Cristen Rodgers's Blog, page 13

Endless Shades

Sometimes it can almost feel as if I am too much, like there is far more inside than one life could possibly contain. Sometimes it’s like I’m pulling apart at the seams and these inner galaxies are pushing against the walls of my chest, looking for ways to come pouring out. 

Sometimes it can catch me off guard for a moment and make me feel strange, as if in this world I don’t belong – but it isn’t long until the truth grounds me in this amazing, achingly beautiful, resplendent realm once again.

It isn’t long before I remember that, despite its appearance, nothing is ever actually contained. There is only one limit to how many ways there are to share the love and adoration of life that comes bubbling up from inside. There is only one limit – the one I entertain within my mind. 

And so I decide that there is no such thing as too much. There is nothing that can contain me, not a social norm, not an acceptable expression, not a body, not even a mind. 

Perhaps, in remembering that, I can help others do the same. Maybe then, together, we can dance the color back into a world that for too long has been painted in limited shades. 

© 2017 Cristen Rodgers

Love Yourself

Love yourself, if it’s all you start out to do. Love yourself so much that you start to understand that there’s nothing you need to prove. Love yourself until, rather than being your own worst enemy, you become your own best friend.

Let go of the judgments, if only a little bit at a time, and love yourself. Love yourself until each wound begins to reveal itself, one layer at a time. Love yourself so much that they rise up to be healed and released into the light of your true greatness.

Just love yourself. Love yourself through every layer that you strip away, until self-honesty becomes the norm rather than something to be feared. Love yourself in such a way that it starts to become easier to love what you see in others. Love yourself until the power of love itself washes you clean from the inside out.

Love yourself. Give yourself some compassion and offer yourself forgiveness. Trust that there is so much good inside, good that’s just been covered over by regret, fear, and shame. Love yourself so much that your hardness becomes malleable and your coldness begins to thaw. Love yourself until it’s safe to let go – to let go of the expectations, the criticisms, the judgments, the anxieties, the regrets, the pain. Just love yourself free.

Love yourself until you see. Love yourself until you realize that it’s acceptance that allows your greatness to slowly break out and reveal itself, not the other way around. Love yourself until you know that love was always the answer, that your beauty and light was always there, just waiting to be revealed, just waiting to be allowed, just waiting to be unleashed.

Just love yourself, even if only in little bits at a time. Love your way into an open heart, mind, and eyes. Love your way into a better world, a better outlook, a better life.

© 2017 Cristen Rodgers

Tired of Pretending

I’m tired of living in a way that denies the truth of my soul. I’m tired of closed relationships that imply that love is possessive and conditional. I’m tired of jobs at companies whose sole purpose is making money – and I’m tired of pretending that money should have any place whatsoever in an evolved society. I’m tired of these nearly universal concepts of ownership that force people to pick tiny bubbles of the earth to inhabit, that make it nearly impossible to roam wild and free.

I’m tired of pretending that I need anything more than the wilderness, my soul, and a few good friends to live a fulfilled and passionate life. I’m tired of pretending that the concrete and the garbage, the noise, the pollution, and the tears don’t cut me deep and make me want to run away. I’m tired of pretending that I don’t sometimes feel the urge to disappear into the forest and commune only with the wolves and the trees – or that it doesn’t make me angry when I realize that even the rivers, the streams, and the plants to sustain us are too contaminated for such a simple retreat.

I’m tired of pretending that I don’t know better than these ridiculous dualistic ideas about sex – that it’s either a form of entertainment or something that must be accompanied by commitment, both of which come down to fear, rather than an unconditional, sacred, spiritual expression of love. I’m tired of pretending that it matters what my clothes, hair, makeup, or body looks like just because society says it should – or that beauty requires the alteration of what naturally is from one moment to the next.

I’m tired of abiding by these notions of love that are completely backwards. I’m tired of pretending that loving someone means making them feel comfortable rather than challenging them when it’s necessary. I’m tired of pretending that love means putting myself last rather than acting in a way that honors the One in the many, equally and simultaneously.

I’m tired of commitments, in millions of forms, attached to everything from who powers your phone to where you live, which way you’ll vote, or who your partner will be in ten years. I’m tired of pretending that these are a sign of responsibility and maturity; I’m tired of pretending that I don’t know that the exact opposite is true, that the very concept of a commitment is based on a denial of the truth that all things can and should be free to change, to evolve, to take as many paths as they can rather than sticking to just one.

