The Most Exciting Adventure...

“We are all functioning at a small fraction of our capacity to live fully in its total meaning of loving, caring, creating and adventuring. Consequently, the actual seizing of our potential can become the most exciting adventure of our lifetime.”  

– Herbert Otto

sweet friends,

this is your permission slip to slap me if you see new posts here that aren't entitled "I FINISHED MY BOOK!"

with all my heart, i want to finish my book by march 1st. i also want to do a whole slew of other art that i can't tell you about quite yet. so, in the name of truly diving into the adventure of a lifetime, i'm giving myself permission to break from the blogosphere & social media worlds. if you see me here or there, permission to kindly escort me back to the land of wild unknown words and stories hidden in the dark.

howevah, if you'd like to cheer me on from afar, i will definitely take you up on the offer. send me an email (rachmadlove@gmail.com), subject line MAKE YOUR ART and i may occasionally send you a story, poem, song, photo... just for fun. and, for the sense that i'm not totally isolated or alone. ; )

i love you. merry merry everything.
gratitude to the moon and back.
and leaping lusting shade of love from the universe of uncharted worlds,
rachael

ps--i changed up my coaching business. radically. it's the best. i'm so happy about it. 100% honest and true. no sales. just service. yesssss. 
pps--we had a global love apocalypse. it was so lovely. pics from DC are here.

change, change, change

do you ever get the feeling
that your face has changed?
not because you can notice,
(the same way you can't notice
when the kid grows
an inch),
but because sometimes
you feel yourself smiling,
your forehead releasing, like
shoulders, when someone reminds
you to relax,
and suddenly it seems
that all the worst kinds of wrinkles
you've been chiseling into your dreams
are being quietly erased--
making way
for the kind of grace
that grows age like
honor-marks
wisdom-words
laughter leaving your lips
tumbling into a room of
youth, needing more than even you
the reminder that this life
is not meant to kill you
while you're still awake.
no, in this life, after darkness
comes the day
and even all those changes--
even they, will change

The Imperative of Kindness

Kindness
by Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
     purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.



~~~~~~~~~


For you, in case you're waking up with a certain shade of sorrow day after day, as I've been, for longer than I care to admit. 

To our collective courage, our small acts of self love and care, and kindness that travels with us wherever we may go... eventually, this is a kindness we shall know.

your art

he told me

when i told him

that i can't bare

to make any more

dark art

when i told him

that my heart

couldn't handle it

he told me

to stay longer

nothing only gets darker and darker

stay through

to the light

it's right

underneath

that pile of grief

don't fight

where you are--

it's your art

all the world

dear sun,

in the end,

is there always a rush

to do what we must

to see all the world

as beautiful?