I am not my Pencil Case

The other day I was reading Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, it is quite a remarkable book, its probably the third time I have read it in the last 18 months, and whilst it didnt have the same spiritual effect on me a The Power of Now did, it is high on my list of books in which the process of reading has been a spiritual experience.

On Page 189; Eckhart writes this:

Nobody can tell you who you are, It would be just another concept and so this would not change you. Who you are requires no belief. In fact, every belief is an obstacle. It does not even require your realisation, since you already are who you are. But without realisation, who you are does not shine through into this world. It remains in the unmanifested which is of course your true home

Tolle, A New Earth, p189

And as I was reading this I looked up at my high, large window ledge. On it was my coffee cup, a wedding photo of Christelle and I, and also my clear pencil case, full of a mixture of wax and pencil crayons, and fine tips for colourful writing, and expressing in my private writing.

I looked at my pencil case.

Breathed, a slow deep breath

And realised..

That I am not my Pencil case.

It was a bit of revelation.

I could see my pencil case.

I am separate from it

I can watch my pencil case (it wasn’t moving)

I am seeing it.

I am looking at it

It is in the universe

But I am not my pencil case

It has contents, a mixture of them

And I can slowly or quickly choose them in a number of ways.

The pencils have labels, colours

Yet they are just what they are

They may be broken, some underused

Some pencils left at the bottom, my least favourite colours for writing.

Peach, Grey, Brown.

But what do I mean?

I know I am not my pencil case, surely?

Yes.

But who am I, if I am not my pencil case?

Am I my contents?

Am I my past?

Am I my labels?

Am I my emotions?

Am I just an object? just a tool?

Am I what others made me out to be?

Am I just a container, full of these things?

Feeling sometimes broken, sometimes raw, sometimes colourful, sometimes grey.

Feeling sometimes the tools connected to the writer.

I am more, or maybe I am less

Maybe all, Maybe I am the universe and I just Am, all at the same time

Connected and Isolated

Embracing natures warm bliss, and treading a tightrope of trauma

Gentle steps, sometimes joy, sometimes anxious

I am , I just fucking am.

I am not what I can see, I might be a seer

Yet I might get stuck, hiding away, trapped inside, like crayons waiting from the zip to be undone, waiting to be creatively safely found again.

I am not just potentiality

I am not an identity

I am not a toy or a gift

I am not a tribe

I am, I just am, more than just am

I am not my pencil case

I am trying to listen to who I am

I am feeling who I am

I am trying to work out how I can be me.

But I am not my pencil case,

I just Am.