Left hand lead

Those of you who follow my social media posts may have picked up a recent one, in which I share that I had been encouraged by a soul healer to allow my left hand to show me a way forward.

I tried writing with my left hand and found it a very interesting exercise. I have continued and it has led me to a fascinating creature - the chameleon. (If you have the patience to read the handwritten words in the accompanying image, you may be quite entertained to see how exactly my left hand led me.) 

Credo Mutwa, whose book, Isilwane, could be said to play the role of a kind of left-hand somebody (as distinct from a right-hand man) in my idiosyncratic questings, composed a beautiful praise song to the chameleon.

Praise Song to the Chameleon (extracts)

You, of whom warriors of old were afraid

And you, of whom the men today are also afraid

Little chameleon, what is the secret of your magic?

Why do the children of Africa hold you in such dread?

Even the bravest will quail at your touch

Even the mightiest will shrink from handling you

Only little children, secure in their innocence, dare to hold you in their hands

What is your story, chameleon?

[...]

Chameleom, the slow one, unwabu!

Chameleon, the beautiful one who changes his colours

Chameleon, the symbol of the sanusis, keepers of the hidden wisdom

They taught us in the great huts of grass

They taught us in the caves and in the holes in the ground

They taught us that we should be like chameleons, invisible to our enemies

They taught us to seek the knowledge of long ago and to see both into the future and into the past

To see both into the visible world and into the invisible world

Just as you swing your eyes, one looking forward and one looking backward

So we are taught to be like you

[...]

Anne Keating, in her wonderful book, Wild Voices, writes:

You have been taking a good look in the mirror recently and seeing a few of the masks you have been using to camouflage yourself. You realise what a burden they are becoming and are asking yourself WHAT FOR? Why am I keeping up this exhausting camouflage? 

When you are drawn to Chameleon it is a very positive and strong sign that you are now determined to face any self-delusion and remove your masks for good.

And this goes even further.

You will show little tolerance for deception in others in any situation. [...] You are looking for the REAL world [...]

 

Keating, furthermore, gives the key word for chameleon as PRECISION. The focused, carefully deliberated aim, with which chameleon's tongue is able to target and seize its prey, is a reminder not to rush and to allow pure intention to be the leader of your actions.

Left-handed journal entry, 17th January 2021 

Detail from the illustration for chameleon in Isilwane by Bowen Boshier.

Photo: Silke Heiss

Stretching himself to reach another branch. Photo: Silke Heiss

 

 

 

Maskless

How naked faces are, when masked.
How revealing the eyes.
How private and how

exposed, now, that we're forced

to face each other's and our own
true colours, locked in water:
mirrors, unclothed, entirely unalike.

 

Covenantal selves (another hitherto unpublished poem by Norman Morrissey)

Not long ago I found a poem by Norman, which I remember him drafting back in 2012, over a weekend during which he spoke about almost nothing else (the way I remember it, anyway) - namely, ...

... but I actually don't wish to take the words out of his mouth.

Nowhere else have I seen the concept of 'Ubuntu' - we are what we are, because of others - explicated more exactly or more beautifully than in this poem, which he entitled Covenantal selves.

Click on http://eccapoets.blogspot.com/ and scroll down just a little to read this extraordinary, hitherto unpublished poem.

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