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✨ Many More Ways: The Rhythm of Returning to Ourselves
Many More Ways is a song about remaining open in the aftermath of knowing—about what it means to stay soft, present, and in motion even after disillusionment. It’s not a song about arrival or resolution. It’s about the ongoing nature of becoming, and the rhythm of returning to the potter’s wheel with the same clay—shaped by time, tension, and tenderness.
Life frequently pressures us to arrive at a final version of ourselves. We’re encouraged to become coherent quickly and to solidify—but growth doesn’t move in a straight line. It moves in cycles—slow, recursive, and at times uncomfortable.
The imagery in the song draws from this process. The potter’s wheel is not just a metaphor for creation but for the emotional labor of growth—the patient reshaping of self through insight, emotion, and choice. The clay doesn’t harden on its own; it needs heat. The question is not whether we’ll be fired by life, but when, and under what conditions. The song explores what it means to pause that process—to choose softening over scorching, reflection over reaction, and to remake the vessel of the heart without rushing it into permanence.
At its core, the song is about emotional integration. It’s about the subtle space where thoughts become feeling, and feeling becomes form. The line “many more tears left to cry” isn’t a lament. Rather, it’s a statement of willingness that names a kind of inner readiness to feel fully, to allow what has been contained or silenced to be seen and shaped.
That same sentiment continues in the refrain about wildflowers left to bloom—an acknowledgment of unrealized parts of self, the fragile yet resilient parts that have survived neglect or suppression and still long to grow. These images name what it feels like to live inside a system—or a self—that values performance over presence. And they point toward a different way of relating to growth—not as self-improvement, but as a practice of returning.
Throughout the song, there is a recurring tension between containment and release, between emotional reflex and ethical clarity. That tension is not resolved but held. Within that holding is where something sacred begins to form—a recognition that truth doesn’t always arrive fully formed, that it often lives behind the masks we wear and the protections we’ve built. The lyrics trace that gradual unfolding, where the voice breaks open the silence, the heart cracks to reveal not just pain, but longing, and where the soul begins to emerge from behind the structures that kept it hidden.
What emerges through this process is not a fixed identity but a kind of soulful resilience—the kind born not from certainty but from continued engagement. The willingness to remake the heart “to endure,” isn’t about hardening—it’s about reshaping what holds us, what moves us, and what sustains us.
The image of wildflowers, at once wild, resilient, and persistent—offers a counterpoint to controlled growth. They bloom where they are not planted. They thrive on disruption. They symbolize something in us that refuses to be domesticated, even when we try to contain it.
Many More Ways is not a call to action—it’s a call to presence. It speaks to the spaces we often skip over in our urgency to heal or move on—the spaces where longing waits, where old grief still pulses, where clarity is still taking form. It honors the fact that remaking isn’t a one-time act. It’s a lifelong unfolding, a cyclical return to self, a slow learning of how to stay with what is true, even before we know what it means.
The chorus, repeated like a mantra, reminds us that we’re not finished or final. There are still tears to cry, thoughts to think, words to write, and many more ways to water what is trying to bloom.
If anything, this song is a kind of psalm for those who have spent their lives adapting, contorting, absorbing more than their share—and are just now learning that tenderness is not weakness, and that wisdom is what grows in the space where reflection is allowed to take root. This is a song for those of us who haven’t given up, but who keep choosing—with the resilience of wildflowers, to begin again—each time more whole, more honest, and more free.
Many More Ways by Michelle Ried [Verse 1] Thoughts take shape in potter’s clay, spinning the wheel of life in replay— trying not to fire this kiln of rage, softened, reshaped by humanity. Creation circles what it cannot name, giving feeling breath and frame. Sorrow leans into the page, in essence… sung as poetry. [Pre-Chorus] Closed in my throat, truth lives restrained— wildflowers thirsting for the rain, till tears fall down my silent face, stemming from my heart’s remade vase. [Chorus] And I have many more tears left to cry, and thoughts to think, and words to write, and many more wildflowers left to bloom— and many more ways left to water them. [Verse 2] A beating, thriving, changing vessel, insights shape the sacred cradle. Raw emotions, uncontained, spill, unwilling to be reined. I turn the potter’s wheel again, give new thought new form, and then… remake my heart to endure. [Bridge] Dancing in remembered rain, sway as gusting winds sustain. Sing as swelling waters gain— under pressure, new growth surges. Thoughts align; new form emerges. In shadowed places, stand in flame. Emotion brightens; fear’s reframed. Darkness softens into hopeful gray, clarity shown by light’s soft sway. Truth lives behind masked emotion. Connection thrives with integration. [Chorus] And I have many more tears left to cry, and thoughts to think, and words to write, and many more wildflowers left to bloom— and many more ways left to water them. [Verse 3] I try at first to run, to flee, questioning what might truly be, imagining a world of harmony— calling it forth with certainty. In spirit, too often, all I see is ego binding soul in captivity. [Bridge 2] In pain, with strain, I break the bind, shattering my heart’s cage. Masks dissolve; I wake to see hearts reshaped, soul moving free. I turn toward what’s worth making. Tears released in psalms of longing. [Chorus] And I have many more tears left to cry, and thoughts to think, and words to write, and many more wildflowers left to bloom— and many more ways left to water them. [Outro] In bloom, wildflowers no longer closing. Within my throat, words are forming. Truth stems from my heart’s rhythmic beating, giving voice to light’s becoming. And I have many more tears left to cry. And thoughts to think, and words to write. And many more wildflowers left to bloom. And many more ways left to water them.
