There Will Be Dark Days

It’s hella hard to embrace the darkness. I’m not talking about the darkness of being away from a city, where exponential stars illuminatethe charcoal night with brightness. I’m talking about the in your head ebony that drowns you, like quicksand, or the kind that sidles up next to you disguised as a best friend and settles like a sharp knife in between your bones. Can one really expect someone to be thankful for the pain, the sadness, the loneliness of days that feel like you’re naked and being beaten for sport?

Life isn’t easy, even when it looks that way for everyone else. And our world is one of opposites. We can’t have one without the other. How do we learn to sit with both? There’s only one way. We sit and breathe. We start. We don’t expect instantaneous, miraculous results. We keep doing those three things until we’re successful in understanding that change is the only constant, that life can be both wonderful and cruel. And we have it in us, not only to make it through, but to scale that next mountain and arrive at a place that we can triumphantly raise our arms and howl from. 

We’ve got this.

CRR

9-18-18

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I’m Killin It

Some days you might have to fake it till you make it and take help where you can get it! Like me, today. I’m killing it here this morning from my bed, broken leg still elevated and iced, waiting impatiently for Amazon to deliver my walker so I can stop almost killing myself on crutches! Get up, get out and shine your light if you can! The world needs it and you! 

CRR

8-25-18

✌🏼️💞

What Is Your Verse?

In my Montessori educator training, I learned the philosophy of “Cosmic Education” and how it is the work of the educator to guide and enable each child to seek and find their cosmic purpose, their verse. Each of us has one, belonging only to us and it’s our task to discover the contribution that is ours to make. It’s why we’re here, to contribute positively to the big interconnected, interdependent mosaic that is our world.

What is your verse? You may not realize you have one, but you do. You may not think it’s unique, but it is! You may not have discovered it yet and that’s okay! The powerful play continues and the opportunities for you to do that arrive anew with each morning’s sunrise. Every day we get another chance to discover our passion, our purpose, our reason for being and to contribute our unique verse to the powerful play of life. And who knows, in doing so we might just help others discover theirs.
CRR

8-24-18

The Ocean Reminds Us

The ocean reminds us
that time and tides
both take and give.
That each drop in it
conjoins to make the whole,
and that the weight of your sorrows,
the mass of your fears,
can be carried in Earth’s fruitful womb,
and give birth to fresh eyes,
perhaps bloodshot and clouded at first
but then christened by light.
The ocean reminds us
not to act,
but to be,
not to look,
but to see
with honest hearts
and generous souls.

CRR

 

 

The Cancer of Hate

This post was originally spurred by the events that occurred at the Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, VA last August, but unfortunately remains relevant and timeless as the cancer of hate continues to metastasize here at home and around the world. Friends, I hope you find it in your heart to read, share and do your part to fight the good fight and not let hate in any form win. ✌️💞

The cancer of hate cannot be cured by the razing of monuments or the National Guard. Its legacy envelopes our pure and precious babies, infects institutions and poisons the rivers of love that nourish souls. The vitriolic vocabulary of hate turns hearts to stones that we hurl at the “others”. The blighted run-off of hate pollutes our ground water and infects history’s open wounds. Hate-mongers and terrorists among us propagate fear in people too conjoined to screens to notice the underlying decay of a society. What will remain when our amniotic legacy becomes toxic? How will one find shelter beneath a leafless tree of life, poisoned by its own caretakers, the spores of love no longer carried by the winds? How many of us are willing to shine our lights onto the shadows of those who seek to destroy what they do not understand? In the words of Chet Powers,

Love is but the song we sing

Fear’s the way we die

You can make the mountains ring

Or make the angels cry

Though the bird is on the wing

And you may not know why
Come on, people now

Smile on your brother, everybody get together

Try to love one another right now.
Some will come and some will go

We will surely pass

When the one that left us here

Returns for us at last

We are but a moment’s sunlight

Fading in the grass.
Come on, people now

Smile on your brother, everybody get together

Try to love one another right now
Come on, people now

Smile on your brother, everybody get together

Try to love one another right now.
Come on, people now

Smile on your brother, everybody get together

Try to love one another right now.
If you hear the song I sing

You will understand, listen

You hold the key to love and fear

All in your trembling hand

Just one key unlocks them both
It’s there at your command
Come on, people now
Smile on your brother, everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

Come on, people now
Smile on your brother, everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

I said, come on, people now
Smile on your brother, everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

Right now, right now.
Songwriters: Chet Powers
Get Together lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing.

Beach Day

Floating, supine in the comforting arms of the ocean.

