Cristen Rodgers's Blog, page 9

The Space Between

I’ve come to believe that the secret to peace, to authentic happiness and fulfillment is to live as much as possible in the space between. The space between sentences, between thoughts, between doing this and doing that. The space between before and after, between here and there, feeling and thought, thought and action.

The secret, it seems, is to squeeze into those spaces as much you can and stretch them as far as they can go. A little at a time, leave a little more unsaid, stay still a little longer, relax a little deeper – stare at the stars, feel the wind, hold the smile, clear the mind, just a little longer. Keep at it until that space opens a little wider, until it’s not so tight and it gets more comfortable to stay there.

Eventually, what I think we find, is that this space is the only real space there is. The rest – the words and acts, the past and future, the us and them, the busy thoughts – it’s all just stuff cluttering an otherwise wide open field of absolute serenity and limitless possibilities.

Many of us just have little openings to work with at the start – brief reprieves from the noise and action and thought. So we have to work open those gaps one by one. One moment at a time. One pause at a time. One breath at a time.

And eventually, beautifully, that space will break open wide enough to see the glorious miracle of life that’s been there in front of us all along.

© 2021 Cristen Writes

Here We Are

There you are, my love, did I but for a moment let my gaze slip away? Your presence soothes me through a birds innocent morning song, and in leaf shaped sunlight dancing upon the walls. Your beauty astounds me, glimmering in dew covered petals and streaked across these pastel skies. Your hope courses through me as blood through my veins; and it fills me with such life as air in my lungs. You broke open my cage and this bird of my love has taken flight. Let me not forget these wings, nor the sweet scent of you lingering in the air, floating in on a sea breeze, and offering crisp reminders in all things green. Let me take courage from the way the trees root deep into the earth while yet reaching higher and higher to the sky. I am here, as you are here, together on a ship with no anchor, gliding through crystalline seas. Here we are, my love, may I not for a moment let my gaze slip away.

© 2021 Cristen Writes

Image by Marilylle Soveran

Live Gently

Let me touch this world gently; I don’t need to raise a storm or bring down a mountain. Let me simply hold a hand and whisper a prayer. Let me gaze upon a delicate flower and share its beauty with the next traveler along the way. I don’t need to be a sun, if I can glimmer like a firefly or a candle or a star. Let me follow softly the pull of my own heart and know only that all it leads me to will be as the subtlest hints to those seeking the way. Let me inhale the sky and drink sweet wines and tell simple stories of losses and loves and little splendors so that this peace is a spring rain that softens the soil, and these smiles are an elixir unbeknownst. Let me live simply and beautifully, and that be my gift and my gratitude and my greatness.

© Cristen Writes 2021

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Crumpled Poetry

Oh, but I am so very much more

than a collection of pretty words.

I’m tear stained and crumpled poetry;

stirring, profound, rubbish, absurd.

I’m tranquil shades of arcadian blue,

a hawk soaring over wide open skies;

demure and charcoal grey backdrops,

and storms raging from swollen eyes.

I am the stench of decayed, rotting earth

and the fertile soil for next years blooms.

I am a golden, shining city on the hill,

all its dark alleys and forgotten rooms.

Endless galaxies and infinite light;

nothing more than a grain of sand.

I’m gritted teeth and a clenched fist,

an open heart, and outstretched hand.

© Cristen Writes

Image by Yana Istoshina

All is Well

In the pre-dawn hours, I drink in the last glow of a tiring moon, to the flat sound of my footsteps on quiet streets. Those same streets today are lined by ancient oaks so strong, and a sky so heavy and low, it’s as if they’re holding it up until it can find its blue again.

Like my feet on the pavement, the careless clock marches on. The sun teases against the horizon and details emerge from beyond their nighttime shrouds.

It’s in these precious early minutes that I’m regularly reminded that a new day will always come, with the same stars fading out and the same colors morphing in. No matter my present phase. No matter the current state of my personal skies.

And just in seeing such beauty, I know that all will be well. In witnessing over and over again the recurrent curtain drop of night and return to morning, I know in every ocean of my being that any path and each turn will inevitably take me right where I need to be.

© 2021 Cristen Writes

This is Home

This is home, she thought to herself, as she stared at interwoven branches casting heavy shadows against the afternoon sun; though she was miles away from the place where she laid her head to rest at night.

That particular balance of stillness and sound that can only be found in nature filled her, until the breeze penetrated her skin and birdsongs floated weightlessly through her mind. She reflected, not for the first time, on the idea that home isn’t a place so much as a state of being, something you carry with you wherever you go; and that the places we call home are those that we’ve deemed charging points, resonate chances to realign.

It was in that moment, with sunlight glimmering off her eyelashes and waves lapping in the distance, that she remembered the deeper meaning of two timeless truths. You are what you surround yourself with, and home is where the heart is. Looking and listening, feeling and breathing in the harmonious dance of nature, it was so clear. It’s symbiotic. Giving and receiving. Creating and experiencing. Living and learning. Doing and being. It’s all an interplay, an un-choreographed dance, wherein both partners naturally exchange taking the lead.

And the secret, the thing that allows you to remain at home wherever you may find yourself, is balance. With that, she closed her eyes and inhaled, and both she and the forest smiled.

© 2021 Cristen Writes

The Self-Made Woman

You can’t break a woman who is self made.

