A Portrait:

Dean Clay Mahan 06-01-56
THE WALLS YOU PUT UP AROUND YOU: KNOCK THEM DOWN.
BE PATIENT, BRAVE, AND HONORABLE.
TAKE STEADY STEPS, TAKE STEADY BREATHS,
AND FOLLOW YOUR HEART.
TAKE THOSE LEAPS OF FAITH.
TO FREE YOURSELF: ONE BREATH, ONE STEP, ONE HEART BEAT.
SENSE EACH WITH GRATITUDE.
LET IT BE THE LIGHT IN THE HEART THAT LEADS YOU ON.
(All I ask is this: let these words not only touch your mind, but let them journey to your heart, perhaps even let them dwell there for a moment.)
To take a step, to walk, to run, to take a leap of faith, is what I believe…propels one towards happiness!
Everything is a journey. What happens along the way from “here” to “there,”
from “now” to until “oh, now” is a journey. Did you experience the journey of that last thought? We may tend to stop this continual journey by artificially boxing ourselves in, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, or physically.
The key to life is to not stop breathing. Motion creates life. Stillness creates love. To be still, and still moving, is everything.
Where was my start? I am, as are you, asked often “Where are you from?” I have in the back of my mind the answer: from my mother’s vagina. I feel it gives us a union. I was propelled from there into life. I got out of the box.
Breathing was my first human experience. Continuous cycles of breathing
moved me on my journey. It wasn’t long until I crawled and stumbled, or should I say found gravity, and as our story goes “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” I took more and more steps. Before long, I was off and running.
In my memory, there was no sense of separation between the life I led, and the nursery rhymes I was read. As in the nursery rhyme, I felt I could jump (no issue) like a cow over the moon. I was told shoot for the moon, and even if you fail, you will land among the stars.
We start along our path guided by a vision. Continue to shift your vision. Shift your internal vision, and see with your heart’s eye, your third eye. Let that true vision direct where you go and don’t worry so much about getting there. Worry just holds you back.
No more box. Because we do not know when we will die, we get to thinking of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood? Some afternoon that’s so deeply a part of your being you can’t even conceive of your life without it. Perhaps four or five times more? Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps 20? … and yet it all seems limitless.
I have learned many things along the way. The essence of my photograph, and this portrait in its entirety, is this message: come out of the box you put yourself in. Every day is a possibility. Knock down the walls that imprison you. Get rid of the chains with which you shackle yourself. Do not enslave yourself. Free yourself. Freedom is an absolute. Freedom is for you and for all, not just some. Let it be.
I pray “keep steady my steps….” Following action in the heart helps me steady the steps I take. We can all take steps, and sometimes even leaps of faith. Take them with an intention of freedom, with grace, toward light and truth, as only sensed in the heart. We can come out of the conditions and boxes we have created. We can love unconditionally and with grace, and we can keep moving collectively on a journey into power. Imagine following your heart.
As I follow my inner guidance, I begin to envision new and insightful ways to
enjoy the circumstances of my life. I am encourged to dream a new dream, and to move beyond current understanding so that I realize that dream.
"Keep steady my steps according to thy promise, and let no iniquity get
dominion over me." --Psalm 119:133
With gratitude, I offer namaste.
Dean

Photographed by John Langford

Submitted 5.15.09