Cristen Rodgers's Blog, page 7

In the Morning

Just me and God, in the early morning hours. We drift among stars dusting a sky of the darkest blue, with a tinge of turquoise spilling in at its edges. Like my soul, it too is changing with the rising light. Just me and God, alone and together. She moves me, standing still at the inky water’s edge; and we converse without words, just like the ripples I watch sail across its surface. We find meaning in every leaf and flower, but their strict definitions drip away just like the dew resting on a single ivory petal. Expectations are pale branches against the dark backdrop of sky; beautiful and exciting for a moment; but when searching the heavens for answers, their rigidity just gets in the way. Just me and God. Alone and together in the rising wind and among the insects singing their goodbyes to the night. In a voiceless whisper, She reminds me. Just like this dark turquoise rimmed sky, I need only be still and welcome the rebirth of the light.

©️ 2024 Cristen Writes

New Year 2024

New years has always been one of my favorite celebrations. At times even the most significant marker of my entire year.

I think because it’s always been a time of rebalancing for me. Even as a child who didn’t yet understand what I was up to.

A time when the recollections of past lessons naturally merge with the dreams and aspirations I hold for what is yet to be. There’s an openness and balance that settles into my being without much effort or even intent; as if it were written into my very bones that this is just the way it is. This is just what I do.

And so it has always been both peaceful and emotional. Reassuring and prodding. It’s a moment when I instinctively pause, while I feel the latent energy running through me like electricity, for a moment free of being explicitly defined.

The ending of a cycle.

The birth of new opportunities.

The chance to reflect on lessons.

To appreciate all that’s been and all that may yet be.

So much to allow. So much to appreciate. So much to remember. So much to dream.

Year after year, there comes a breakthrough moment. One more profound and more natural than any other throughout the year, no matter how many or how great they are. A break through the illusion of time. Both to overcome it and to better appreciate it.

And each year, temporarily suspended in this beautiful in between, a predominate lesson emerges from amidst the many seemingly disjointed stories of the year past. A lesson that blows a little more fog away from the road that lay ahead. The gift that took a year to fully unwrap.

In 2023 that gift was coming to know and understand the meaning of home.

Home. The place you come from and the place you return to. The place where everything is okay. Even when it isn’t.

To some, this may seem an insignificant statement. But for me, home has held many meanings over the years. And not all were comforting, or grounded, or even safe.

Once upon a time, that word brought a sense of anxiety and fear, a place I wanted to run from, to escape, to avoid. Later, ‘home’ became a place of comfort where I could hide – from the world, from the lessons, from the monsters, from the truth.

But now, after many lessons – that took form as earthquakes and gentle nudges, breaking and mending, crashes and liftoffs alike – home has come to mean something much more profound. Much more honest. Something so simple that it runs deeper than the greatest ocean and takes me higher than an eagle soars.

Now, home represents a beautiful irony, as it’s both too complex and simple for mere words. It’s a powerful metaphor but also the most straightforward and tangible reality.

And that simplicity has saved me time and time again this past year. It has brought me back from the brink. It has been as breadcrumbs that I follow when lost and starving.

Home. The place I come from. The place I return to. The present moment. The present place. But also every moment. Every place.

Home a place of comfort and love and peace, but never at the expense of truth and transparency.

Home is remembering.

Remembering to dream.

When I spent too many days among concrete trees with asphalt beneath my feet.

Remembering to surrender.

When my ego tries to hold the reigns too tight.

Remembering my strength.

When I’ve trailed off into self deprecation and worry.

Remembering our connectedness.

When the word ‘I’ slips through my mind one too many times.

Remembering it’s all but a dream.

When the numbers and rules and walls loom too large.

Home is what I found this year, and home is what I will carry with me into the next (like the crab that I am).

Home is what I will bring to others when I can. And home is what I’ll return to time and time again.

Here’s to a new year at peace. A new year of love. A new year of learning and growing and remembering and giving and thanking. Here’s to a new year completely at Home.

Cristen Writes 2023

In the midst of it

When I’m deep in the distractions, the refractions, consequence of my actions; help me remember how to surrender, come back to the center, and return bullshit to sender.

Spirit remind me and I’ll come alone, through the unknown, back to the only true home that I’ve ever known.

When I’ve closed, or unwittingly dozed, let me be shown, so I can let go, use the lesson to grow, realign with the truth, and surrender to flow.

Spirit remind me to be kind to me. What’s the point to live if not to give, so right in the midst of my shit, when I’ve had enough of it, push me to sit until I admit, no time to omit, until I commit to let go the shit and then be relit.

