The Shape of Courage

Abby Esquivel

I don’t know any wild creature that lives in a cage. I went looking. 
I found habitats, natural edges, and chosen boundaries. It seems, in nature, the difference between a cage and a boundary is choice… a landscape quickly becomes a zoo when choice is removed.

and the cost of freedom may be some illusion of safety, or familiarity, but what is safety while trapped?
the cost of freedom may be un-belonging for a time, but what is belonging when void of choice? 

in trying to reconnect to the sense of being in a dogma cage, a chapter in A Wrinkle in Time came to mind. In order to save her galactic-traveling-missing father, the children travel to a dark planet, Camazotz. The inhabitants of Camazotz are held hostage by an evil “IT” - a disembodied brain that exerts telepathic control so everything operates in a synchronized and hypnotic rhythm. Even, and especially, rhythm, is held captive. In the story Meg and her friends find ways to maintain their individuality and not give in to IT’s pulsing power. What are the small ways I maintained my individuality while in the cage of religion? In my world it was fantasy books and letters buried in the ground by the creek, trusting an Other, kinder, voice would hear them. It was silent defiance in sermons, eyes opened during their prayers.

I still see my fingerprints on the bars. 

when one leaves a cage, you must do so with force or finesse. bars can be pulled and bodies bend through, leaving misshapen gaps in the shape of courage. or, your courage can cultivate the essence of belief in imagination: you can shape-shift your way through. I left as a dragonfly, fractal wings flitted against the metal. 

what shape is your cage? what fractal is your courage? what creature lent you their form so you could be free?

when one leaves a cage, you must do so with the following in mind:

un-belong, for awhile 
un-body
un-member
un-be
lose 
find a new name
get a divorce
find a body of water
befriend a tree 
find other wanderers

i can’t promise that you will re-belong, re-body, remember, re-be, find a new lover or a name but i do know that you’ll be free. ears clear. your own song (or siren). cages inverted into nest, shrapnel stitched together by the wanderers. no longer trapped, but held.