It is time.

For you too.

Take off the mask.

Reach into your heart and lead your soul-self out into the sunlight.

We’ve been hiding for too long.

Playing the roles given to us by parents and teachers.

Staying small so that we don’t upset, don’t challenge, don’t upstage.

Listening to the whispers of doubt, the naysayers; feeling the disapproving glances cast to put us in our place.  This far and no further, the smallest piece of the cake, chosen to be polite.

What does it look like if you take the biggest piece? And first?

What does it feel like if you shout and stamp your feet and sing and drum and scream and dance? Shameful? Ecstatic? What if you are the one on their feet first when they ask for volunteers at the panto? What if you’re the kid up on the stage getting all the limelight, bathed in glory?

What if you take the gift of yourself, the things you’re best at, and do those first, before the ironing or the grocery shopping or the pile of marking? What if you use the whole bottle of ointment, poured out and running over, over your whole head?

What if that is the work? To un-hide, un-mask, un-wrap in unimaginable, crazy, delighted wonder.  What if we break open and show the things we learned to hide. Let our hair blow wild and free, our hands muddy, our feet black from dancing on the bare earth? What if we shine?