©️2023 Cristen Writes

A box of junk

One of the hardest things I ever did should have been the easiest.  At least it seems like it should have been.  One of the hardest things I’ve ever done is let go. 

See, for years I had been carrying something so heavy, so cumbersome and awkward, that all I wanted to do was lay it down – but I couldn’t.  It was as if it were chained to my arms.  Like it was glued to my heart.  So I spent all of my energy just trying to walk on, one exhausted step before another, while my heart broke and my mind screamed under its weight.  

It should have been easy.  

To just let it go.  

But it wasn’t.

If it had been a block of gold, I would have laid it down in an instant, for the effort of holding on would not have been worth it.  If it had been an armload of precious jewels, I’d have dropped them without much thought at all.  And I would have carried on, easily accepting that they were not mine to wear.  

But this wasn’t a block of gold or a package of jewels.  It was just a box of useless junk.  Just a memory.  Just an assumption.  Just a fear.  Just a lie.  Heavy.  Awkward.  Cumbersome.  Taxing.  

And yet I carried it still.  I carried it, struggling against every step.  I carried it, distracted by the effort and exhausted by the internal battle it caused.  The internal battle of clinging to something I wanted to let go.  I wanted to let go.  I just couldn’t see how.  

It’s strange, isn’t it?  That the hardest and most difficult thing to figure out would be how to just drop something?  

But there I was, breaking beneath the weight of it, and yet unable to unlink my fingers and loosen my grip enough for it to slip from my hands, to detach from my heart, to pass from my mind.  So, unlike the gold or the jewels, this junk had a hold of me – even though I was the one holding on to it.  

But here’s the weirdest thing – when I finally did let go, I had no idea how I did it. 

All I knew was that the exhaustion was so great, the frustration was so intense, the strain was so severe that I supposed I had no choice.  I let go.  Because I had to.  Or maybe just because it was time. 

In hindsight it looks so foolish.  Holding on to rubbish that long.  Beating myself bloody inside instead of just letting it go.   But I don’t think it was foolishness.  Not really.  I think it was conditioning.  

Carrying that needless trash was teaching me strength.  It was gifting me with understanding.  It was teaching me compassion.  And when I realized this and forgave myself, I walked on feeling lighter, more free, more helpful – until I eventually picked it up again.  

I know it wasn’t the smartest move, picking it up all over again – but you have to understand, this junk was old.  It was familiar.  Even as it corrupted my dreams and put needless pressure on my soul, it also somehow made me feel safe.  Because it’s what I’d always done.  I had always carried these things.  

The second time around, I moved a little better under the weight of it, because carrying that baggage sort of felt like home.  But with time, my strength again wore out; and I was left facing myself with the question – why did you pick it back up?  

I dropped it a bit faster this time.  Because I had muscle memory.  I didn’t need to know ‘how’ I did it last time, only that I ‘did’.  And so I walked on, once again free of the unnecessary weight and able to give love to myself and to others without holding back.  

I’ve done this many times since, letting go and then in moments of stress or fear picking the damn thing right back up.  

But each time now I learn.  

I learn where the junk came from.  I learn why I came to love it.  And hate it.  And why I keep grabbing hold of it again.  But one of the most beautiful things I’ve learned through this process of letting go is how to support someone when they are carrying their own old, heavy junk.  

I’ve learned that I can’t help them carry it, and I can’t make them let go – but I can be present there with them while they figure it out.  

I’ve learned to be courageous in the face of stress and fear, because that’s the weak point.  I’ve learned to be resilient, because that’s what it takes to still look at yourself in the mirror after you’ve repeated the same cycle again.  And I’ve learned how to forgive.  Because I know now how incredibly difficult it can sometimes be to do the simplest things.  

Because now I know how hard it can be to just let go.  

© 2023 Cristen Writes

Image by Panifilth on Deviantart

Little Death

For the first time in a while I felt like I belonged.

At home in this place with no roof and no walls.

For the first time in a while I found what I’d been missing.

I found my footing.

In the echoes of ancient truths whispered through the soles of my feet.

I found simplicity.

In life unfolding through curling leaves, and leaning trees, and dragonfly wings.

I found harmony.

In generations of stories intertwined and simultaneously speaking without a sound.

In rich purple blooms, and green spires reaching towards misty ripples of clouds.

For the first time in a while I was lost.

Lost in her mysteries.

Lost in her beautiful dangers.

In reflective pools of standing water, dark emerald groves, and restless rustles coming from deep in the trees.

Lost were the stories. Lost were the maps and the rules and the game.

In deepest thanks I knelt, among the ferns and roots and the prickly palmetto leaves.

And for the first time in a while, I sank.

I sank into the earth, into the darkness. Into my mothers arms.