I’m tired of pretending that it’s okay to follow these rules just because breaking them might trigger or frighten others, of pretending that every cell of my body doesn’t now rile against the idea of the good paying job with a nice house in a quiet neighborhood, one lifetime romantic partner with two and a half kids and just enough vacation time and toys to make it feel alright. I’m tired of pretending that happiness is so rare and dependent that it must be carefully tended like a vulnerable little sprout in acidic sand, and then protected and held – or that there are specific prerequisites that must be met for it to be obtained, ironically that tend to cost as much as they earn in both time and pleasure.

I’m tired of pretending that I can’t see the understanding tempered by fear in the skeptics’ eyes. Most of all, I’m tired of protecting these illusions in others. I’m tired of pretending that being kind means abiding by these rules at the expense of my own happiness as much as theirs, coddling the delusions rather than being the trigger that helps destroy them. I’m tired of doing things that make others smile but that do nothing to free them or myself from these invisible chains that we’ve all been handed without question upon entrance to this world.

I’m tired of pretending. I’m tired of acting like I’m this skin, when in truth I’m limitless, eternal, creative freedom. I’m tired of pretending, so now I’m breaking out from within.

©2017 Cristen Rodgers

More than a Promise

I can’t offer you a promise, and I can’t offer you direction – but this doesn’t mean that I am lost. It just means that everything changes, and that includes you and I.

It means that, to promise anything, or to draw any kind of path, is to step outside of truth. It is to move out of the eternal present and into fabricated time. So I won’t offer you a promise.

What I will offer you is presence. I can offer you the here and now, uninterrupted by anxieties or regrets. I can offer you my awareness as we watch the moment unfold like an exotic and never before seen flower.

I can’t promise you peace, because that would be to say that it’s conditional – and we both know this isn’t true. Nor will I promise you constant contentment, because we learn more from the storms than we do the calm. Even love needs the occasional upset to grow wise and strong.

What I can offer you is groundedness and balance. I can offer awareness, openness, and harmony with the spirit of life. I can offer courage, even when it means burning down the things that no longer serve us, or cutting any binding ties. I can offer the daring to bring whatever lurks in the shadows out into the light, and the centeredness to sing us back to the sun even from the dead of night.

I can offer you strength, the strength to face every last skeleton that lurks in your closet and the strength to remain standing even when they feel the need to lash out. The strength of a woman who knows her own soul well enough to support you as you explore your own.

I can offer you prowess, the prowess to pull back the veils and walk beside you as you find your place. I offer boldness enough to stand up to your most carefully constructed characters, and to speak to the real you even as you work to maintain them or to tear them down.

I can’t promise you my body – because it, like all material things, is temporary and must eventually be returned to its source. What I will offer you instead is this current communion with a temporary tapestry of body, mind, and soul.

I can’t promise you perfection, nor will I try – but I can offer my essence, undisguised by denials, projections, and rules. I can offer you honesty, even when it means being the wrong one, the weak one, the strong one, or the critical one.

I can’t promise you perfection – but I can offer you my hand in this synchronized dance beyond time, across lines, between opposites, through the day and the night, swirling and gliding in equal stride, without attachments, masks, or weights.

I can promise integrity, but not of the sort that this world admires. I won’t be careful with my love and I won’t pretend that it must be regulated or contained. I won’t be careful with my love, but I will be gentle with your soul.

I won’t weigh you down with expectations, and I won’t assign you any roles. I will cherish the immensity of you and respect your sovereign right to express that as you will.

I honor your wildness as I honor my own – and I will, as far as my soul permits me, walk with you as you roam the forests, the mountains, the deserts, and the seas. I will stand witness to your spring, summer, fall, and winter and remain centered in the midst of your brightness, your darkness, your calm, and your storms. I will see you in your humanity and your divinity alike, and I will celebrate them as I also celebrate mine.

I see you, I accept you, and I love you as the divine expression of love that you are – just as I see, accept, and love myself as the same. Let’s come together now as teacher and student, student and teacher, as love and beloved, beloved and love, as protector and protected, protected and protector, as mirrors held up to infinity echoing an endless expression of love.

I can’t offer you a promise, and I can’t give you direction – but I can offer you this expression of my love. This is my hello. This is my invitation. May I have this dance?

©2017 Cristen Rodgers

A World of Love

Let’s dream of a world of love, and imagine how such a world might seem.

Just picture a world painted with the exotic colors of souls who don’t wonder if they’re really good enough, and graced by the movements of those comfortable in their own skin – a world where just existing was reason enough to be accepted, to be loved, and to be treated with compassion and care.

