Just popping in with a reminder that I will not be continuing to post these prayers here from now on. You can subscribe get them on Patreon HERE, subscribe to receive them in your inbox each week HERE, or follow me on Instagram HERE where I share them each week.
Thanks for all your support here.
Love,
Katherine.
Original photo by Masaaki Komori.
No words from me today, just a gentle invitation.
You are loved.
You are delightful.
Your heart remembers.
Journaling prompts to explore deeper are available for FREE over at: https://www.patreon.com/being_rekhast
A heads-up that I will not be continuing to post these here from the end of the year. You can subscribe get them on Patreon HERE, subscribe to receive them in your inbox each week HERE, or follow me on Instagram HERE where I share them each week.
Original photo by Mario Dobelmann.
Sink in to who you are becoming.
Sink in to who you already are.
Can you feel it, that quickening inside you? Life itself is on your side, Love Divine is behind you, beneath you, before you. You think you can misstep, my love, but there is nowhere you can step outside that love, no path you could follow that would not also lead you back home if you want it to.
Let you heart awaken. Let the fullness of yourSelf seep into (and out of) your very pours. Soak yourself in You-ness until you overflow, splashing your colour, your life out into the world around you. We need you awake, my darling. We need you fully enlivened. We need you fully YourSelf.
Maybe this is the first time you have heard the call, maybe you have been hearing it for decades, but it is time to allow your soul to call you back to yourSelf.
Perhaps you grew up surrounded by voices that wanted to squash you, mould you. Perhaps they tried to convince you that you were bad, ugly, wrong. Don’t you listen to them any more. You have all the permission you need to tune them out. It is time to turn inward, to listen to the voice of the Divine-Within, the voice of Love. Can you hear it? Here’s a hint: it whispers, “you are loved.” It tells you, “you are whole.” It shouts from the rooftops, “this is my child, in whom I am well-pleased.” It chants, over and over, never ceasing, “you are beautiful, you are delightful, you are powerful, you are miraculous, you are wholly and dearly loved.”
It’s time to trust that voice. It’s time to believe it. It’s time to soak it in and join our own voices to it: “We are loved. We are whole. We are the children of the Divine. The Divine is proud of us. We are beautiful. We are delightful. We are wholly and dearly loved.”
And it’s time to Live, wholly and fully yourSelf.
May you hold space for your full Self.
You are wholly loved.
You are worthy of fullness.
You are supported by the Divine.
Journaling prompts to explore deeper are available for FREE over at: https://www.patreon.com/being_rekhast
A heads-up that I will not be continuing to post these here from the end of the year. You can subscribe get them on Patreon HERE, subscribe to receive them in your inbox each week HERE, or follow me on Instagram HERE where I share them each week.
Original photo by Aaron Burden (edited by yours truly).
Everywhere I look around me there are reminders that the year is winding to a close. Newsletters home from school excitedly tell me just how few days there are left and, by the way, can you send a few dollars to cover this end of year activity, and another few for this other one? There are posts asking if there is anything I haven’t quite gotten around to yet this year – there’s still time! And emails inviting me to start planning what I want my life to look like in the new year.
And if that isn’t enough, all the flurry of shifting into a new decade invites reflection on, not just the past year, but the past ten. And to not just look ahead to the next one year, but ‘where do you want to be as the calendar rolls round to 2030?’
It is all hurry, hurry, hurry, bustle, bustle, bustle.
It is all too much.
There is a forcefulness to this time of year, as if you have to do these things and you have to do them Right Now. And if you don’t, then what kind of a mess is your life going to be next year, what on earth are you even doing?
And I just can’t think straight in it all.
It’s not that I don’t value reflection (I clearly do), and it’s not that I don’t want a vision of my future to work towards, it’s the pressure of it all I am resisting.
The rhythm feels off, to me.
Instead, I am choosing to listen in to my soulSelf, I am choosing to maintain the rhythm I have painstakingly found and built over this past year; and I am celebrating that I have found this rhythm, and that I trust it as much as I do.
It hasn’t always been this way. For decades I fumbled along trying to follow the rhythms other people told me were right, followed them right into depression, panic attacks, and burnout.
But I refuse to do that any more. I refuse to listen to the beat of a drum which does not match the rhythm inside of me, no matter how insistent it makes itself, no matter how entrenched it is in the world around me.
I am worth more than that. You are too.
So listen in.
And may you follow the rhythm of your soul
Your soul is trustworthy.
You are worth the effort and time to cultivate.
You deserve all the support you need.
Journaling prompts to explore deeper are available for FREE over at: https://www.patreon.com/being_rekhast
A heads-up that I will not be continuing to post these here from the end of the year. You can subscribe get them on Patreon HERE, subscribe to receive them in your inbox each week HERE, or follow me on Instagram HERE where I share them each week.
Original photo by Denny Müller.
I read this week that the root of the word religion is the same as ligament – ligare, meaning ‘to bind’. We bind ourselves to disciplines, traditions, authorities to help us live better lives, to draw closer to God, to become more fully ourselves, to be healthier, happier people.
We are born into, and grow up with, cultures (of which religion can be a part). We bind ourselves to those we love in marriage. Bindings, like ligaments, hold things together, even when stress is applied. Think of the stitching holding our clothes together, or glue holding the pages of a book.
Binding can be, and often is, a good thing. But binding can also look a lot like bondage – things held together when it is past time they moved separately. That glue, which so helpfully holds our book’s pages together, can also hold the lid on the glue bottle and make it unuseable.
Our language, too, binds us. We can only think and communicate in ways we have patterns of language for; our understanding can only reach as far as we have words to explain. A label can be both freedom or binding, it can invite us into expansion or squash us into conformation.
Any pattern of behaviour, tradition, system, was at one point life-giving or it would not have developed. Sometimes our patterns of behaviour, patterns of thought developed as a way to help us survive; and we can be grateful for that, but we can also acknowledge when they are no longer best for us and to let them go.
We get to choose. We get to choose what we are bound to, how tightly we are bound, how long we want that bond to continue. Maybe that glue is water-soluble and it is time to wash it off. Maybe the practices which once gave us life are now weighing us down.
We can choose to bind ourselves to disciplines which feed our souls. The key part is the freedom to choose.
Even ligaments break when there is too much stress and tension on them. They will tear, so that more vital parts of our bodies do not.
In the same way, our disciplines, our ties, our bindings should give way before we do; they should exist to support us and our soulselves, not the other way around. And watching our disciplines fall over, our patterns disrupted can become a healthy warning sign for us needing extra support or care.
Our bindings become dangerous to us when we try to maintain their integrity over our own wellbeing, when we compromise ourSelves, sacrifice who we are, in order to maintain our belonging, to meet shoulds, to chase love. Like ligaments, our bindings should bend and flex with us, giving us stability, but not immobility.
Maybe, like me, you are going through (or have been through) a period where every part of your life is being razed to the ground, one part after another after another; everything being burnt down to the bedrock, allowing you clarity, at last, to see what deep changes and healings need to take place. And, perhaps finally, with all the chaff burnt away, you can see enough to take action, to step into freedom.
May you find freedom where there has been bondage.
You are worthy of freedom.
You are worthy of love.
You are more than you patterning.
Journaling prompts to explore deeper are available for FREE over at: https://www.patreon.com/being_rekhast
A heads-up that I will not be continuing to post these here from the end of the year. You can subscribe get them on Patreon HERE, subscribe to receive them in your inbox each week HERE, or follow me on Instagram HERE where I share them each week.
Our illusions are comfortable and comforting. Our brains like them because they feel like they keep us safe. And our brains’ primary purpose is to keep us safe, comfortable, alive. The danger of illusions is that though they feel safe, they actually aren’t. They do not have the flexibility needed to respond freely to all the variation life brings.
But we cling to them.
