The Inspiration

Chapter 5, Lilies & Wildfires weaves together the story of courage and resilience in the fiery process of getting back up after you've been knocked down. Whether that be rebuilding after the loss of a relationship, adjusting to a diagnosis, or shifting into a new role we weren't ready for, this kind of growth requires us to both grow out of who we once were while simultaneously growing into someone new. It is the wild, terrible, and beautiful process of becoming.

The Poem

It seems the journey
to being reborn
is as much about
weeding out the old
as it is planting the new.
This means you must live
daily, repetitively, meticulously,
in two worlds,
both the removing of what has been
while uncovering the uncharted path
to what will be.
This, my friend,
is the tiresome, terrible,
yet oh so wonderful
work
of growth.

— Andrea Jacobsen Poetry

The Poem

You’ve tried this all before,
the covering up,
the adding on,
the constantly looking to your right and to your left
for assurance
that you too
are “good enough” to belong.
And somewhere between
the piling on and the shifting of shapes,
you discovered just how heavy
the burden becomes,
when you must be both yourself
and all the versions of everybody else.
Oh my darling, freedom is
just on the other side
of undressing
from all the costumes you’ve ever collected
until it’s just you remaining;
seen
and exposed
in the light,
for both your plainness
and your brilliant magnificence.

— Andrea Jacobsen Poetry

The Poem

And it is here, my dear, in the uncertainty of growth,
nestled somewhere between
courage and fear,
faith and doubt,
that I suspect you are not only learning
how to forge a new path,
but also how to become
the kind of person
who is unafraid to do so.

— Andrea Jacobsen Poetry