What a sight it would be to see – crowds of people dancing in the street, gleefully stomping atop the masks of who they once pretended to be!

Imagine a world of love and how bountiful it would be if we all understood that we’re brothers and sisters of the same great family.

Imagine a world where everyone and everywhere felt like home. There would be people huddled in cozy circles everywhere, comfortably confident in their sweatpants and un-brushed hair. Conversations would flow like rivers, and passions would burn like the sun, as people communally explored ideas and chased their dreams.

Let’s dream of a world of love, where everyone gives whatever they have to give without concern or care – a world where abundance isn’t something we individually seek but that we collectively share.

Imagine a world of love, where judgment is so unnecessary it no longer even has a name. Imagine a world with no need to feel or inflict shame, where missteps are dispelled by a modest pause and a silly smile, where every imperfection is loved and every quirk is adored – every last lip bite, clumsy line, or cowlick of hair.

I can see it now, children playing atop piles of links that once belonged to their educational chains, freely exploring their own passions and gathering knowledge in their own perfectly imperfect ways.

Let’s dream of a world where people, like flowers, unveil themselves in seasons according to their own needs, without anything ever needing to be forced or delayed.

Let’s dream it into reality – a place where everyone knows that the full gamut of human emotions can be safely explored, and where nothing is off limits when it comes to imaginings. A place where frustrations are tempered by compassion, and conflicts are resolved with empathy and honesty.

Let’s dream of a world of love, where we all see the beauty hidden away inside of everything. Just imagine people giggling at the spontaneous splendor displayed in the crinkle of someone’s eyes, or smiling affectionately at the funny shape of a neighbor’s morning hair.

Imagine a place that felt so much like home that there would be no question as to whether you should give a stranger a bite to eat, or if one person might get up to offer another a seat.

Let’s dream of a world where there are no shadowy corners for the trappings of fear, where the earth would naturally thrive in the liberal arms of love, rather than withering under the rigid rules of material lust.

Let’s imagine a world where we all see with more than just our eyes, where we aren’t concerned so much with bodies, titles, and clothes as with the unique beauty of what people hold inside.

In such a world, depth would be celebrated and histories understood. We would honor individuality and celebrate our differences as the puzzle pieces they are.

Just imagine how it would be – if the dreamers and the doers stopped bickering and chose to complement each other, and if the masculine and feminine finally came together to honor and balance each other!

Let’s picture a world of love and figure out how to paint that reality. Let’s create a world of love – it can start with a dream.

© 2017 Cristen Rodgers

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The Schoolhouse of Life

Life is like an ardent teacher – the kind that cares enough to be strict when it’s necessary and to push you as hard as it takes to help you learn, the kind that you either love or hate, depending more on what kind of student you are than on her teaching methods.

The kind that you find yourself remembering later on and silently thanking for what she taught you – maybe that’s what it’s all about when someone remembers a past life.  Maybe that life was one of the more zealous teachers whose lessons suddenly become applicable  in the here and now, and you can’t help but look back and whisper a well-earned thank you.

In any case, what’s undeniable is the way that life seems to be devoted to your learning and growing, even if you aren’t. Regardless of what kind of student you are, she keeps bringing you back to the lessons, time and time again. She presents it in as many different forms as it takes until you can understand what’s being asked, what’s being shown to you.

Until you get it, it looks like an entirely different problem each time, unexampled, unrelated, distinct – but once you see it in the right light and begin to understand what’s being taught, they all start to make sense. You start to see how they were all teaching you the same thing and, even better, that the answer to one is the solution to them all.

And that is fucking beautiful. It’s frustrating and confusing and it can make you absolutely mad, but once you see it for what it is, all of that past frustration turns into water for the seed that just broke open, feeding your growth at a rate that makes the wait and all of that frustration so very worthwhile.

©2017 Cristen Rodgers

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It Takes Time

I’ve finally learned what it means to love the clouds and the storms as much as the sunshine – and it hasn’t been as easy as that simple sentence makes it sound. Love isn’t easy, until it is. It takes work, until it doesn’t.

This is something that takes time to understand.

It took me many years to realize this. At first I only understood it from the outside in – it was just a conceptual understanding from things other people had said – but slowly I began to comprehend it from the inside out. Bit by bit I began to reveal the truth from within myself, and that makes all the difference.

It took time. It took time because I, like many others, have known real pain.

