On This Day, I Ascend

On This Day, I Ascend

I wrote this 18 years ago...2007

by Kateb Nuri-Alim Shunnar

For every soul standing at the threshold of transformation,

for every heart learning to let go,

for every spirit preparing to rise.

On this day,

I am finally free ....Free from the sins that wrapped themselves around my ankles,

Free from the enormities that once shadowed my name,

Free from the echo of pain that lived in the marrow of my being.

I have walked through the valley of loss,

Tasted the bitterness of betrayal,

Knelt in the dark corners of sorrow,

And wept beneath stars that felt too far to touch.

But even then, even there the Creator whispered to my spirit:

“Rise, for this is not your end.”

I am shedding my old skin,

The one stitched together by fear, pride, and memory.

The one that carried the ache of this realm Of expectations unmet,

Of love unspoken,

Of forgiveness withheld.

I leave it gently behind,

Folded like a garment on the shore of this dimension.

I am free.

My wings I spread Not made of feathers, but of light and longing.

In the heavens, I soar Unburdened, unbroken, unborn again.

No longer am I lion,

No longer do I roar.

I no longer fight for survival,

For I have found stillness in surrender.

I do not growl to prove my strength My strength is in my silence,

My power in my peace.

Beyond this realm is my destiny.

Where you stand,

No longer does my soul long to be.

I have heard the call Not with ears, but with essence.

A song only the soul knows,

A frequency only freedom can sing.

My spirit rises through veils of illusion,

Through layers of light and time,

Drawn into the embrace

Of a dimension where love is not a word,

But the air,

The soil,

The sky.

And to the world I say:

You can have your diamonds,

Your fame, your homes, your cars.

You can have that love of your life

That has given your soul scars.

You can have your possessions,

You can keep your tickets to travel abroad I don’t need none of that…

I’m going to my Lord.

I am no longer interested in walking among men and women

In the matrix of this life.

No, I’m not better...

But I choose to move to the right.

To walk in truth, where illusion cannot survive,

And where ego has no throne.

I am returning to the place I never truly left To the heart of the Creator,

To the hands that molded my essence

Before I ever knew what it meant to fall.

Today,

I do not die.

I transform.

I do not disappear.

I awaken.

This is my becoming.

This is my sacred release.

This is my homecoming.

On this day,

With grace as my witness,

And light as my chariot,

I ascend.

---

Author’s Note

by Kateb Nuri-Alim Shunnar

This poem is not just words stitched together; it is a soul speaking in its final exhale an exhale not of sorrow, but of liberation.

Every line is a metaphor for shedding the heaviness of this world. When I speak of soaring with wings in the heavens, I am not referencing physical flight but the lifting of the soul from the bondage of ego, trauma, and the illusions of material success.

These wings represent freedom from expectation, from sorrow, and from the masks we wear to survive. In the skies, beyond the stars and planets, is the place of truth the place where our essence belongs.

When I write, “I am free, my wings I spread,” I am declaring spiritual emancipation. The lion who no longer roars symbolizes the departure from earthly power and pride the shedding of identity built by struggle and pain. Roaring may have once meant survival, but silence now becomes a sacred sound, because peace needs no announcement.

The stanza that reads:

“You can have your diamonds, your fame, your homes, your cars… I don’t need none of that, I’m going to my Lord,”

is not about rejecting people’s blessings it is about recognizing that no material thing can satisfy a soul that longs for the eternal.

This is not bitterness; it is clarity. It is choosing spirit over spectacle.

When I say, “I’m no longer interested in walking among men and women in the matrix of this life,” I am pointing to the realization that much of what we chase and participate in is constructed. The “matrix” here is a metaphor for illusion a world of false attachments and surface-level meaning.

The right path I choose to move toward is not self-righteousness but alignment. It’s the quiet decision to live with intention, depth, and spiritual truth.

This poem is about dying to the false self the one shaped by fear, validation, and need and being reborn into the higher dimension of self-awareness, connection, and light. It is about homegoing, not in a physical sense, but in the way a soul returns to its original vibration.

I hope when you read it, you see your own shedding. I hope it reminds you that your pain is not your identity.

That freedom is not in escaping the world, but in transcending the hold it has on your heart. That there is a deeper place, beyond applause and achievement, where only truth matters. And that you, like me, are meant to fly.

In love, spirit, and sincerity,

Kateb Nuri-Alim Shunnar