be yourself…?

be yourself 
everyone who wants to sound wise or is wise, says just that 

be yourself
what does that mean? what does it entail? 
is it a journey or a destination?
a journey, lifelong at that, many wise folk say


is it a frozen sense of my self 
or a flowing/dynamic/evolving one?
may be a bit of both? 
like a seed that grows into a tree?

is it our civilized selves that we yearn to be more of 
or the calls of wilderness that we have been avoiding?

have we forgotten our true self
to now need reminders to look into a mirror?
a mirror that reflects back to us who we truly are
look around and you will agree with me that nothing in nature needs such reminders
in this universal dance, we seem to have fallen a bit out of rhythm


if we have forgotten then we must have known
there ought to be a sliver of hope that we still do know, 
that we carry the seed of knowing within us, at the center of our hearts
even when we can't seem to recall/remember 

as Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes in her book Women who run with the wolves 
it is the river beneath the river, Rio abajo rio 
which carries our essence, which is our essence 
always available to be reintegrated whenever we are ready and for as much we are ready
to be , to become , to die, to rise again