I too have been so wounded that even my tears were toxic. I, like so many others, have been let down, abandoned, and bruised. I’ve been kicked around and left lying on the floor of my life, afraid to get back up again after being knocked down time and time again.

I’ve felt real pain, but now I’m beginning to understand. I’m beginning to see how even the struggles are part of the greater plan – and this negates any possible reason to ever again be afraid.

The truth was once masked behind shadows and fog, but eventually the light of awareness will have its way. I once was blind, but now I can see. Now I can see that pain is a messenger – and it can teach you a lot if you aren’t intent on killing it.

The pain was trying to show me the way. It was telling me something about myself. It was showing me the parts of me that needed to be loved. Your pains are doing the same.

This, too, takes time to understand.

It takes time because it requires a coming back home to the self – the self that lives beneath the masks, behind the character, beyond the fear. The self that breathes not air but spirit, that speaks not words but truth, that drinks not water but love.

It takes time because it happens in stages – that steady recognition of oneness, that slow awakening from the physical dream. It takes time to see beyond the disguise of individuality and form to the unity of spirit within. It takes time and a great deal of courage to recognize yourself in another.

Slowly, one step at a time, we begin to see more clearly. One revelation at a time, we step more confidently in the direction of the light. One day at a time, we learn that we are always looking at love and love is looking upon itself. One layer at a time, we strip away the fears that keep us from seeing that all is God and that God is all, until eventually we realize that we’re looking at none other than ourselves.

That moment, when you dare to bridge the great illusory divide between you and the Divine, between the Divine and the world, between you and the world, that moment is when the winds of spirit rise to blow the fog away.

That’s the point of recognition that acts as both beginning and end of a journey, that marks the turning point of each spiral along the infinite staircase of growth. Oneness is the staircase, the climber, and the climb.

With this revelation, it all becomes clear. With this understanding, I began to see what it really means when I experience pain. I am the one who does the hurting as much as I am the one who does the healing. I am the ‘other’ as much as I am the ‘self’. I am the wound and I am the elixir. I am the observer and I am the observed. And so are you.

It takes time.

It takes time to make peace with the truth, because the truth is a destroyer of illusion, and illusion can be addictive – but addictive drugs keep us from really living. They blind us and leave us stumbling helplessly along. They sneak in under the pretense of numbing the pain, but all they end up doing is prolonging and multiplying it.

The truth sets us free, but only after it destroys what’s holding us back. First, it has to destroy the belief in separation. It has to dismantle the ideas of ‘us versus them’. It has to wash away the buildup from years of looking at the world as being ‘out there’ and of thinking of the Divine as ‘somewhere up there’. It shakes and rattles the cage, knocking us around as hard as it takes until we finally build up the courage to step out.

This, too, takes time.

But slowly the illusion begins to thin, like an early morning fog facing the heat of the rising sun. Slowly, you start to realize that we’re all characters in the same dream – we’re all aspects of one bigger self. You start to understand. We are all one. We are all one – and the only way to heal one who has been split into many is to acknowledge, accept, and love each part that has been divided.

We’ve all known pain. We’ve all experienced, to some extent, the sense of having exiled a part of ourselves. We exile the parts of ourselves that hurt, that we are ashamed of, that we regret, or that we fear. We push them away in the hopes that, if we just push hard and long enough, they will eventually cease to exist. But this isn’t how it works – healing isn’t about avoiding, ignoring, or pretending but about seeing, accepting, forgiving, and loving.

And as it is on the inside, so it is on the outside.

Once we come to see that we are all one, that we are all exiled parts of the same self, the real healing begins. Once we see ourselves in another, and another in ourselves, we can begin. We can begin seeing, accepting, forgiving, and loving rather than avoiding, ignoring, and pretending.

We can face anger and respond in love by realizing that the anger we’re facing is just another part of the whole that wants to be loved. We can feel pain without lashing out or hiding away by realizing that the pain is just another part of the whole that needs to loved. By looking beyond the flesh and bone to the unified spirit of life within, we can see that we can heal the world by healing ourselves – by committing to a life of acceptance rather than rejection, a life of giving and receiving rather than taking and clinging, a life of love rather than a life of fear.

Pain was never the enemy. The fear of pain, and the way it makes us close our hearts and fervently deny our connection is the enemy – and yet it’s not, for even that just needs to be loved. Pain is just a teacher. It’s the finger that points to a part of ourselves that needs to be felt, that needs to be accepted and loved.

