Of Inner States

WHO ARE YOU TODAY?

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

It is better to know a person’s character than to know the person’s history. You might think that you will not know the character fully if you don’t know the history, and there might be some truth to that. However the history might obscure and distort your assumption on the present character and give you a wrong impression and make you miss the person right in front of you now. You come to understand the character by observing and experiencing the person in front of you now. That’s the most important thing. Every other information about the past that you get should be put in context with the present.

People say if you don’t know where a person is coming from you won’t understand the person. But it works both ways. For me, the present is more important. If I don’t experience, analyse, intuitively perceive and understand a person as they are now, I won’t know where they are coming from even if they tell me. Because information is not knowledge. Only experiencing and reflection, leading to recognition, is true knowledge of a person.

Knowing what I did in the past does not tell you who I am. At all. Believe me. Yes, it gives you clues, but some choices I make today will still baffle you. Because I have a free will. To really know who I am today, you have to experience and read me TODAY. Then you will also understand my past and perceive what my future might be.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

HEALING QUIETLY

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It‘s quiet inside
Grown silent in a heart
Of memories rich in restraint
A talking drum a world apart
It takes a village to raise a child
It takes a community to heal an inner child
And silence in a quiet place in your heart.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

DIFFERENT KINDS

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There are different kinds of friends
They connect in different ways
There are different kinds of bends
They connect with different ways
There are different kinds of trends
They connect into different ways
There are different kinds of ends
They disconnect and you go different ways
And then they connect you to different ways.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

DIFFERENTLY YOU

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If you are different
No matter how diffident
You try to be
They will still see
That you are different.

So, do you
And be true
All the way through
Their mean or funny looks –
A dose of courage is all it takes.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

LYING

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When people lie
Their energy shouts Why
Even as their mouths deny.

In every human eye
There is a buried cry.

To lie is, a little, to die.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

COME INTO THE LIGHT

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Come into the light
Here where Home is bright
Let us exchange insight
With the same intensity
With which we sometimes fight
Let Honesty be our Propensity
At the very Height
Of our Intimacy
It will feel right, it will feel so right
Without a shred of complacency.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

GLASS OF US

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If the glass is half full
Is my desire for you half empty?
Because our journey just began
But our feelings are already so plenty –

Is the glass empty or full of years?
Is the glass empty or full of cares?
Is the glass empty or full of fears?
Just drink up, my dear. Cheers!

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

I WANT TO GROW

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I want to grow
I want to know
What’s outside the window
Of my sorrow

I want to go
Where pain cannot follow
Too deep to flow
Too far for tomorrow

The incredible today Show
Thousandfold ecstasy and woe
Changes me into what I need to know
Ahead of tomorrow.

Many more miles to go
The first step is to sow
Hope, sow Joy, sow kindness despite sorrow
Growth is a stream, gently row.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

VICISSITUDES

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I never knew there was so much love
In the world until I was down;
I never knew there was so much hate
In the world until I wore a crown.

You just have to accept humanity the way it is;
People will surprise you with their love and their hate;
People will surprise you with betrayal and with loyalty;
A thousand changes everyday will be your fate.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

WORLDS

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As I travel the world outwardly, I also travel through myriads of inner worlds inwardly.

Within short periods, I interact with people of different mentalities, characters, backgrounds, histories, personalities and inner worlds; people whose inner lives are often completely different from mine but sometimes also extraordinarily similar to mine.

And I’ve learned one thing. It is not the outer world that is big and vast; it is the inner world that is vaster and more diverse than the universe. But it is also that same inner world that is the smallest, most singular and most undifferentiated space in all of creation.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains