You will grow into this world wondering about your authentic place in this journey called life. You will learn by watching the multitude around you. And if my intentions and meditations have found fertile soil in this universe, then you will also grow and learn questioning the very multitude around you.

You will challenge assumptions, open and walk through doors others have feared to walk through, and oppose mediocrity. The world around you will tell you there is only one way to be a man. But you are a child of rebelliousness to the norm and so you will challenge that single story.

You will witness inequalities, intrigues and egoic illusions which you will work to transform. You will learn to speak out where others hold their tongues, yet you will speak your truth. You will experience societal pressures and you will learn to identify them and let them pass you by. Because pressure is not stronger than the will power you find sourced through your own truth.

Some people will like you for reasons known and unknown. Some people will despise you for reasons known and unknown. Let them be, for extremities are always reflections of each one’s internal state of being.

You will grow into a powerful man. But the sense of power you feel is not derived from the material and the fleeting. The sense of power you hold will remain constant were you to find yourself at the top of a 75 floor skyscraper you own or a tattered tent you may very well choose to dwell in. Neither extremity matters, for your sense of self and power is derived from the center of your being that finds peace and love in changing and shifting extremities.

You will grow into a compassionate man, whose love for humanity is not a derivative of weakness but a strong sense of self and appreciation for that which surrounds him and looks like him – likeness found in another man, woman, child, stranger, friend or foe.

You will grow to love women. Not only in a romantic way. But in a way that reminds you of the challenges your graved great grandmother faced and overcame. Her noble soul and compassionate heart will be the light that guides your path and that of your descendants. You will learn to love and treat all womanity under the guiding spirit of the short life she left on this earth. Her gifted memory will coat the footsteps you and those that follow you will take.

Society will entice you with the ” male privilege”. Yet you speak the language of oneness; the language of equality and the language of compassion. You are neither above nor below; neither higher nor lower. In your totality you are a child of resilience and wisdom who will forever be guided by the spirit of compassion and love.

You are my son!

~  Billene Seyoum Woldeyes (2012)
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~ Love & Light