We cling to the hope that maybe if we just follow the path laid out for us properly then we will receive the promised safety. And if it doesn’t, then we assume we did something wrong, that we are at fault, not good enough. We fail to see that the illusions and storylines we are caught in do not fit us, were not made for us, could never deliver what they seem to promise. And we hurt ourselves. We adopt new illusions, that we are bad, or wrong, or faulty. We cast new spells on ourselves which blind us from seeing any evidence to the contrary.
My work, lately, has been to ask, ‘why have I been doing x, y, z?’ It has been to identify where the sources(s) of my shoulds have come from, and what I am seeking to gain from doing them. When I conform to storylines laid out for me, what do I gain? who am I trying to please? what do I get if I manage to please them? (is it even possible to please them sufficiently or permanently?) Whose love am I trying to get, and why is it more important than my own? Why is it more important than being true to Who I Am?
It has meant asking, ‘why am I willing to live constricted?’ And, ‘who am I holding myself back for? who does it serve?’
My task in this life is not to appease others so that I might feel safe, loved, as though I belong.
The past few years have invited me, again and again, to question every part of my life, every choice that I make, every storyline that I believed would bring me happiness, security, love.
So much has not stood up to the light. So much has revealed itself as ill-fitting. And I have grieved over how much and how many times I have forced myself into different shapes and spaces.
The illusion that love and security come from people and systems is a strong one, fed to us early and often. The illusion that we live in a malevolent universe is a dominating one, that we must fight to survive, to get ahead. The illusions cage us, turn us against ourselves.
And I have been turned, again and again, back to myself, my Soul, and the Divine. I have been reminded, again and again, that I have more power to shape my life than I am used to believing. And I have remembered, again and again, that my true Self is beautiful, that my true Self is worth the work to excavate from all the illusions and stories cast about her, and that she is worth taking up space, she is worth holding space for.
Just as you are.
Stand as You Are, sovereign being.
You are worthy.
You are more than your illusions tell you.
Your true self is needed here in fullness.
Journaling prompts to explore deeper are available for FREE over at: https://www.patreon.com/being_rekhast
Or subscribe to receive them in your inbox each week HERE.
Original photo by Johannes Plenio.
After burning out in late 2018, this year I have been working to follow my delight, to deliberately choose to do things, seek things, explore things, which light me up. It has felt buoyant, unweighted, to step away from the shoulds, to follow my own inner guidance.
But pleasure feels like a call to go deeper, to lean further into soul satisfaction.
Pleasure. The word thrums with deep energy, calling to my deep.
Pleasure.
The idea of pleasure has got so caught up in concepts of lust, hedonism, irresponsibility. Puritan ideas that pleasure is somehow inherently wrong, dangerous.
And yet our bodies, our minds, our very beings, are formed to receive pleasure, to seek it.
Delight, I can handle. It is like soft foam, motes dancing in sunshine.
Joy – a godly pursuit, a heart open to light.
But pleasure, pleasure is different.
Darker, more earthy. It is linked to our bodies, to our senses and sensuality. Are you connected to your body? I struggle. A being that has fed me constant experiences of pain for decades. And yet. This female body of mine has a part that’s sole purpose seems to be receiving, forming, experiencing pleasure. I cannot deny that this body is wired for pleasure as much as it is wired for pain. Maybe more.
I used to delight in the way my body moved. No. Scratch that. I took pleasure in it. There was deep visceral pleasure in the way my body could move. The pull of muscles as I danced. The stretch and contraction as I climbed a tree. The mental and soul-deep satisfaction of pushing my body, of trying new things, of achieving.
I know pleasure is not only physical, sensual, sexual, but I do find that it can most easily be accessed through our senses when we are out of practice. I invite you to start deliberately practising experiencing pleasure.
May you allow your pleasure to unfold.
You are worthy of pleasure.
You are worthy of receiving.
You are more than your programming.
Pleasure is your birthright.
Journaling prompts to explore deeper are available for FREE over at: https://www.patreon.com/being_rekhast
Or subscribe to receive them in your inbox each week HERE.
