Physis

Recently, my work has led me to reflect deeply on the concept of Physis.

The growing… in spite of…

Eric Berne, founder of Transactional Analysis, interpreted it as the life force within each person-drawing from Heraclitus, who saw Physis as the power of transformation emerging from the soul.

In nature, it’s the unseen energy that pushes a seed to sprout and break through even the hardest concrete.

In everyday life, Physis is the inner drive that propels us to evolve, adapt, and move forward. 

It’s a deep source of energy within all of us-a vital part of who we are.

I’ve never felt like I've had the right words to capture it's essence in relation to trauma. So, I wrote poem! 

This poem traces the transformation from trauma into healing, connection, and love. I hope it captures the mystical resilience of the human spirit, revealing how inner strength can emerge and flourish even through deep suffering.

Physis

A whisper in the womb before the world can speak-

Physis stirs in silence, a secret seed of flame.

Unseen, unheard, unknown by name,

Yet it coils like lightning in the marrow,

Rising through shadowed bone.

Born not always with blessing-

Perhaps an accident, a sigh,

A mother lost in her own storm,

A father fading like mist-

Still, Physis cracks the shell of sorrow,

A pulse defiant in the dark.

Through nights of not being held,

Through cold glances and rooms too loud with absence,

Through the thorns of not being chosen-

Physis grows.

It learns the language of pain

And writes poetry on the walls it builds.

In chaos, it becomes rhythm.

In neglect, it becomes the echo that answers itself.

In a house without doors, it becomes a window,

A bird with broken wings dreaming still of sky.

Physis is the root splitting stone,

The scream in the seed that does not die.

It is the child, small and unseen,

Who still dreams in colour

Even when the world is grey.

Even when belonging is a foreign land,

When love feels like a locked door

And your needs feel like crimes-

Physis keeps breathing,

Like a lamp beneath the flood,

Like a drumbeat under drowning.

And then-

A soul may arrive.

A presence like sun on the winter of you.

They see you-not the mask,

But the soil, the sapling, the scar, the sacred.

And Physis sings.

It stretches into bloom,

A vine kissed by light,

Roots entwined with another

Who says: grow.

Together you may rise-

Two flames meeting wind,

Two rivers colliding into one wild stream.

Not because the pain is gone,

But because Physis, always,

Chooses growth.

Even from the dark.

Especially from the dark.

It is what makes us-

Not perfect.

But possible.