A Recovery Blog

This blog is about my continuing recovery from severe mental illness and addiction. I celebrate this recovery by continuing to write, by sharing my music and artwork and by exploring Buddhist and 12 Step ideas and concepts. I claim that the yin/yang symbol is representative of all of us because I have found that even in the midst of acute psychosis there is still sense, method and even a kind of balance. We are more resilient than we think. We can cross beyond the edge of the sane world and return to tell the tale. A deeper kind of balance takes hold when we get honest, when we reach out for help, when we tell our stories.

Friday, June 19, 2015

Poem: The First Step Up Again





My first YouTube video...sorry about the mess in the background.


The First Step Up Again


I have stumbled, fallen, walked and run

Along a path that has led to 12 Steps;

I am stepping onto the first Step.

I have stepped here before many times

Because these Steps repeat

As I work my way up the hills to the mountain.



Each time I come here in a fog of forgetfulness

Deflated, confused and weak

Trying so hard to remember my teachers' lessons.

It is not enough to feel this blindness

And my powerlessness to see what is right in front of me.

I must acknowledge out loud that I need help

From a source I cannot name

But can feel all around me.



I stand on this first Step and quiet myself.

I act as if I am safe enough to pray

And as I do, I see a small light near me;

It shines on the second Step

As if to show the way up and not down.

In gratitude for the gift of sight

I follow the way.

I take the next Step.

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