This is how I learned to love the clouds and the storms as much as the sunshine. It was by learning to love myself. It was by learning to love the Divine – not just the pieces that made me comfortable, but also those that helped me learn and those that forced me to see, those that asked me to be courageous, and those that I felt inclined to neglect.

This takes time to understand.

So be patient with yourself, and I’ll be patient with mine too. One step at a time, we will find our way. One pain at a time, we will heal. One soul at a time, the whole will awaken.

It takes time.

© 2017 Cristen Rodgers

I See You

In the first rays of sunlight that filter through my window, I see you shining down on me. In the starless midnight skies, I hear you teaching me. With each new breath, I feel you entering my very flesh and purifying my soul. And with each new meeting, you show me again what it is to be whole.

In the moments of silence, there you are, like a lover so close that we share the same name. So enmeshed we are that our essence is one and the same. Your fingerprints are there in the earth and the seas. Your signature is penned in light upon the skies and the trees.

Love is your name and my soul is your home. In the deep seas and forests, you wildly roam. In city streets you take on a clever disguise; but not too clever to be recognized by wonder-filled eyes. In the thunderstorms of my heart, you wash my spirit clean. In the faces of strangers, you show me parts of yourself yet to be seen.

This love story is penned upon every inch of my skin. Chapters are written in the ways of my animal kin. It’s inked in the rivers and mountains, in the pattern of wings across the skies – a story like no other, for Love never dies.

© 2017 Cristen Rodgers

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Not Everyone Has to Like it

Here’s the thing about spiritual awakening and personal development – not everyone is going to like it. Not everyone is going to understand. Not everyone is going to accept, approve, or even believe the new you that begins to emerge as the last masks fall off and you strip that cloak of fear away.

This might sound counter-intuitive. It might be tempting to think that bettering yourself automatically means bettering your relationships with others – but this isn’t always how it plays out.

Sometimes the people who are a great energetic match at one stage can become a detriment in another, and the same can be true the other way around. Sometimes growing up will weaken one relationship even as it’s strengthening another; and part of the process is learning to accept and allow that.

After all, people can only understand from whatever level they’re at. They can only see as far as their perception will allow. They can only accept in you what they’ve accepted within themselves, and can only understand in you that which they understand within themselves.

If someone isn’t comfortable with change, your evolution can become their trigger. If someone is still held back by the fears you’ve conquered, your freedom can become their trigger. If someone is still rigidly clinging to half-truths, your new awareness can become their trigger. Even if you don’t mean it to be so.

As you learn how to embrace uncertainty and dance in the unknown, as you walk through your fear and celebrate the changes you’ve made, you become a living display of the endless potential and the wildly free and flexible nature of the human spirit – a display that can frighten those who prefer being tucked under a blanket of constancy, complacency, certainty, and comfort.

Sometimes people express that discomfort by trying to diminish, deny, or somehow distort the changes that triggered them – the changes they see in you. When this happens, it’s up to you to show them love and let it go. It’s up to you to remember that this journey isn’t about proving anything to anyone and that you don’t need their acceptance to continue on.

For the most part, people don’t do this out of malice. They do it out of a subconscious urge to make things normal again, to keep you in a shape they’re comfortable with, to cling to the you that they used to know.

To those who haven’t yet began that long journey inside themselves, change can be downright terrifying and the words different and dangerous are synonymous. Although your changes may be for the better, they can still be perceived as frightening. Though you may be revealing a truer version of yourself, the difference may still seem scary.

This isn’t a reason to judge others – for we’ve all been at precisely that level at some point in our soul’s journey – but neither is it a reason to distract yourself from your own development by trying to explain or defend yourself.

When your own evolution leads to whispers and rumors, when it causes certain people to pull back or to criticize, remember that it is not your job to defend your path but to walk it. It’s not your job to explain things to others but to unravel them within yourself.

When old friends or distant relatives tell you that this isn’t the real you, remember that they may have spent years only seeing the mask that you once depended on. To them, this isn’t the real you. To them, the mask was real and what’s now emerging from behind it is a trigger. It’s triggering their own exploration of perception and reality; it’s triggering their own inner journey.

Remember that it’s not your job to convince them that this is the real you but to continue stripping those layers away and let your truth speak for itself. Remember that, although this process has been a very long and difficult one, it can appear to those on the outside as a sudden, drastic, and even unbelievable transformation.