She’s courageous and strong, because she walked through her darkest nights alone. She faced her own fears, and picked her own self up off the floor when it was time to start again.

She doesn’t fear your monsters, because she was warrior enough to slay her own.

She’s compassionate and tender, because she held her own heart when it was breaking. She wiped her own tears and tended to her own wounds. When she had no shoulder on which to rest her weary head, she comforted herself. When words of comfort and inspiration didn’t come from another’s mouth, she pulled them from from the depths of her own soul.

Her compassion for others is as deep as an ocean, because she had to tap an inner well to grace herself.

She’s painfully honest, because she walked through her own illusions. She’s broken herself open to find her deepest truth over and over and over again. She’s met her own reflection, in its well lit beauty and dusty back corners alike.

She sees through your pretenses because she fought hard to get past her own.

A self made woman is resilient and fierce. She laughs in the face of adversity, because she knows how far she’s come. She’s watched her own magic at work. She saw herself fall countless times and knows that she always rises again.

She won’t do the work for you. She will remind you of your strength, because she knows her magic came from finding her own.

You can’t break a woman who is self made.

But neither can you walk away from her the same.

She has learned to trust her inner wisdom, to rise to a challenge without forcing things to go a certain way. She knows what it means to walk through a hall of mirrors; and she is not afraid to shatter the glass.

She will show you things, not by making a point of it, but by recognizing and responding to what they are revealing about herself.

She will give you hope, not through niceties and platitudes, but by continuing to bask in the light of her own.

And if you ever take the chance to meet a self-made woman where she’s at – if you offer her the things that she doesn’t require – if you comfort her and hold her, if you offer her your hand when the road is long and you share your light when the way is dark, she will give you a type of love that has the power to move mountains and a gentleness that can soothe even the roughest of storms.

You can’t break a woman who is self made.

But neither can you walk away from her the same.

© 2021 Cristen Writes

A Room of Your Own

In this mansion of a heart you have always had a room of your own, a place where you whispered the wisdom traditions of mothers, a place where you could tuck your prayers and hang your hopes, a place that I could go when distance kept us apart.

Now, here, your room will always remain, filled with memories, decorated with laughs – a room filled to the brim with love and the sound of your voice and images of your beautiful face. Here, we have a place where we can send messages on the wings of angels and kisses on the wind; here your love lives eternal and your presence remains. Here you live on, in the love you shared and the stories you told and the tough lessons you never shied away from.

Here I will forever hold a space for you to tend to your roses and hold your babies, to watch your hummingbirds and place that blue ribbon in your hair and lay it over your shoulder.

Here, in your room, that fierce heart of yours can keep on beating. Here, I will love you, evermore, even after nothing else remains.

With eternal love,
Cristen

Image by Era7 on deviantart

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New Year 2021

To those who have left hints like breadcrumbs for others as you find your own way, thank you for having the courage to forge a new path, and for having the compassion to keep a candle burning as you go. There were times that your glimmer helped me find my way through the dark, and I’m sure I am not the only one.

To those who, during the hard times, poured yourselves into your art, thank you for giving us all hope through your song and dance, books, and tangible art. At times, it was your expression of beauty that brought me back and helped me remember my own.

To those who have accepted my love, may that exchange multiply like fields of flowers that sow their seeds to farther and farther reaches. And to those who have loved me, I return it ten fold, so that we may continue to bloom in greater and greater numbers.

To those whom I have hurt, I am sorry. You are precious and deserving of love, and if my words or actions ever conveyed less, know that you are not to blame. Please forgive me and I promise to do the same for others as well.

To those who have hurt me, I do not harbor any resentment and I free you from any blame. Thank you for showing me the things I needed to see and for the precious lessons I learned. Were it not for your sting, I may never have found the honey.

To those who are scared, or tired, or lonely, please hang on. We need your light – and it is there. Even when it seems like your world is ash, there is always an ember that burns steady and true.

To all who have crossed my own path, may yours be filled with blessings as vast as the seas. May you feel gentle breezes when the days are hard, and may their caress remind you to look to the stillness within. When you walk through the darkness, may you find your skies full of the brightest stars; and whenever you get lost may the sun and moon remind you of who you really are.

To this past year, thank you. Thank you for the lessons that have opened this heart wider and have lifted this soul higher. Thank you for revealing so many shadows and giving us all the chance to see – to see the sky beyond the clouds, the forest vaster than its trees, the sum of our many parts. Thank you for bringing so many back – back to their truth, back to their heart, back to their families, their art, their home, their values, and dreams.

To the moment before me, the setting of a day, the ending of a year, the stillness of the present, the dawning of an age, thank you for the chance to reflect, to regroup, and to reset. I am here and I am ready. Ready to step forward with my head up and my heart open. Ready to live. Ready to love. Ready to shine.

To year ahead, I already love you. Let’s do this.

© 2020 Cristen Writes

Stay

Stop running from your darkness. Stop letting your fears blind you to what desperately wants to be seen. Look into your shadows. Find your center and remain still. Stay present. Stay brave. Stay aware. Stay true and wait.

Just as the sun will rise again in the morning, so also will love rise up to meet you there, in your murky back alleys where hide your deepest wounds.

Have courage, dear one, and watch – as surely as the seasons turn, love will usher in a new dawn, bathing your battlefields in forgiveness, and planting wings where there once were chains.

© 2020 Cristen