Nice people lie too And when they do They defend it with determination For fear of losing their reputation. Once you start with a lie You have no choice But to continue to deny Using your false voice And you become hard And you become cold And you put up your guard And you grow old It was worth it, I guess, To have wrongly said Yes - It would be sad to have killed your soul For nothing, and miss your true goal. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
Of challenges
FORGET IT
How humility can guide you To find yourself if you let it - How anger can ride you To death if you won’t forget it - Forget it, it’s done and gone, Your pain is the healing kind - When you lost her, you won A deeper heart, a higher mind. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
REPEAT
It’s like 10,000 years away It’s like you went away On that fateful day It repeats itself everyday. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
BE HONEST WITH PEOPLE UPFRONT
Be honest with people upfront. Because they are giving you their all, hoping you will accept it and believing you are the one. If you know you are not available for them or they are not what you seek, don’t let them plant their garden in your backyard and enjoy their fruits for a while before brutally uprooting them when you’ve had enough, or when they now want to enter the house, or when the one or thing you really want shows up. You cause a deep pain in the universe and open a wound in their hearts that will bleed for lifetimes thereafter. Be honest with people upfront. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Don’t say things you don’t mean or that aren’t REALLY real. If it’s not what you really want or if you’re not really sure, say it truthfully, keep your distance or break it off at once. You will gain a friend, and respect, for life, down the line.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains
TRUST IS THE MESSAGE OF TRUTH
One thing I know about life: you tell the truth to the person you truly love, to your soulmate. You feel enough trust and empathy, and you have the strong craving, to share the truth, the real naked truth, with them. People who are not able to tell you the truth are telling you that they don’t really have a deep place for you in their heart. This is a painful recognition to have, but a necessary one too. It helps you to protect yourself from deeper hurt and from new hurt in the future.
Trust is the message of Truth. As long as truthfulness is not coming from helplessness and desperation, then it is on the one hand a sign of respect, and on the other hand it is the ultimate admission of safety, intimacy and trust. You know the people you trust by the secrets you feel comfortable sharing with them. And you know the people who don’t trust you by the secrets they hold back from you. These are the people who are not close to you, no matter how close to you they seem to be. Veracity is the test – and the taste – of intimacy.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains
A MAN
As a man, what makes you a man is your dignity – not your wealth, not your standing, not your position or power, not your achievements, not your intelligence, not your talents, not your handsomeness, not your “effect” on people. Only your dignity.
It is your courage to be honest to the world about who you are – because you know who you are. And it is the courage to be honest to yourself about who you should be – because deep down in your soul you also know who you should be.
And who you should be is the man you really are. Your noblest and most ideal self. A man.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains
SAME DIFFERENCE
A marriage should not be based on emotions and karmic threads, but on spiritual homogeneity. If you are a truth seeker, then your partner must be a truth seeker too. If you have a certain conviction or recognition about how life really is and should be lived, then your partner must share a similar recognition or consciousness, independently and self-motivatedly, otherwise you will not be able to go down the same path together; you will not travel together in the same direction. If you are not anchored in the same spiritual orientation, then when critical challenges come upon you you will make fundamentally different decisions, guided each by a different assumption or conviction – because you have fundamentally different understandings of what life is, how life is, and what really matters in life. You have to be travelling in the same direction first, for the same reason, in order to be able to complement one another in your union and enrich one another with your differences.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains
RIGHTNESS
He was going to the right place, but for the wrong reason. So he stopped himself and started going to the wrong place, but for the right reason. Then his helpers stopped him and pointed him back to the right place. Now he’s gone to the right place again, but this time for the right reason. And rightness was fulfilled.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains
WHAT’S HIDDEN IN THE SOIL
How something so good Can just suddenly spoil You would be so surprised What’s hidden in the soil. How success and fulfilment Can defy time and toil You would be so mortified What’s hidden in the soil. How the hand that loved Can suddenly recoil You would be so horrified What’s hidden in the soil. The human heart is a garden, A kitchen, a fertile soil And strange things happen When things come to the boil. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
PROMISES WITHOUT WORDS
Some promises are made without words. But they are there. They are transmitted from heart to heart, and the heart understands what has been given, received, taken, reciprocated and shared.
Such promises are easy to break and deny, but hard to bear or forget or ever make good again. Because what was not spoken with words or broken with words cannot be repaired with words.
The deepest promises are silent and are the litmus test of the truthfulness of our character and the trustworthiness of our personalities and the purity of our hearts.
And then when the words then follow, they seal in stone what has already permeated the air and the heart.
Be mindful of the promises you make, whether spoken or unspoken, be honest to yourself and fulfil – or break honestly – what you have promised within yourself.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 