The fear lay in owning her art and expressing herself without prejudice.

Lithe’s art took its watchers on journeys, crusades, a transformation. Artforms with a musicality that sailed audiences across open skies. Not the cobalt blue and cloud we had become accustomed to, but layer upon layer of aqua tinged lavender and deep purple; a night sky of pinned velvet. We smiled when she arrived tossing her ebony harmony, those thick ropes of hair that carried the secrets to serving without prejudice.

Smoke-filled lungs thick with fluid, breath shortening by the minute, faces spoiled with rashes, skin raw from bleeds. Her choice of song notes in every article she ever penned healed the canker of the sick. Watch her go, watch the longed for gift of the frightened, bury the bitter of heart and bring death from the brink. In this place like no other, existing in uniqueness she is the perfect face of promise to lead the languid through green paths plucking sweet berries from verges. Content to share the wealth of one who created for all. 

In this the generosity of one, feeding the hearts of a nation where forefathers, their blessed mothers, their children’s children will remember new legacy. Marked words, a line drawn in sand, to bow to the flatted mountains at the helm of peace. I await her stories of long sojourns to the foot of these clouds.

The loss of life, the martyrs who risk the journey through this unchartered territory alongside her, where poisonous creatures white with blisters belly slide in the undergrowth. Do not feed on the fauna that will kill with a single thorn prick. Those not pure of heart cannot reach the flat of the mountain top. Without grasp on intentions for the good of nations, sooner or later they will falter. But we do not scorn the misguided. Their efforts are honoured in declaration. When the sun rises all is revealed, carved on the trunks of giant red ferns and the baobab holding its own.

Lithe has travelled there many times. On the cusp of this legacy she shares the wisdom for how to live. Through paintings, poems, her teachings, her full self-expression is the inspiration that carries fear without prejudice.

Thanks for taking a minute to read my response to the day 13 prompt:

Fear by Lachlan Cotter
These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Is fear holding you back from living your fullest life and being truly self expressed? Put yourself in the shoes of the you who’s already lived your dream and write out the answers to the following:

Is the insecurity you’re defending worth the dream you’ll never realize? or the love you’ll never venture? or the joy you’ll never feel?

Will the blunder matter in 10 years? Or 10 weeks? Or 10 days? Or 10 minutes?

Can you be happy being anything less than who you really are?

Now Do. The Thing. You Fear.

(Author: Lachlan Cotter)

Namaste.