I sank deeper and deeper, until I broke through the surface again, as bright green tendrils with tears on my cheeks.

Then, for the first time in a while, I rose.

I rose, until my outstretched branches drank the sky.

I rose until I became her.

Her rivers and mountains. The calm of her shores and the cool of her caves.

I rose as the birds riding the skies, as the river stones worn smooth by time, and the tall grasses glimmering in the light.

For the first time in a while, I died.

And that’s how I finally came back to life.

©️2024 Cristen Writes

The Gift of Denial

Sometimes the greatest gift is no gift at all.  Sometimes being denied something is a push towards something better. 

There’s a reason the treasure waits at the end of the rainbow and not the beginning.  Finding it must be a journey.  It takes trust and hope and a bit of grit.  You have to take the steps.  You have to find courage enough to risk getting lost to find your way.  You have to keep your eyes open and your faith alive. 

And what you find along the way is that the journey itself is the treasure. The trust. The hope. The courage. The discovery of self. The discovery of God. The revelations that come in little bursts as you stumble along, sometimes taking a wrong turn, or tripping over a lesson, breaking something open inside.

These experiences are the treasure.  

And every time that you look for a hand along the way and instead find only open air, you’re being given something invaluable. You’re being blessed with a moment to inspire you. To look within for the love you seek. To look above for the support you need. To look deeper than you would have, had there been someone there to lift you up.

These moments of denial can be more valuable than gold, because their return is eternal and reciprocal. 

Sometimes the greatest gift is no gift at all – because when you finally do receive one, you’ve gained the wisdom to know how to use it.

© 2023 Cristen Writes

 

Showers to Flowers

Finally, after so many years of neglect, that wounded little girl that I tried so hard to leave behind walked back out into the world with me. I dried her tears and took her hand and stood witness as she showed me all the things that once held her back. It was a beautiful process, but what was to come was more beautiful still. As I brought her back into the light she began to let go. She began to trust. She began to smile. She began to laugh. Together we began to dance and play like she had always dreamed. And that pure playful creativity made it all so worth it. Every weapon revealed a wound. Every tear watered a dream. Every pain rooted a sprout. And every collapse taught us how to build. It was only after loving her roots that she showed me the splendor of her bloom.

Cristen Writes

Quiet Storm

Maybe the reason I kept my mouth shut for so long was that I knew I’d scare people and maybe even myself with what would come out. Such strange and beautiful and consequential things want to slip from this tongue. Mysterious things with terrifying depth and long lasting reverberations. Maybe I stayed so quiet because people tend to run for cover when they hear thunder. And maybe keeping it all in for so long has made it more potent and even harder to define. It’s a problem, I know, but one that endless loving conversations between my heart and throat is slowly correcting. Maybe in time it won’t be me who needs to be scared. Maybe it’s people who are afraid of storms who better watch out.

©️ Cristen Writes

Happily Ever After

It took a long time for her to understand. It took a long time to let go of her ideas and rules and plans so the truth could finally settle in. This is life. This is it. It’s not somewhere up ahead, a goal to press towards with degrees or achievements or measurable conquests. It’s ever unfolding, like an endless ocean that stretches wider and grows more beautiful the farther you row. It took a long time to taste it, because she spent so many years striving – to be good, to be right, to be safe – trying so hard to respect the fragility of a ‘happily ever after’ that she never really got to the ‘once upon a time’. But now she is tasting it. Now she’s lived a bit of a life. And it’s not always been sweet. She’s choked on her mistakes and crinkled her nose at the bitterness of pain. But she’s also been drunk on pleasure, and dizzy in love, and awed by grace. And because she’s allowing it all, she’s starting to understand. This is it. Life doesn’t happen in the shallows. Life happens in the willingness to drown, and the ever-renewed discovery that you can and will swim again.

©️ 2023 Cristen Writes

Continue On

Continue on.

And just when you start to turn the page on the wounds of the past, just when you start to feel the budding excitement of something you’ve never known, a conditioned voice in your head will tell you to look back.

Continue on.

It will whisper, “But what about him? What about her?

Should I go back to help? Can I heal her too? Might this love change the game?”

Continue on.

“Could this knowledge bring understanding where there once was pain?

Can this new light pierce their darkness too?”

Continue on.

No matter how strong the temptation, turn yourself straight and continue on.

It is not your job to heal the person who wounded you. It is not your role to be a light to those who tried to smother yours.

Your job is to continue on. Continue to heal yourself. Continue to learn and grow. Continue shining brighter with each new step.

Continue on.

And leave the rest to the same greater power that took you this far.

It is not your job.

Continue on.

© 2023 Cristen Writes