Eyes closed, lungs emptied, hearing my own breath fill the void within. 

Each inhalation takes me to a place of perfect peace, 

as a briney balm coats this weary pedestrian’s limbs 

and the mighty force of the moon has its way. 

Without anxiety I listen for approaching waves and 

alter my position to go under the break or marry the flow. 

Sometimes my intentions are successful, sometimes not. 

Mine is a constant longing for that altered state of reality, 

where silence wraps me in sun kissed warmth 

and mighty arms cradle my physical and emotional weight.

At times I must fight for it, 

needing to plant myself firmly in shifting sand 

to withstand a egotistical tide. 

That glassy oasis between breaks is my destination, 

the melding place, where the ocean and I become one. 

The warrioress inside me knows that while the cost of journey may be steep, 

the spoils of the battle are worth the endeavor. 

Violent rip tides and undertows remind me of

the ocean’s indefatigable strength as 

I’m tumbled like a shell,

one body part after another kissing the sand floor, 

the oceanic dermabrasion only inciting my determination to persevere. 

Before the count reaches 10 I rise, laughing at my own ego. 

Taking stock of my position, and without hesitation,

I offer myself to my lover again. 

CRR 

What Do Yours Look Like?

We all have these don’t we? These stripes of shame, pain, fear; hurts and scars that make us feel different, less than, unlike any others. And that’s the thing. We all have them. They may not look exactly the same, some may have more than others, but we’re more alike than not. If we are to not only survive but thrive, we must remember that and act accordingly. Golden Rule accordingly. Things just might get better.

Peace and Love

Grief,Unsummoned Companion

It’s been 7 years now…

This Pedestrian Life

I went to bed much earlier but awoke just after midnight thinking of my dear mom, who died 4 years ago today. 4 days before she died I wrote the blog post below and each time I reread it the grief that wells up inside of me comes pouring out my eyes and I end up a tearful blubbering mess. Time is supposed to be the great healer but it doesn’t come with a 100% success rate guarantee for a reason. I believe that there are some losses one can never recover from. Oh, we learn to work with them, work around them to varying degrees, but with the death of a loved one our hearts are cracked open permanently and grief takes up residence in that painful crevice like a squatter claiming eminent domain, a squatter we have no power to evict, ever. The grief of losing my mother…

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Early Morning Swim

Early Morning Swim

The entire liquid 

blue is mine.

The only human

bobbing on the 

glassy surface.

Hungry gulls swoop

and dive.

Lolling waves swell

and rise.

Cotton balls cushion

from above.

In the silence my 

electrons bond and 

I become part 

of the 

pulsing wave song.

Cradled from above

and below, 

I breathe in the  

cosmic energy. 

Each exhale

syncing

with the crash 

of waves 

on shore.

CRR

6-29-18

We Are Perfect

Worthy of a repost. I wrote this a little over 2 years ago, but felt it today  in each dressing  room .
“Take a picture of yourself today and look at it 10 years from now and you’ll surely remark about HOW BEAUTIFUL YOU WERE, HOW GOOD YOU LOOKED. That’s’s just one of the “Jenwisdoms” I heard from Jen Pastiloff Taleghany at a Writing and the Body workshop led by her and the equally phenomenal Lidia Yuknavitch (who I think I have a girl crush on, shhhhhh) in beautiful Portland, Oregon this past weekend. As my hubby and I approach our 10th wedding anniversary, I was reminiscing through our wedding photos a week or so ago and did EXACTLY that! I remarked, “If only I still looked like that!” Jen was absolutely right! Ten years from now I’ll be saying the same thing about today. So will you! If we could only see ourselves through the lenses of others who don’t judge us nearly as harshly as we do ourselves, or better yet through the “love lens” worn by those who adore us, my God! Imagine how self confident we’d feel every day! Imagine the ramifications of that confidence, not just in our own lives, but in the lives of others, and out there in the world! 

It’s an understatement to say that women are especially prone to physical self criticism. Popular media and cultural expectations can crush a girl before she hits puberty. Jen, along with Lara Heimann are tying to do something to counter that fact with their Girl Power: You Are Enough workshops. For girls 12 and up, the empowering sessions are meant to instill confidence and self-love, reminding them that they are enough, no matter what. 

Today, I encourage you, female or male, to remind yourself of that! There might not be anyone else in our lives that does that for us, but that’s okay. We are enough! Perfectly created, one of a kind, each of us. 

So surround yourself with reminders like this-

And this-

And promise this-

You are more than enough!

Peace and Love