Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘self-care’

Nyctinasty

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 9, 2026| 4 Comments »

By night, the mountain gentian
closes the dark purple vase of its petals,
tightening around its most vulnerable parts,
protecting its nectar from cold night air,
from heavy dew. Everything is at stake. 
 
Oh woman who longs to stay open, 
to ever unfold, to widen your arms
in an ever expansive reach, 
what do you have to learn 
from the wisdom of wildflower, 
from the natural systole and diastole
of open and close, open and close?
 
How might your own growth
depend on learning to wrap 
those well-intentioned arms
around your own center 
and tuck in to that primary,
essential embrace? 
 

Read Full Post »

In Evening Light

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on June 22, 2026| 4 Comments »


 
 
She lets us touch her neck, her back, that beautiful,
old, black mustang. Cautiously, we flank her
and stroke her taut sides, our hands full of praise.
Her large gray eyes droop. She begins to drool.
Joe laughs, saying she is so at ease 
she is about to fall asleep. 
I am thinking of how every morning I take
calcium, B-vitamins, drink water with lemon,
believing small daily habits make a big difference
over time. Perhaps it is the same with awe—
spending even a few moments a day touching
something greater than we are will eventually
change who we are inside. I believe that tonight, 
moved as I am by the surprising softness of her hips, 
the trust she conveys with her stillness, my palm 
moving slowly against her side. Her ease becomes 
my ease as I watch my daughter rest her forehead 
on the mustang’s withers. The great being’s trust 
becomes my trust as the sunset turns 
the whole world to amber, to gold. 

Read Full Post »

One Clearing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on March 22, 2025| 4 Comments »


 
 
every day I dismantle its nest,
that fear that wings darkly
into my thoughts

Read Full Post »

After a Difficult Day

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on July 19, 2023| 8 Comments »


 
 
I go to the garden
and snip the dead blooms
and talk to the beans
and stake the tall stalks
of blue delphiniums.
I plunge my hands
in the dirt to pull weeds
and pull spinach into my mouth.
In an hour, I am wholly new.
But to remember who I am,
five minutes will do.

Read Full Post »

For Five Minutes in Belize

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 18, 2022| 12 Comments »



On a wooden plank
only eight inches wide
I stood thirty feet
above the ocean
and stared at the waves below,
stared at the horizon,
stared at my fear of heights,
stared until I felt such deep peace
standing on this slender choice.
All it would have taken
was one step.
One step, and gravity
would have done the rest
to plunge me into the ocean
in the name of fun.
The whole time I stood there,
I thought of you,
how you would have
leapt from that plank
with no hesitation.
I loved this about you—
your abandon,
your joy in launching
into something new.
Gravity, they say,
is the weakest force we know.
Though it can hold galaxies together,
it’s weak enough
to overcome it every day.
Weak though it is,
I’d like to say
I overcame it.
That I stood at the edge
and chose, instead of falling,
to hold things up—
chose to hold up
the memory of you falling,
chose to hold up
my own tired heart,
chose to stand
in a difficult place
and notice how beautiful it was,
the golden light on the water,
the wind on my skin,
chose to walk a narrow path
that felt kind to myself,
though in my head
the voice kept saying
jump, jump, jump.

Read Full Post »