I’m not saying this is easy. I’m not denying that it can really hurt when, rather than being celebrated, your growth is criticized or questioned. You’ve spent years, or perhaps even decades, learning and growing through trial and error. You took a few steps and stumbled. You learned to walk and stumbled. You started to run and stumbled. The journey has been a series of starts and stops, steps and staggers. It’s taken a great deal of courage, of painful honesty, humility, perseverance, and faith – but the truth is, most people didn’t see even a small fraction of all that work.

Most people didn’t see all of the nights that you stayed awake crying, praying, questioning, and seeking answers. They couldn’t hear the whispers of your heart as it urged you to face, process, and transform your fears and your pains. They didn’t see you spending early mornings and late nights in meditation, reading books, exploring your emotions, getting to know your soul, dismantling beliefs, opening your heart. They don’t know how long you practiced controlling your thoughts; and they didn’t read the endless invisible pages upon which you wrote and re-wrote your new story.

They didn’t have the benefit of adjusting slowly and steadily to the new you that was being born. To them, it may have been quite surprising and a little bit confusing when you spontaneously emerged from your cocoon and presented your newly formed wings. To them, it may seem too sudden to accept. Too immense to handle. Too extraordinary to believe.

And that’s okay. They don’t have to understand. They don’t have to accept or even believe the changes you’ve made. And you don’t have to care. This journey is yours and yours alone. Sure, we all crave companionship. We all need support; but if the support system you’ve come to depend on begins to naturally crumble, you have to let go and trust that a new and better one is already in the making.

Just continue to focus on your growth. Continue to put in the work, even if others can’t see it. Continue climbing even if no one is waiting at the top to cheer you on.

Do for them what they can’t yet do for you. Let them be what they are. Accept and allow them to experience the stage they’re currently in without clinging to an ideal that you once held. Be the change you want to see. Go with the natural flow of your transformation and allow them to flow with theirs – they don’t have to accept you for you to accept them; and they don’t have to understand your path for you to keep walking it.

©2017 Cristen Rodgers

Image by Jozef Klopacka

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Earth Angel

Oh how I long to be among your earth angels; teach me what I need to know. Strip me of all that’s selfish, all that’s dense, free me from any lies.

I ask that you hear me now, as my soul is crying out. Speak to me and teach me. I’m calling all angels, teachers, and guides.

Help me let go of judgments, so I might be as open as these pages on which I write. Open me. Read me. Help me clear what’s already been written and learn how to fill that space with your love, your truth, and your light.

Teach me the ways of the healers and to leave all control at the door. Cleanse me, clear me, and purify my mind. Help me learn how to be forgiving, welcoming, loving, and kind. Walk with me as I illuminate every shadow with your unwavering light.

Oh how I long to be free of any remaining notions of superiority, inferiority, overburdened ego, or competitive pride! Right now I strip myself bare. Let those walls come crashing down until all that’s left is the essence of love that’s been hiding inside.

Teach me. Lead me. Show me how to see people’s fears without shying away, how to lovingly look them and myself straight in the eye.

My deepest desire is to become a servant to love. Please help me release all that yet stands in my way. Hear my soul’s plea and give me strength. Let me now close my eyes as I recite this prayer, so you can send me dreams of giving and healing, of loving and comforting, of joining the angels’ ranks.

Help me let go of the selfish desires that have taken me this far. May I let go the need to gather love and light and joy and peace only unto myself. I want to learn how to take only what I need, and to multiply it and give it back out again.

My soul cries out in earnest and with undying hope. I cry unto you to cleanse me of what holds me back and keeps me weighted to ground, so that I might be of true service and do the real work instead of just whatever serves me in the here and now.

Guide me to the path that will take me there someday. Teach me what it means to let go of my pride and to strip my ego bare, to walk and talk and write for something far greater than myself.

Give me challenges and give me strength, give me whatever is necessary to be a healer on earth. Help me. Teach me. My spirit now knows its path.

Let me drop the masks and sacrifice my pride. Help me face the terror that this idea conjures up inside. Teach me how to listen without the distractions of my mind. Help me learn how to be completely open and understanding, to make no judgments and to believe no lies.

Help me really understand what it means to do things that aren’t about me. Help me express a love so pure that it, not me, is all that they see. But just as importantly help me figure out how to see others in the same way. Give me the vision necessary to see beyond the fear and the pain into the pure spirit inside. Help me connect to it directly, without judgment ego or blame.

Bless me with the wisdom to understand that it was never about me. Teach me to be the earth angel you need me to be.

©2017 Cristen Rodgers

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