Dancing Naked

Music Muse of the Day – Stay by Rhianna

Link to song with lyrics – http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/rihanna/stay.html

Since I made the commitment to do this each day, there have been some days when a random song from my play list that at first just doesn’t make sense.  Today is no exception.  As I listened to the song with the lyrics, I realized that my emotions greatly reflected the song.  Of course, Rhianna’s intention is clearly about a lover.  Mine?  It’s that connection to passions in my life that would be so easy to walk away from, but I would be lost without them.  If I walked away from those passions and dreams forever, a huge piece of me would die.  They live in my shadow self – that part of me that was put on a shelf so long ago, and yet remains waiting to become a part of my life once again.

I facilitate a monthly women’s group called Wild Women, and we have been studying Women Who Run with the Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes.  This past week was our January meeting.  The chapter was Chapter 8 about the baits and traps that keep us from realizing our passions.  The story was The Red Shoes.  In the story, a little girl desires red shoes but is too poor to purchase them, so she makes her own.  She is taken in by a wealthy old woman who burns her red shoes because they are not good enough for her new way of life – her new gilded cage.  The little girl gets a replacement pair of red shoes – all shiny and bright, but they are poisonous and make her dance and dance without rest until she finally cuts off her feet to be free. 

The handmade red shoes were her dreams and passions, and when she became trapped in that gilded cage of what the world said was right and perfect, she lost those red shoes only to miss them so much that she eagerly took replacements that were dangerous and caused her to become someone she was not – someone that society said she should be.  When she realized the futility of being someone that was not her true self, instead of finding a way out of it, she cut her own feet off becoming a shell of what she was. 

We all have walked away from dreams and passions for one reason or another only to replace them with what society says we should be and do.  I have, but in realizing the dreams and passions turned away, I call them back.  As I call them back, I ask them to “show me something!”  They say, “If you dare, come a little closer.”  I move closer knowing that there is a danger there that might lead me to a place that is quite different from who and what I have been for a very long time.  And yet, I know that I cannot turn away.  I know that my life depends on reconnecting with that passion and dream. 

This stanza speaks to all of us who are not living as we know we should.

It’s not much of a life you’re living
It’s not just something you take–it’s given

We have been given these incredible gifts and talents, and without nurturing them and allowing them to have a life, we have no life.  She says in the song:

Funny you’re the broken one but I’m the only one who needed saving
‘Cause when you never see the light it’s hard to know which one of us is caving.

Who is the broken one?  Our shadow selves – that part of us that is connected to the gifts and talents and the dreams that are waiting to come back out – the red shoes.  I want my red shoes to stay.  I know that I cannot live without them.  To my shadow self and my dreams so long ago put away, I want you to stay!