Sunning Moments

 

One thing that makes my daughter extra special to me is that she has opened this treasure trove inside me that I think I had made myself believe was something to be out-grow. She has changed all that. I want to have fun, laugh more, play more and best of all write more. I laughed when a colleague at a seminar described my personality as ‘sunny’. I nearly fell off my chair then because in my mind ‘Thembile’ and ‘sunny’ were very diametrically apart. The odd think though is that if you had to ask me how I would describe my ideal self I would tell you in my mind I am wearing a yellow/ white sundress with a sun-flower in my hair (I love sunflowers), bare-foot and I am prone to beautifully random dancing.

 

Remembering that conversation this morning I was reminded of one of my favourite movies – Enter the Dragon – I absolutely love martial arts movies and in particular the house of mirrors where Bruce Lee fights the Han. I remember watching the movie and how frustrated and petrified Bruce Lee was in that room because the images were so distorted and he could not see his enemy and he thought running away or avoiding who he truly was the solution. He learnt later he had to face up to his demon. In the last scene Bruce Lee realises that in order to change the image and reveal the truth he had to shatter the mirrors. How many of us keep mirrors so that we hide our real selves. I think sometimes we grab onto an image that helps us to survive and deal with the world around us. Bruce Lee had to shatter the mirrors before making before he can fight the Han and his men. Perhaps you keep dealing with the same challenges in different form over and over again. For me I have had to get to a point where I asked myself does what I see really show who I am and the answer was ‘No’. Slowly but surely I am shattering the mirrors in my mind.

 

Here is my prayer, blessing and hope for you: I pray that you get such clarity about who you are that you fairly vibrate with it, I pray that whatever true You, you are hiding in there moves so much within you that you have no choice but re-imagine yourself and let that beautiful light shine. I pray that you are challenged to find the beauty in who you are whether you are able to define it for yourself right now or not. Just don’t hide.

 

 

Love and Light

Thembile Cele

A Woman Re-Imagined

Eternal Joy

My joy in him is eternal

My place of hope

Where my hurts are kissed

How wonderful is your love to one hurt and bruised as I am

 

My joy in him is eternal

You remembered me before you knitted me in my mother’s womb;

What a beautiful choice that was too

 

My joy in him is eternal

As he planted me where I would flourish to his glory

Idonai you are my joy

My joy in you is eternal as we explore who I AM

The Divine Thrust

Tonight I received a very valuable lesson in letting go. As a control freak in transition I thought I was really getting a hold of this letting go and trusting in my higher power to take care of the rest thing. I trust God but tonight I realised I didn’t trust Him with everything. There is that one spot I think I had hidden even from myself that in my subconscious allowed me to retain some form of my control. It reminded me of the hocruxes left behind by ‘He Who Shall Not Be Named’ a.k.a. Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter. For those not in the know a ‘hocrux’ is a powerful object in which a dark wizard or witch has hidden a fragment of his or her soul for the purpose of attaining immortality. I realised that I have been keeping a hocrux or two to measure how deep I went in surrendering to this great destiny I see for myself. Unfortunately for me I believe in a God of complete surrender and if you pray for and meditate on ‘complete openness’; complete openness is what you will get.
So my little ‘hocrux’ was revealed to me. I realised that in my drive to finally get my dream going one thing still holds me back, complete trust. My ability to let go and trust in the unknown, specifically for me as a Christian trusting God without a doubt. I now realise that this was the cause for my mental block, my inability to put my plans in a proper strategy to implement my project. The control freak in me still wants the 100% assurance that this thing will work out. I do not for one second doubt that this is my calling and I do not doubt that if I do not do it ‘NOW’ I will forever live to regret having clipped my own wings. I now understand the feeling that Icarus must have felt before he took those wings and clipped them on his back. I am sure he asked himself the very same question I have been asking myself but that isn’t the point is it? Because that sensation you feel under your skin, in between every cell in your body that says ‘NOW’. Your dreams scream in that voice and you just get no rest from it. Every breath you take and give aches of it. Icarus just wanted to fly, the sun had nothing on the fire that was burning inside him.
I was trying to control the fire that is why I was keeping my little hocrux; my fall back point. I forgot that to completely let go meant that I had to unshackle everything and no amount of subterfuge would help. I don’t know what you call it but I call it the ‘Divine Thrust’, the proverbial kick in the ass from God, the Universe or whatever you want to call your Higher Power.
All I know is that no matter what, there is no ignoring it. I can only obey.

 

Love and Blessings
Thembile
A Woman Re-Imagined