As I send my first album, Not All the Leaves Are Falling out into the world I have a satisfied and relieved sense of letting go of this project that I have been carrying for seven years and walking on with a free heart and empty hands.
My goal for this personal creative project was to make something beautiful and true. I feel like I have done that and that I can walk on in peace as I bless these songs and send them out into the world to connect with kindred spirits wherever they may find them.
I find myself at a threshold moment in my own story, a time where I bless the way that I have come, and bless the way ahead. This poem is my way of doing that.
Threshold
I bless the way that I have walked.
The winding, rugged climb of letting go
and moving on,
and finding my true name.
I pause at the crest,
the sky stretched out like a promise in blue.
Under my feet, the gathered stones of songs collected on the way.
I stand upon the power of their collective knowing,
their stories, their shadows,
each one, at the appointed time,
a true and beautiful place to stand along the winding way.
The breeze tugs and calls me forward
over the crest and down the gentle slope,
to the open sky,
to the wide horizon,
to the unshaped land waiting to be known.
I kiss the stones in tender remembrance
Setting down my sadness one last time.
A gathered pile of memory and fire,
marking the path from whence I came,
and the point of my departure unto the horizon.
What awaits my soul? What awaits?
Words by Kathryn Overall | Written in the winter of 2016
