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branganwr · 10 months

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In the Mabinogion king Brân is leading his army when they come across an impassable river. Seeing the necessity king Brân, posessed of giant's blood and stature, wades in to the river saying

"A fo ben, bid bont."

"They that would be a leader, let them be a bridge."

With his act of service his army is able to cross the river using his shoulders, continuing their march.

What gives someone the right to lead? Is it strength? Wisdom? Physical prowess?

Once they are in a leadership position what gives them the right to hold on to that power?

More often than not leadership is merely a matter of opportunity. Circumstances often call for a leader out of necessity. While the mantle of leadership is coveted by many it is most often those it is thrust upon that are shown to be true and worthy leaders.

But what gives someone the RIGHT to rule?

In short, nothing.

Leadership is a duty, a responsibility. First and foremost a leader is charged with serving those they hold authority over. A kings duty is to his people.

Leaders deserve their power only so long as they are willing to use that power to help those who rely on them.

Too often we see the greedy and power hungry hoard authority. They chase after as much power and prestige as is available to them. Though they may claim noble intentions their corruption leads them to cling greedily to what they have even if it stands in the way of progress.

A leader who directly inhibits the community they serve is not worthy of their position, and they are certainly not worthy of admiration or respect.

If you want to be a leader, be a bridge.

Before you pursue the power of a leadership role stop and considered if you are willing and, more importantly, capable of serving others in a leadership capacity.

Serve the community.

Put their best interests before your desires.

If you nourish and cultivate strong roots your garden will grow bountiful.

"Strength does not make one capable of rule. It makes one capable of service."

- from "Stormlight Archive" by Brandon Sanderson

#bard #druidry #drunken bard #words #writing #poetry #spirituality #bardic #inspiration #mythology

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branganwr · 1 year

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Beware these words. These words are unkind. These words are a challenge, a call to face a truth that, once uncovered, cannot be forgotten. Read only if you feel you must. These are words present a first step on a new journey. A journey in to shadow to retrieve your light.

You Are The Problem

You.

Yes, you.

You are the problem.

I am not speaking of the royal you, so easily dismissed. I am not speaking of the regional you, the demographic of you, the generation of you.

I am speaking to you. You, as you are in this moment, reading these words. The you that is presently questioning whether this applies to you.

You.

Yes, you.

You are the problem.

But you are merely one person, you say. You shift your perspective and look at yourself as an insignificant being adrift in a tumultuous sea of chaotic events spurred ever onwards by circumstances beyond your control. Not you. It couldn't be you. Could it?

The you that looks out in to the great wide world and find yourself dwarfed by machinations beyond your comprehension. The you that, if you push ever so slightly, can view yourself at an even greater distance as a mote of dust within an infinite universe. You. Small, insignificant, inconsequential you. You could not be the problem.

You that is lost, wrapped up in the comings of going of your day to day life. It couldn't be you. Surely not the you who sighs with relief at the end of a long day, knowing only you will have to rise again to do it all. Surely you have done everything you can, surely you must not be the problem.

You who tries so hard to be mindful. You who treads so carefully. You whose care for the world is so great that you forsake your own wants, your own desires, surely it can not be you.

You who watches helplessly as forces beyond your control clash and battle. You who watch the suffering around you with no power, no hope that you could ever make it right. Truly. It could not be you.

But you, yes you.

You are the problem.

You who rises every day, resiliency guiding you as you take on your tasks. It is you who are the problem.

You who thinks in every way you have done all you could to help the world around you. It is you who are the problem.

And it is time to call yourself to task.

For there is a sickness in this world, a sickness of mankind, that you yourself must address.

You, as you are, are not independent from the whole. You are, instead, only a part in the machine which created you. As no machine can operate without its parts so too are you responsible for the working of that machine.

That machine is sick, that machine is broken, that machine must be fixed. That machine that guides us, shapes us, has gone too long without maintenance. That machine is you, you are that machine, both broken in your own ways.

The broken machine, the sickness that pervades, it all comes back to you. For you are the cause, you are the cure, you are the source of it all.

For each day you rise, each moment you breathe, you are at the helm. You feed coal in to the engine, but you forget to steer the vessel. You come and you go, you live a good life, you do good by your friends and peers.

But what of the times when the going gets tough? Do you rise or give in to your fear?

For who are you to correct another when you see them stray from the path? You are powerless and it means nothing to you if they wish to veer.

But it is you who are wrong, dear reader. You who are at fault in this play. For with a guiding hand, a gentle touch, you can help those who have gone astray.

Not you, you cry, it is not your place. But it is you who is in the wrong. For as your actions reflect who you are, your inactions speak louder. Your inaction reflects complacency,

No, no, no you cry. It is not your place. You dare not impose on the will of another. But this, you see, is only another distraction.

You.

Yes, you.

Become the problem once again.

You, who are so concerned with "right" and "wrong", refuse to see. You, who in that moment, is presented with a wonderful opportunity. You can leap in to the dance, you can take action and sing. Instead you, possessed of self-defeating inclination, sit there silent as the universe herself passes you by.

