love love love

sitting here on this sunday night in the stillness.  i am thinking about life, mine in particular.  i know i've thought this, felt this and probably said it a thousand times, but when it boils right down to it, te only thing that matters, is of any real spiritual or soulful value in life is love.  

i belong to facebook group called "the three blessings".  members usually post daily at least three things they are grateful for or feel blessed by.  sometimes i struggle with three things.  most of the time i can make a list much longer.  tonight i kept it simple.  my three blessings were:

love

love 

love

it's so simple and covers everything.  it's not just the love i receive.  it's that, too, but it's more.  there is so much love in the world but so often what we seem to focus on are the ills of society.  (guilty!)  however, i bet if we just stop and consider all the love that exists in the world, we couldn't even fathom it. 

i feel blessed by love.  the love between my kids and i, the love between siblings, the love i've shared with coop and mark, the love shared with my animal companions.  

but tonight...tonight i am feeling especially blessed by the love of the man in my life.  and sometimes the love in me is so big i don't quite know what to do with it.  i never used to love so hard, but life and loss in particular have taught me to give in, embrace and experience it completely.  

is it scary?  yeah, it is for me because life has shown me what incredible loss feels like, so there is always the element of fear.  but i also know that it's worth the risk.  if we've never truly loved we've never truly lived.   

tonight i go to bed with a grateful heart for all the love in my life and in the world.  

demons

DEMONS

 i like to think i live alone, but i don't.  they are always with me.

sometimes they rest, but i know it's just a temporary reprieve. 

all it takes is one small thing and they swoop in and before you know it i become mistrusting, indecisive, needy, unworthy...all the things that make me hate myself.

i like to think i'm strong enough to conquer them and the thoughts they feed me.  i wish i believed i was.

obviously i'm not.

with thoughts of jason

"And so you see, I have come to doubt All that I once held as true; I stand alone without beliefs. The only truth I know is you."

i am not old

I am not old… she said

I am rare.

I am the standing ovation

At the end of the play.

I am the retrospective

Of my life as art

I am the hours

Connected like dots

Into good sense

I am the fullness

Of existing.

You think I am waiting to die…

But I am waiting to be found

I am a treasure.

I am a map.

And these wrinkles are

Imprints of my journey

Ask me

anything.

Author: Samantha Reynolds

tarnished glory

 

every once in awhile...

 ...we need a little alan watts reminder...

she was brave

 

she was beautiful

SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL....

.... but she didn't know what that meant.

When she was a little girl

they told her she was beautiful

but it had no meaning

in her world of bicycles

and pigtails

and adventures in make-believe.

Later, she hoped she was beautiful

as boys started taking notice

of her friends

and phones rang for

Saturday night dates.

She felt beautiful on her wedding day,

hopeful with her

new life partner by her side

but, later,

when her children called

her beautiful,

she was often exhausted,

her hair messily tied back,

no make up,

wide in the waist

where it used to be narrow;

she just couldn't take it in.

Over the years, as she tried,

in fits and starts,

to look beautiful,

she found other things

to take priority,

like bills

and meals,

as she and her life partner

worked hard

to make a family,

to make ends meet,

to make children into adults,

to make a life.

Now,

she sat.

Alone.

Her children grown,

her partner flown,

and she couldn't remember

the last time

she was called beautiful.

But she was.

It was in every line on her face,

in the strength of her arthritic hands,

the ampleness that had

a million hugs imprinted

on its very skin,

and in the jiggly thighs and

thickened ankles

that had run her race for her.

She had lived her life with a loving

and generous heart,

had wrapped her arms

around so many to

to give them comfort and peace.

Her ears had

heard both terrible news

and lovely songs,

and her eyes

had brimmed with,

oh, so many tears,

they were now bright

even as they dimmed.

She had lived and she was.

And because she was,

she was made beautiful.

~ Suzanne Reynolds, © 2019

Photo credit: Nina Djerff

Model: Marit Rannveig Haslestad

your new life ...

 

the answer

do you know why i am soft and submissive with you?

do you understand that i haven't been this way with others?

it is because you have given me permission to be comfortable in my own skin

and shown me that through your eyes, your words, your touch, that i am a beautiful being.

you have loved my body as a temple, accepting all of the flaws as if they were perfection.

in doing so you have taken away so much of the shame and insecurity i've felt and opened me up to my goddess self.

you have helped to vanquish my fear of emotional and physical nakedness...and rejection.

you have allowed me to reveal myself and flourish in my true feminine sexual nature, allowing me to be a tiger or a kitten.

in your love and adoration you have made a safe place for me.

you have created trust.

and that is the real answer.  

hope

tonight i watched the memorial for the victims of covid 19, listened to the words spoken and witnessed the lighting of the lincoln memorial reflecting pool.  as i watched i thought about all that has transpired in the past year; the pandemic and lives lost to it, the hatred that has risen and shown its ugly face and the lives lost to that.  i thought about all the people who have died alone without the comfort of loved ones near.  i thought about all those who are grieving and those yet to grieve.  as i did, the tears began to flow and a prayer rose up in me for all of us, not just those in this nation but those across the globe.  i prayed for an end to this pandemic, for an end to the hatred and the grief.  i prayed for a cure, for humanity to become more compassionate, for unity, for all those grieving to find some comfort and for all of us to hold love and hope in our hearts.

i want to be filled with hope, but it's hard when the news keeps getting worse.  it's hard after we've seen the nation's capitol under siege by our very own citizens.  yet what else is there but to cling to that thread of hope no matter how small?  

as i was browsing my facebook memories i came across these words i shared 11 years ago by orison swett marden, "There is no medicine like hope , no incentive so great , and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow."

coincidence? maybe. what is coincidence but a word we use to define a synchronicity we don't understand? all i know is this, we must have hope lest we give up and giving up is not an option in these dark times. call it hope or faith, we must believe that at some point light will permeate the darkness and that even when we can't see it, it is.

i am not a christian nor do i adhere to organized religion because i don't believe we need religion to have faith in something better or to be better, yet i offer this quote from hebrews 11:1, "now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen".  

i believe we need only to retain hope and to be that light.  i believe we are the prayer and the answer.