What's the Point?

Consider this the diary of a sarcastic poet.

Hi, I’m Allie Michelle. I could be a muggle and list out a bio of all of the things I have done, but we have enough of everyone shouting about their success in the world, and that is not the point.

I’m here to bring humanity into my work. To release the pressure valve many of us feel to be someone great and do something grand. When did having a purpose and a mission become what validates our right to be here on the planet, after all? Whether you want to impact millions of lives, or have a simple life in the woods growing herbs, it matters equally on the scale. Even the way you sip your coffee effects the delicate balance of the universe, after all.

Why am I still rambling?

I’ve been on Instagram since before I learned to drive. That’s over a decade of my life, producing short form content that disappears within 24 hours. I’m not here to hate on social media. I have seen the world and met some of the most important people in my life because of it.

I do however, find it more and more difficult to separate my creativity from my career. Everything in nature has a season of wintering, a hibernation period so to speak. We are seasonal creatures, after all. And yet, capitalism has drop kicked us out of our cyclical nature. Produce, produce, produce. Are we living to work, or working to live? This is a question I frequently ask myself.

As a writer, it’s my job to experience as much as possible. As a poet, it’s my job to feel every experience as deeply as possible.

Exclusive poems and writings every week, just for you.

I beg of you, don’t forget that your life is meant to SING. When you feel bogged down by invisible chains that say you can’t, you really shouldn’t—rip away those bondages with sharp teeth and let freedom dribble from your chin. They tell you freedom is doing whatever you want, but what is freedom if not being who you are, and risk showing the same face to every person? Or the feeling of sweet emptiness when you have given all of your gifts to the world? We don’t need more heroes in capes. We need holy bandits. People who dance when the earth rumbles and quakes beneath them. What is a free soul but someone who acts with so much heart everything they do is a sacred rebellion?

What’s the point?

Gather around the campfire, everyone. It’s story time.

A few years ago I was writing an article for the tourism board of Indonesia. Their country is full of wonders, and yet the majority of visitors stay on the island of Bali. I slept in the Orangutan jungle, visited a floating village in the middle of the sea, and saw Komodo dragons (while I was on my period, might I add. There was nothing to protect me from the dragons sniffing me out but a man with a Gandalf stick.)

I traveled the world with a backpack and my favorite, tattered copy of Love Poems from God translated by Daniel Ladinsky. I always loved poetry, particularly the sassy mystics who were able to find the sacred in the profane. Think Hafiz, Kabir, Rumi, Rabia—there’s a reason their work has withstood the test of time. What piece of art from our generation will last so long, I wonder?

In any case, I wasn’t brave enough to write for myself yet. It was all fine and dandy writing about where to visit, sleep, and gorge yourself on mouth watering food. That made sense to me. I was being paid for a job. It was productive. Writing creatively felt like an elusive dream that I was too young and too inexperienced to pursue. It felt like a craft meant for people who smoke cigars, read Bukowski in their spare time and say things like, “Well, as Carl Jung would say…”

While I was traveling, we had an opportunity to visit a healer. At the time, this was my first experience with a medicine woman. Not knowing what to expect, I went in with an open mind and heart, ready to report back my findings.

The healer lived in a traditional Balinese style home in a remote location surrounded by endless rice fields. I knocked on the enormous, double wooden doors. A woman half my height answered. Her smile was larger than her face, and there was a fire that danced in her warm brown eyes. I followed her up the rickety stairs. The house smelled thickly of incense and rice.

When we sat down she looked at me and frowned.

“Baby, you are a writer. Why are you not writing?”

My eyes widened.

“I am writing. I’m writing an article for the tourism board…” I trailed off.

“Why are you not sharing poetry? Why are you not writing the stories that you ache to write?” She smirked at me.

“I…what’s the point?” I shrugged.

She cackled loudly.

“The point? Does there need to be a point? Your gifts are not yours to keep! They are yours to give away. And when you have gifts you’re not using, it causes great pain and imbalance in the body. There is nothing more suffocating than a person who never dared explore their own creativity!”

The point is that there is no point! I am slowly unraveling my programming of the need to be someone. How lovely would it be to stop legend-tripping, trying to build an empire and measure thy worth by how much ye have done that day? (Hello, calling myself out). I’m keeping my finger on the pulse of life, and practicing being brave enough to relish the season that I am in, baring the fragile truth that none of us are making out of this human experience alive! We might as well dance through this nonsensical journey all the way home. So long as I wake up on this side of the ground, I’m here to make my life sing.

Share your gifts, folks. It will make your life sing.

Instead of trying to contain my muse to a tiny, square box, this new platform is my act of sacred rebellion. I will write on a new topic each week, sending out exclusive poems just for you. This is a community, so send me a message on what you want to hear about!

And, if you found this remotely entertaining, please do share with your friends.

Much love,

Allie.

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