Original photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen.
The moon arches high in the sky, growing fuller each day. Not yet a full circle, she remains open to receiving more of herself.
…………………………………………………..
The last few weeks have been full of deep ponderings. Circling around and around questions that have no easy answers, no easy way to an answer; questions which can only by answered by going in deep, by allowing myself to acknowledge things, feelings, behaviours I have been ignoring, putting off, putting up with. The only way to the answers I have been seeking is through the pain that I don’t want to feel, through the pain I don’t want to admit I’ve caused.
It has not been comfortable.
But it has been very revealing.
I have been calling myself back to old hopes, long-held desires. I have been calling myself back to what I know to be true, and good, and beautiful.
And I have been remembering the trust I once had in myself, in my soul, in my body. And I have been remembering the Great One who holds me all the way through.
It feels like the year is hastening to a close. I’ve begun receiving emails inviting me to reflect on the year gone, to begin planning for the year ahead. And I already have been. My soul has already called me there. But wider, bigger. I have been invited to reflect on my life as a whole, to remember my longings, and to dream a new future.
And it is painful to see where I have come, where my wounds and traumas and automatic survival responses have brought me. Yet in all of it, I am being invited into greater fullness, into more of who I am, into the hopes and dreams I have always longed for.
And these cracks, these seasons of falling apart become gifts, invitations into the deep, where I know I am held safe, where I am loved, where my longings for good and beautiful and fullness are echoed. A space where, like the moon, I can open to receive more of myself.
May your cracks feel like invitations.
You are worthy of beauty and goodness.
Your fullness is welcome, longed for.
You are held by Love.
Journaling prompts to explore deeper are available for FREE over at: https://www.patreon.com/being_rekhast
Or subscribe to receive them in your inbox each week HERE.
Original photo by Victor Zambrano.
Have you ever stopped to notice how contorted we are? And I don’t mean physically, though I do find myself on occasion holding some wildly uncomfortable position for far too long. I mean our inner selves.
As adults, we have needed to adapt ourselves to numerous situations, people, institutions, over the course of our life. From our childhood homes – our parents, siblings, the financial situation we were born into; our school environment – teachers, classmates, friends, school systems; our communities, wider society and culture; perhaps our partners, lovers, children.
Humans are highly adaptive.
But have you ever stopped to notice what all that adapting has done to you? What form it has forced or encouraged you to take?
I’m not saying it is a bad thing. Our adaptations help us (ensure we) survive. Our adaptations help us feel safe, help us know we have a place to belong.
But what if you hadn’t needed to? What if, instead, your environments had been able to adapt to you? What if you could choose, now, to adapt your environment to match you, instead of the other way around?
Perhaps this is how we change the world, by being willing to stand and say, “I disagree,” and then not to move, but to insist the world moves around us. Perhaps this is how we live in authenticity, as our fullest selves, by being willing to take a stand for our beliefs, our hopes, our preferences, our needs. Perhaps all the shoulds are a burden we never needed to bear, perhaps we don’t need to bear them now; perhaps we can make the life we want, the life we long for possible without them. Perhaps, like me, the shoulds have hurt you and punished you just for being who (and how) you are, for wanting what you want, for liking what you like.
Perhaps it’s time to dream up some new possibilities.
But uncontorting oneself is not easy. Nor is it painless. Like soul/psyche-muscles cramping as we move them from a position we’ve held too long, we will groan with our shifts. Like old foam padding pressed into permanent shape, our environment will no longer fit, and maybe won’t even know how to adapt, as we shift and change.
But maybe our universe isn’t made from old foam padding after all. Maybe it’s made of memory foam – the kind which gently spring back and supports us in whatever form we take, however we press in. Perhaps it will be able to support us even better once we remember ourselves again.
You are beautiful.
All of you is welcome.
You are worthy of fullness.
You are worth holding space for.
