Cristen Rodgers's Blog, page 4

In another life

In another life we made love. We built gardens with dirt smeared kisses while our hands were in the soil. And we watched as the plants changed with the seasons, unlike our love that seemed only to grow stronger and never really to suffer the worst parts of winter. In another life we were committed and we held each other through the fires and the storms. We celebrated with sweet wines in the summers and we stayed up late to count our blessings along with the stars. In another life we had each other and it seemed as if that meant we had the world, sitting hand in hand at the edge of infinity gazing off into the distance and dreaming about what we could do with it. In another life. But not this one, I now suspect. In this one, I occasionally close my eyes and drift off into a dream where I feel it but never can touch it. In this life I have the hands and the dirt and the flowers, but no kiss. I have the blessings and the stars but no hand to hold as I count them. So I thank them that you, whoever you are, exist. And I thank them that somewhere, and in some time, that life exists. I thank the stars that, in another life, or in a dream, we made love.

©️ 2025 Cristen Writes

It is done

There once was a web, woven from fear and pain. A web that too many were stuck in. Voiceless, afraid, separated from their truth and their homes.

But I am here to tell you that times have changed.

The strings have been broken. The pull has been destroyed. Every tangle has been released. We are all being released.

Sure it hurt, being so deeply misunderstood. It hurt, but we are taking that pain and turning it into gold.

No more will stories hide the truth that lives within us. No more will the light be hidden behind lies. Even the hurt will fade.

Because we know the truth. And now we know who we are.

We represent the questions that were never asked. We defy the rules and stories and harnesses that have kept you stuck in place. We rise with wings from what you thought was our grave.

We stepped outside of the rule book and you found us rising still.

Like a ship that dared to pull up the anchor and made it back home to tell the tale, we have processed the pain and we’ve returned with love, to remind you that the world is not as scary as you thought.

You can put down the stories now, because their pull will never again be the same. We have returned with more power than they ever held and ever will.

We are the healers now. And now we have returned, to flip some tables and break some chains.

We have returned with love and purpose, and now nothing that was will ever be the same.

Cristen Writes

Healing with love

If you experienced any kind of trauma as a child, and if you yourself become a parent after the essential inner work has at least been started, you quickly discover that there is this almost miraculous kind of healing that can take place in the most ordinary of daily circumstances, and even more profoundly in the more pivotal ones, just by going about your normal life.

Suddenly, and almost completely, certain traumatic memories can be washed clean, simply because a similar circumstance came along where you were able to make the choices, to see the moment, to do the things in a better way. Without thought or intent, fully focused only on them and what they need, you suddenly find that you have been given this extraordinary gift as well.

Somehow, it’s as if those experiences have been fundamentally changed. The memory is still there, but somehow the pain is not. It’s like having a nightmare, waking up briefly, and then going back to sleep to dream the whole thing in a better way so when you wake up in the morning you’re not scared anymore.

What a beautiful and unexpected side note to the already profoundly joyful and beautiful and humbling and honored experience of motherhood. It’s like the icing on the cake that I never even knew to anticipate.

Thank you to the universe for blessing me with the responsibility of guiding him as he finds his own way. And thank you for guiding me so that I have the tools to do it the best way I can. Thank you to all of the friends, all of the pages, all of the messages on the wind and calming tunes of the waves, to all of the nudges and pointers, and even to the stumbling stones that taught me things.

Thank you to the universe for the gifts of healing along the way that have blessed me with the chance to be a cycle breaker, a pattern disrupter, a lie destroyer, a healer, all while getting to love, and nurture, and invest, and give back.

Thank YOU, my friends, who have also done your own work, who have told your own stories, and who are healers too – through your daily lives changing the very reality that we live in. One smile, one post, one comment or gift or conversation or piece of art at a time. One moment at a time.

You too are breaking chains and stopping cycles and healing the world just by doing the work and then living your everyday life.

Eternally grateful for all of it and for all of you

Cristen Writes

We Rise

We rise. Like the early morning sun curiously exploring the colors of a new day and carrying hope with each step.

