Beneath the Blue Nile
what’s hiding
By: Elizabeth Gray
Lasting Legacies
What is the legacy we hope to leave behind? Will our future descendants feel connected to us? Will they perceive us in the manner we hope they will? Will they know our stories and the personal battles we fought so they could know life, too? Will they know we ever existed at all?
The role of the American family has drastically changed over the last 100 years. And 100 years before that, the role of family had drastically changed from the previous 100 years. This chain reaction of change is one of the few things we can rely on to stay consistent.
Unfortunately, as the years tick on by, the past lives of our ancestors grow more and more obsolete. We become unaware of the family legacy, and generations slowly begin to disregard the deeper truth that holds a bloodline together. While we are more often encouraged to look ahead rather than to look back, it’s only by reviewing the past that we can truly understand how we made it to the present moment, allowing us to consider what wisdom from the lives of our ancestors might be put to use in the present moment, in order to create a brighter future.
The Family Legacy
The spiritual legacy
About
Elizabeth Gray is a mental health professional with a master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh (CACREP-accredited).
Through her own journey to understand mental health and wellness, she found a passion for combining mental wellness with the supernatural. Elizabeth strongly believes that by integrating our spiritual nature into our physical world, we begin to break down illusions that leave us feeling defeated, and we awaken our innate spirit of empowerment and strength.
Poetry
by: elizabeth
THE SCAPEGOAT
The scapegoat learns to
slowly die
from losing the fight
to angry eyes
determined to find
fresh batches of blame
to keep the truth deflected.
Blamers and shamers
award themselves
the ultimate winners
with sharpened tongues
that slice the soul
yet set the stage
for the scapegoat’s
transformation
Scapegoats will learn
to love themselves
by keeping their sights on love
They build up armor
to block the daggers
sending them back
to its sender.
Just know
Bitter anger ages poorly
Kept unseen
beneath the surface
Acting like a viscous cancer
undetected, but spreading still
destroying the life it lives in.
THE SURRENDER
My anger raged
and brought the flood
And yet, you said be still.
I took the dive,
brought up the muck
You knew, but said forgive.
Forgive today
forgive tomorrow,
Until that’s all there is.
Resist the stream
of bitter waters
that eat a sinking ship.
You pushed me onward
and much too upward
since that’s how far I’d fallen.
I howled alone
my bellows rumbled
my heart’s volcano erupted
I cursed and begged
cursed and begged
as agony held on tight
gripping my soul
like tiny talons
clutching a limb
just to let go
and making the choice to fly
Porcelain
A jolt of fear and shattered glass
the porcelain hit the ground.
A beat of silence with eyes wide open
that sharpened into darts.
This is why we keep you out!
A precious heirloom
inanimately worthless
an idol to symbol my wealth
would still be here
to cradle my image
more fragile
than what’s been broken.
-e.g.
Rain Song
She sat in the storm
And started to sing
No one near would hear it
She would feel the relief
after all those years of
Constant over-correction
With every step, another judgment
dressed up as a harmless joke
Ready to tell her how to be better
so people would want her around
But, there, in the storm
she remembered her light
inside her own dark shadow.
And she welcomed the rain and all its chaos
as she sang another song.
-e.g.
Not a Prophet
A monster helped me come alive
but kept my voice on mute
His screams, our cries were never heard
Except for passersby.
Demands were made that didn’t fit
when casted as his prop.
But not just me, I wasn’t special
coming third in line
behind his bride and first born son,
his destined prodigy.
Pretty and proper,
all he wanted from me
the shell of a southern belle.
Until one day my nose touched his
and I told him to go to hell.
Threatened by a little girl
too defiant, too outspoken
too filled with anger and an evil soul
He said God was comin’ for me.
-e.g.
calm her down
A woman of hysterics goes through life
the most hated species on earth.
Easy judgment for what she is
without an ounce of curiosity
of the what’s and why’s and how’s
Her begs and pleas
for someone to listen
mocked and ignored with ease.
Eyeballs roll to look elsewhere
though a river runs from her’s.
We Missed
I cut the chord, and left you there
you laughed at my goodbye.
Was that the moment
you knew what to do
to cast the final blow?
With one more scribble of your name
on this page, here and there
A flick of your wrist,
some smeared black ink,
that’s how you wanted to go
But something stopped you, I’ll never know
if it was fate or your decision.
The story told on one empty line
of a father’s love, long forgotten
but still the last to live.
-e.g.