Cristen Rodgers's Blog, page 8

Lost

Sometimes I just have to disappear. I don’t mean ethereally, like in meditation or by consuming art, though I need that regularly too. I mean physically disappear. Sometimes I need to lose myself so completely that I’m lost to others as well. I have to shut off my phone, forget the world, and lose my place. I need to forget everything and vanish in the trees, run with the animals, fly with the stars. And if you want to get close to me you must accept this, for I need it like I need to breathe; its as integral to who I am as the heart beating in my chest – but don’t worry about me when I am away, because the thing about getting lost is that I always come back with more to give than I had when I went away.

~ Cristen Writes ©️ 2022

One with the Night

I tend to be most alive in the day. I’m in love with the greens of the trees and I’m energized by the sun. I crave the sound of singing birds and the feel of sun-warmed skin. But when times get hard – when I’m tired, overburdened, or worn down – that’s when I become one with the night. The dark skies call me to throw open the door and step outside right when I would be laying down for the night. So I listen to the crickets against the quiet, and I stare at the stars. I disappear into the stillness and listen again to the moon. I listen and she tells me everything is alright. Rest now in the night. Just breathe. Everything is alright.

©️ Cristen Writes

The Misfits

I’ve never really fit into any group that well. Maybe that’s part unhealed trauma, part innate oddness, and part superpower.

My seat has always been with the misfits. That’s where I belong. With the loners and the rebels, the broken and awkward and divergent ones. With the people who couldn’t fit the box if they tried.

That’s where I find inspiration, in the eyes of silent warriors who never gave up. That’s where I find beauty, in the faces of people who are brave enough to just be who they are. That’s where I find purpose, in the hearts of those looking for a safe place to turn. That’s where I feel the safest, among those who are different like me.

That’s where I am home, among those who came together incidentally but find a way to fit together perfectly.

The people who disappear into the back of the room and the ones who stick out like a sore thumb. The ones whose minds are like Alice’s wonderland, and whose hearts are like vast gardens inside a Rubik’s Cube.

The people who are too complicated, or too simple, too real, or too honest for the world to understand, those are the ones that I end up calling friends.

I’ll never sit at the cool kids’ table, and I don’t want to. Sitting under a tree with the outcasts and odd ones is right where I belong.

~ Cristen Writes

Destinations

You see, it was never about arriving. It has always been about the journey.

It’s about how many times you fall into a hole and you dig your way back out of it. Wiser. Stronger. Lighter. Brighter.

You’re never going to reach some final destination, because it’s always been right here. Here, in the midst of your every crisis, when you reach inside yourself and search for the truth. When you pull out another lesson like some gleaming jewel sifted from murky waters, and you polish it and add it to your crown.

See, that is the destination. That truth within you. That nudge to look deeper. That light that glimmers in the darkness. That part of you that knows where to look, that calls you back and lifts you higher time and time again.

It isn’t waiting at the end of the rainbow. It isn’t at the end of some long road you must travel. It’s already with you. Within you. Here. Now.

The path isn’t taking you anywhere. It’s teaching you how to find yourself everywhere.

~ Cristen Writes

Speak

I won’t tell you to be positive.
I won’t make you feel like you need to hide.
I won’t change the subject
when you start to share what’s hidden inside.
I won’t try to fix you
like you’re some sort of broken machine.
I will look without agenda
at the truths you wish to be seen.
I’ve been there myself;
I’ve felt that pain and anger seemed wrong.
I’ve felt the lump in my throat
that always managed to silence my song.
I too have been shamed
for expressing things that were not okay.
Now my mission is to listen
to the things you’ve been told not to say.

© 2022 Cristen Writes
Image by Sarah Riches

Hello Darkness

grounds are shaking
walls are caving in;
exposing each fear,
every anger and sin.
every step I’ve taken,
all I have been
chaos is brewing;
the ice is too thin.
alone in my head
words start to shake.
releasing the pain,
I let the ice break.
cold water pulling
it’s so hard to breathe.
wounds I was hiding
they finally bleed.
I’ve been here before.
I know where to go.
so journey I must
into the unknown.
I’ll brave the night
and travel alone,
digging up truths
to bring them back home.

© 2022 Cristen Writes

I See You

No longer do I need to go somewhere remote and alone to find you. I find you here. Within me. Surrounding me. The breath before my breath. The sight before my sight. I find you in the innermost parts of me, waiting patiently for my mind to see.

No longer must I gaze upon a flower, or a tree, or listen to a river’s song to see you. I see you everywhere. I see you in the mother crossing the street with her babies in tow. I see you in the man at the street corner holding his weathered sign. I see you on my way to work. I see you in the store. I see you in the mirror. I see you in my dreams. I see you in everything.

No longer do I require absolute stillness to hear you. I hear you in the silence and the noise. Your voice is a steady rhythm. A song that was always there, waiting patiently for me to put the windows down. I hear you in the wind, and the music on the streets, in the heavy breath of a lover, or the cry of a baby. I hear you, like the steady pulse of blood through my veins, and the quiet tides of the moon.

No longer do I hold you hostage in a cage of expectation. Nor did I ever, for you could not be contained. The only one imprisoned was me, and I have set my soul free to sail with you through this wild sea. All of its depth and shallows. Its calm and its storms. Its warmth and its chill. No longer do I need to seek; because you have always been and always will be within and all around me.

~ Cristen Writes

Break It

If you don’t like the system then break it. Stop living by its rules. Stop thinking in those terms. Stop believing the lies. Stop feeding the fears. You can be a quiet revolution. Just let go of the anxieties they taught you. Change your expectations. That alone is the quiet force of a thousand armies. That’s how you say fuck the system. By living from the creative space that precedes it, and dancing on as it naturally dies.

~ Cristen

Home

She came home, with starlight still clinging to her eyelashes and dew drenched skin where there was hardened armor before. She returned with a lightness, stripped of pretense; and she had no worries to hang at the door. She did not stop to check her reflection or straighten the mess of her hair, but she had a raw beauty that outshined the strained perfection she left with. Color seeped back into her, and with her the world. The crimson sunsets she faced were burned into her cheeks. Her midnight sojourn reflected a new sharpness in her eyes. The still white of winter lingered in her posture and the morning sunrise still dripped from her hair. She came home carrying less, saying less, doing less, and yet somehow having so much more. She came home changed, new, and yet more herself than she’d been before.

© Cristen Writes

Autumn in the South

In the south, autumn isn’t seen so much as felt. Here, it rides in on the wings of birds looking for their seasonal homes.

The leaves don’t really change, but the wind does, and it speaks of letting go, freedom, and transformation. We don’t add layers of sweaters and boots, we shed them.

Our season of harvest is nearly passed, and our rains begin to dry. It’s a time that the earth rests and, if you listen, calls for stillness on the cusp of yet unseen change.

Autumn is more subtle here, a feast for the soul more than the eyes. It’s a terrestrial whisper, a reminder that everything is always changing, even when on the outside things still look much the same.

© 2021 Cristen Writes

Image by Guy Edwardes