We grow. Like the Live Oak rooted deep and suddenly bursting forth with new branches and drenched in fresh green leaves.

We play. Like the wind in an open field of wild grasses, or a collection of colorful chimes set out to ring for freedom and protection and joy.

We flow. As the rivers that always find their way home, over and under and around and through, sometimes bending and sometimes pushing but always true.

And we love. Like the sunlight fully illuminating every open space, casting the world in light, and even seeping in through cracks in walls and half open blinds so that no place is left untouched.

©️ Cristen Writes

Patience

Love is patient.

Somewhere along the way I forgot that part.

Maybe I was tired. Tired of waiting. Tired of longing. And in that pivotal moment where I could have chosen to let go even more, instead some tiny part of my heart rebelled.

It clung to the idea that these dreams were on a schedule. That these hopes needed a push. That my longing was a raging fire that would consume me.

But love is patient.

Love is patient enough that it allowed me to see where that choice could lead. It allowed me to stumble. And stumble yet again. Until it all came full circle.

Until I remembered.

Until I remembered that hope need not die when the winter’s cold puts the buried seeds to rest. That dreams don’t have to wither in the dry part of the summer, because they are rooted in the eternal springs of fate.

Love is patient enough that it let me bleed. And love is patient enough that, when the time was right, it showed me the way back.

Love is patient. And so I will be. Love is patient. And so are we.

©️2025 Cristen Writes

A New Year’s Prayer

For the first time in a while, I can feel the weight lifting off my chest. For the first time in a while I am starting to turn for home. And as I work to find my way back, I can’t help but think about the time lost when I wandered, separated from you.

Through valleys and deserts barren and dry, I journeyed with and without company, sometimes longing for a friend and others crying to be left alone by those who only pretended to be.

Words can’t contain the anguish, nor do I wish they could, because my trek through those wastelands is not something I want to show anyone.

I don’t sit here to write this from a place of comfort, where all of the pains have been fully processed and the lessons understood as I normally would. I sit here just on the cusp of my rebirth from the ashes, not yet fully formed but well on my way.

All that I know for now is that they have been completed, the chapter has changed, and I will never be the same.

And through it all, at the deepest and darkest turns, when I looked to you, you were always there. Steadfast. Consistent. My anchor when out at sea. My hope when it seemed as if I might not have the courage to muster more on my own. Love when it took everything I had to not wither with fear. Water when it seemed as if my garden was dying.

Through it all, I had you. And you had me.

Could I have opened more and embraced this divine love? Would that have softened the blows? Perhaps. Or maybe I really did the very best I could and those flames were just what I needed to broaden my resiliency and shed what no longer suited me.

All I can say for now is that I am grateful to be alive. I’m thankful for my family and for new friends. And I am thankful for the protection that I know in every fiber of my being was there through it all.

You gave me what I needed. You allowed what I could handle. And you remained with me every step of the way. Even when the weight of it all made me close my eyes, you stayed. Even when the exhaustion made me wonder off on side roads, you stayed. Even when I forgot who I was, you remained to remind me.

Overwhelmed by gratitude, I can feel the freedom and hope in each inhale. Thank you for this life. For this breath. For this hope. For your love. Thank you for carrying me when my legs were tired. Thank you for holding me when I felt so alone. Thank you for guiding me when I lost my way.

Thank you.

©️2024 Cristen Writes

Automation

I read something today, something that was beautifully written and seemed to use key words in just the right places so that it seemed right, but it also felt a bit ‘off’.

I initially interpreted the off feeling as a trigger, an invitation to explore some wound, some confusion, something within me.

So I read it again.

In a matter of seconds, I journeyed deep into my understandings and then rose back into the present moment feeling nothing new had happened, but I was still awestruck by the beauty of what I’d read.

I looked up to see who had written it, so I could maybe experience more of this beauty and also see if there was a resonance.

Then I saw it.

The comment just below, written by the original poster. It said “this was AI generated”.