Journaling prompts to explore deeper are available for FREE over at: https://www.patreon.com/being_rekhast
Or subscribe to receive them in your inbox each week HERE.
Original photo by Eric Muhr.
I believe that in order to let go, first we must go in and remember. I believe that before we can move forward, we must be able to see and remember where we have come from.
Memories have laid heavily on me this week, memories of good times I want to remember and memories of bad times I shouldn’t have let myself forget. We cannot move forward if we cannot remember what we do not want to repeat. And we cannot move forward if we cannot remember the good times and then imagine more of them or new experiences which evoke these good feelings – how else do we know what we are moving towards?
I believe that the second key to transformation and healing, after grounding and calming the nervous system, is Awareness. Yes, awareness in the moment of our actions, but also awareness of our past patterns, lest we repeat them endlessly.
And I know how painful remembering can be. The last two weeks have been a flood of tears. Collected moments have added up to hours of howling. There is much grief in remembering some things.
But there is also hope.
And so I choose to remember.
And though tears be streaming and knees be knocking, I choose to heal, I choose to step forward, I choose to hope.
May you choose as well.
May you remember yourself forward.
I go days without seeing the moon. So much cloud this last week, clear skies at the wrong times, long nights spent sleeping or lost in thought. And yet the moon is there. Always. Even when we don’t see her, when we forget to look.
What have you forgotten? What has it been so long since you remembered? What have you gotten so used to avoiding or numbing or … that you don’t even remember that you are doing it, let alone why?
To you dare remember? Do you dare to open, once again, to the pain you have forgotten? to the dreams you haven’t realised?
What veils have you allowed to cloud your mind? What stories have you told yourself, over and over until you couldn’t believe anything else? “This is just the way it is.” “Things like that aren’t for people like me.” “It’s impossible; there’s no point.”
We remember in order to move forward. Re-membering ourselves so that forward motion is possible. We are dis-membered without our pasts, limbless, staggering, bleeding out.
What have you forgotten?
What hope is it time to breathe life back into?
What childhood dream is it time to play in?
What intuitions did you brush off and forget?
When we choose not to remember, we hobble and bind our intuition. We cut off our ability to trust ourselves if we do not allow ourselves to hold all the information within us.
Re-membering is an act of bringing ourselves back together – gifting our fullness back to ourselves.
Where have you allowed yourself to forget?
It is not always obvious when a memory is missing. Sometimes you start telling a story and suddenly a piece just isn’t there, a word won’t come out – despite being on the tip of your tongue. But other times it is like a mist of veil slowly creeps in and covers them, and we do not miss them because we do not go looking. Until one day, if ever, we realise there is a whole valley we cannot see from our window, there is a whole river which used to run through our lives, vanished without a sound.
In our inattention, we allow our being to be stolen away, small piece by piece.
These is a culture on this earth where they remember by dismembering. When someone dear to you dies – a husband, a brother, a best friend – they bind around their little finger above the last knuckle so tight that the last part of the finger dies and falls off. Part of them, too, is missing, with their loved on gone.
What parts of yourself have you cut off?
Perhaps you were told a childhood dream wasn’t possible – or practical – ant to you haven’t gone near it ever since. But that has meant you have not dances, or drawn, or penned a poem, or sung into the wind, in decades.
Do you remember the joy and delight it would give you, before you were taught to look at it through the eyes of capitalism and “practicality”?
Since when is joy not practical, not an essential part of life?
What is it not safe to remember?
What are you not remembering in order to keep yourself safe? Which part of your self is kept safe in doing that? (is it working?)
What are the good things you remember, that spur you on to more and better?
What are the feelings which surround these memories?
You are worthy of fullness.
Your future is worth remembering for.
Journaling prompts to explore deeper are usually available for FREE over at: https://www.patreon.com/being_rekhast
This week they are here, scattered through my writing. There are downloadable images, including one all ready for using on your phone, and usually printable journaling booklet available to patrons.
Or subscribe to receive them in your inbox each week HERE.
reKhast 