But what of the other times, you ask. What meaning does one opportunity have when you have seized so many others. The answer is nothing, the answer is everything.

For each moment presents an opportunity. A pallette of which there are endless hues for you to choose from. Life is the canvas on which you have been called to create your masterpiece. Yet every moment, every missed opportunity, is a rejection of your calling. It is a silent agreement you make with yourself in which you insist by choosing inaction you flawlessly avoid wrong action, forgetting all the while that inaction itself is the action you chose.

Every opportunity to do good, every opportunity to breathe life and beauty in to the world, every opportunity is to be cherished. For it is when you step back you see that the culmination of these moments is what makes your life. Your life which you so preciously guard and cut off from the world. Your life you view as separate from the whole. Your life for which you claim the safety of responsibilities without reprocussions, denying all the while any misstep you have made.

But they are all your doing.

Because you, yes you.

You are the problem.

Every time opportunity passes you by, you are the problem. When a mother cries for her lost child and you cannot spare a word of sympathy, you are the problem. When a homeless man on the street asks for change and you jealously guard the thirty-one cents in your pocket, you are the problem. Every careless cruelty you observe, every injustice you record on your cellular phone, every moment of every day that you spend silently observing to spare yourself the risk of failure, the risk of embarrassment, the risk of pain... They all rest upon your shoulders.

It is the weight unspoken which has haunted your entire life. It is the burden of justice you can never grant which eats away at your heart. It is the pain, the great momentous suffering of others, their unimaginable torment and agony which claws and rakes at the fabric of your sanity. It is everything you have grown to fear in the night. And it is all. Your. Fault.

In the darkness of your soul, in the withered depths where the starving child of your innocence lays shackled to the burden of regret, you can finally see the truth.

All of the times you ignored suffering for your own comfort. All of the blind eyes you turned when you convinced yourself it was not your problem. All of the power within that you relinquished simply by reducing yourself to helplessness when you uttered the phrase "There is nothing I can do."

They are there. Gnawing at you. While you so busily pretend otherwise you know you feel it. The heartache that eats away at you knowing that the world is not right and you have done nothing to make it right.

All of the times you clung to your race, your religion, your sex, your orientation, your nationality, your ever-so-precious identity... You knew.

You knew as you clung to these lifelines in a sea of darkness that they all were fleeting illusions. You knew as you used them as weapons in the fight against the crushing sadness that they were not right. As you used them against your fellow man, constantly bickering and arguing that your way was better, you knew. You knew, as all must know in the center of their being, that you were no different from the others. You knew as you clawed and hissed and defended yourself that they were just as scared as you. You knew you were the problem. Yet still you persisted.

So you, yes you.

You are the problem.

You that are born of all that is wrong in the world. You who are made from the scars of countless mistakes. You who have lost your will to fight.

You.

Yes, you.

You are the problem.

You, as you read these words may find yourself questioning your place in all of this. If all suffering great and small is laid at your feet what more is there to do? You, as you read these words, may consider yourself damned.

But do not despair.

For you, yes you, you are the solution.

You, who are limitless in your potential, have the power to change the world. You, who have sat by silently for so long, have a voice that can make mountains tremble. You, who feels so small in the grand scheme of things, have the keys to change the course of history. For you are the cauldron of creation from which change is born.

You, forged by the fires of creation that birthed the universe itself, are possessed of a willpower stronger than steel. You, who are the culmination of millions upon millions of years of churning chaos, are the end product of a million times a million processes. You are what is born of every act, large and small, that lead you to this moment. You, and you alone, can alter your reality.

You.

Yes, you.

Are the perfect instrument of change.

From the very beginning it is you the universe desired. Expressed by the countless births and deaths of the very stars themselves, you, in this very moment, are the breath that life has strived to take. Blessed of sentience, that burden of self-reflection, it is you in this moment that everything has lead to.

Through trial and tribulation you survived. You, through word and deed, have navigated through time and space to find yourself here. You have spent your life accumulating your skills, your experience. You have cultivated your unique expression of individuality despite every odd stacked against you.

You may be the problem, but the problem is not the whole of you. The problem exist within you, extending outward to touch everything in your life. This problem cannot be solved by a grand gesture or simple action. It must be picked at, pried at, until it releases its grip on you.

For now is the moment you are called to action. No longer can you afford to sit idly by as chaos and decay rampage around you. Instead you must choose now to come in to your own power and seek your full potential. You have been awakened and there is no going back. You must strive at every opportunity to do better, to be better. For you are not your brothers keeper but your personal responsibility calls you to be an example.

You must see the world in its entirety. You must look at flaws both within and without and not shy from them. Instead you must act with courage and bravely stand against the tide. You have nothing to fear. You cannot fail. For the only failure to be found is in an ending and your story is not over.

You.

Yes, you.

You are the problem.

You.

Yes, you.

You are here to fix it.

#words #writing #drunken bard #inspiration #shadow work #bard #bardic #druidry #self reflection

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