Rebirth.

The truth is we idolize birth, with all of its productive, pungent newness, the fresh promise of something other than what was before. What we forget is that nothing can be created without rearranging, rewiring and rebuilding what has happened already.

A birth of any kind is the culmination of countless hours making stuff in the dark. Hidden from view, matter coalesces in new ways from old material, and we begin to form something designed to emerge in this moment. Rebirth is birth, and we rebirth ourselves every day when we wake up and get out of our bed for the 12,775th day (if you’re 35, then this is how many times you have done this.)

We re/birth ourselves whenever we integrate some new challenge and begin to learn not to harm ourselves our others as we go through our lives. We rebirth ourselves, our work, our offerings, many times in one lifetime – if we’re lucky.

The public announcement of birth is but one moment in the gestation of this long process of weaving life (and death) into new forms. What matters is not the finished product, but the practice of doing, the practice of creating, of stepping towards your dreams no matter how many times you stumble and fall in the dark. What matters is knowing that all of this work is worth whatever light you are heading towards. What matters is that you begin to flourish again after a decline, that you begin to reappear again after disappearing into the spaces between and below. That you become willing once more to blossom like the flower, to unfurl what you have kept hidden within you, out of sheer curiosity, courage, and blind faith.

What is more vulnerable, and yet more courageous than a flower? And what is more creative than the dark? Do not fear tomorrow, for every day you unfold in ways the world has never seen before. Emerge. Unfurl. Rebirth.

There is ferocity in a flower.
The audacity to bloom
In the face of eternity
Is a fierce kind of miracle.

–

Words by Sophie Ward @theloveriver
Video by Gemma De Maria @gemmade