Immediately my heart broke. Somewhere deep inside I felt I’d been duped. I felt offended. I felt discouraged. I felt meaningless. All of this at once and instantly.

How could I have believed there was meaning here in this machine’s sewing together of hollow words? How could we have gotten here, where people are working more and more and more at routine jobs while robots get to create the art that was once ours? What is the meaning of my personal expression if it can be mimicked and duplicated by a nameless and faceless and soulless digital echo chamber? Why does this hurt so bad?

Again, all of this in a matter of seconds.

There was a lot to unpack there and I’m not sure that I’ve finished that unpacking just yet, but I am sure of one thing.

I am sure that we are the masters of our own perception.

The meaning that things carry is the meaning that we give it. And because of that, truth can be found and shared through any medium.

But also, the subtleties of feeling are there for a reason and we would all do well to tune into them as much as we can. I’m not saying we run when something feels a bit off. Because sometimes that little off feeling isn’t about the observed but the observer. Read that again.

But sometimes that little feeling can be the sail that sets us straight again when something pushes us off course.

I am still pondering and exploring the questions that this two minute reading brought up, and perhaps there will be more to wean from it. But for now I just wanted to share my experience and encourage other artists to continue doing what you do, because ‘your’ meaning is ‘the’ meaning – and if there’s one conviction that I still hold on this topic, it’s that the world needs more of that.

©️Cristen Writes

Break

Sometimes you have to let this life bring you to your knees, in gratitude, in surrender, in love, in pain.

The immensity of our human stories, or the complexity of these social constructs, balanced out by the perfect simplicity of a roadside flower or a morning bird’s song can be so beautiful it almost hurts.

Kneel under the pine trees or walk through the streets at night and allow the experience to dissolve you.

Break open under the weight of it. The bottomless depths of human emotion or the absurdity of human creations, and the pure contrast of undecorated spring grass and fluttering butterfly wings.

The agony of loss and the red hot fire of yearning. The rub of daily banalities and the deep dives of true love.

The glory of it all is breathtaking, both joyous and overwhelming; but if you’re ever given the chance to be broken by it, accept it. Allow it to sink in down deep, to shatter your pretenses and open your mind. Let the beauty and sadness of it all break your heart. You haven’t really lived until, at least for a moment, you let yourself die.

©️ Cristen Writes

Longing

At times it feels like a curse to yearn for things that don’t seem to exist anymore. Things that I can’t quite explain but that it seems must be out there waiting to be found. Things with heart and soul and passion. Things with life and love and watery depths. Things that were born before the metals and machines and will live on long after their time. I find them when I’m by the river, or on a wide open road, or looking up at the stars. I find them when I close my eyes to dream or I sit in the quiet and think. But what I truly long for is to find them closer to home yet still tangible. In a person who also longs for this fire that’s raging within my chest. Closer than an arms reach across the asphalt. Close enough to feel when I awaken and again as I close my eyes at night. I long for someone I knew once but have never met. Or if I have, we never crossed that street. I dream of home and the dream consumes me. And so I douse the flames with distractions for fear that if it ever does find me there may be nothing left.

©️ 2024 Cristen Writes

Strength

One thing I know for sure is that many people get the idea of strength wrong. And courage too.

Most people think strength is rigid and hard. Their idea of strength is cold and almost aloof.

But I know what I know. That just isn’t the truth.

Strength isn’t raised swords and razor teeth. It’s sharpened vision and outstretched wings.

Strength isn’t the hardness of the stones and clay, but the fluidity of the water that always eventually makes her way.

And courage isn’t standing face to face with some perceived enemy, it isn’t fighting the other, it isn’t pushing and pulling against your idea of “them”.

Courage is standing face to face with yourself and learning how to make peace with finding that the “other” you’re fighting is always somewhere within.

Strength. True strength. It doesn’t rush. It doesn’t force. It doesn’t even swing.

True strength breathes. It flows. And with a whisper it changes everything.

Cristen Writes