It’s how we’re made.

But somewhere along the way, we buy into the idea that we shouldn’t need so much. Shouldn’t want so hard.

Put on the armor.
Place another brick on the wall.
Practice your poker face.
Never let ’em see you sweat.

You’ve probably seen that post that got shared everywhere. The one about how ultra independence is a trauma response. And yo, last I checked, not many of us get through this ride called life without at least a dash of trauma.

It makes so much sense. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me, amiright?

We live in a culture of individualism.
Batten down the hatches.
Every human for themselves.
Don’t worry, I got this.

Right. Except we don’t got this. Not alone. Not really. It just isn’t how we’re made.

And when we start wanting and needing as we inevitably will (as perfectly designed as we are for the collective and communal experience of living) the voices in our heads can get awfully loud.

You know the voices.

The voice that says we are asking/wanting/needing/seeking too much.
The voice that says we ARE too much.

And at that pivotal point of extension into whatever lies on the other side of safety. At the outreach. At the possibility. At the space where we are asked to leave the safe harbor and venture into unknowing waters where we absolutely cannot go it all alone, even if we wanted to (and let’s be honest, we really don’t ) those voices can get terribly loud.

They say that this much needing is not safe. Way too vulnerable.

Our alarm systems start blaring and the self-destruct warning flashes a yellow-orange-red threat of incoming DANGER.

This happens to me as much as it happens to anyone. I feel so deep and want so much, so often, that it takes my breath away. Inside of the strong and confident and sovereign woman is a tender girl who burns with needs and hopes and the wildest of wishes.

And much of what I want and need I may never get to have. I know this.

This is what it is to be human, of course. Not a single guarantee and a hell of a lot of wild unknowns and some crashing heartbreaks along the way. None of us get out of this clean.

But the story of being here, alive and human, is more than just that. So much more. To allow the truth of wanting is to allow the possibility of having.

This human thing? It’s also full of stories of the sort of magic that can happen when we trust our knowing, wanting, craving selves.

When we remove the stigma of being ‘needy’ and instead acknowledge that for any of these dreams to come true we HAVE to know and name our own needs.

We have to be so intimate with our wants that we trust them to live outside the safe confines of our tender hearts. Even when we might be judged or fear we won’t be met. Even when the crash and burn seems inevitable.

And you know what – we do that. Again and again and again.

Holy hell, how can that not be an act of bravery, of sovereignty, of solidarity of self?

So amen to your perfectly needy heart.
Amen to your grasping hands and your tender longing and the way your body spills over with desire.
Amen to the wishing well pennies and the shooting stars and the crossed fingers and the wood you can’t seem to stop knocking in spite of yourself.
Amen to the want and the crave and the burn.
And hallelujah to the having, when it comes, to the wholeness when it arrives, to the spaces where it all comes together, if only for a moment.

To be human is to have needs.
To speak them is a wild reclamation.
To be met inside of them is a holy miracle.

Every. single. time.

The post amen to your perfectly needy heart. appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

“All day long I expend
I hold together, I lift up, I give out
I pour life for the food supply, irrigate crops in my mouth
It is a rare occasion where I just take in.”

Dear Human

You are allowed to receive.

No. You don’t have to have a counter move.

No, you’re not being asked to come up with a specific act of reciprocation.

No, in this exact moment you don’t have to plan your give back or return the favor or pass it on or pay it forward.

You just have to receive.

Really and fully and entirely receive. I’m talking throw yourself back on the bed, open yourself wide, close your eyes and take it all the way into your being.

I’m saying holy-wow-“I’ll have what she’s having”, prepare-to-feel-the-earth-move.

I’m saying, you get to AND you have permission to AND you are allowed to accept what is being offered AND feel damn good about it.

Not guilty. Not sheepish. Not unworthy. Not uncomfortable. Not undeserving. Not conflicted.

I’m saying that if you breathe with me now you can relinquish your hold on control. Just for long enough to feel that goodness for no other reason than because you want to feel it and there’s someone ready and willing to offer.

(Because when that equation lines up, love, that’s miracle enough to celebrate, right there).

So, right now, maybe someone, somewhere just wants to give you something. Something big or something small or something logistical or emotional or financial or ridiculous.

You’re struggling like hell with that, aren’t you, my sweet?

Yeah. It’s scary, I get it.

It might not feel safe, not at first.

Not when all you’re used to is give-give-giving to those who just show up to take.

Not when you’ve experienced gifts that only come with expiration dates and loopholes and paybacks with interest.

Not when you’re used to holding up the whole world in the palm of your hands and it’s been a damn long time since anyone has come along offering anything.

But is there is someone in your life right now showing up in a position to give, freely and wholeheartedly?
Without unnecessarily taxing themselves?
From a solid and grounded place of gratitude and respect?

Someone who comes without expectation or condition or and agenda. Someone who sees you and your beauty and your goodness.
Someone who honors your work and your value and your purpose and your offering to the world.
Someone who acknowledges the wonder of you and who simply wants to offer something in return…

Something real?
Something you want and/or need?
Something that would make your life more beautiful or easier or bring you joy?
Something that would offer you enough breathing space to get through another day?

Yes? Wonderful!

So tell me, dear human….

WTF are you doing blocking that shit?

Guess what?

You don’t get points for refusing goodness.

There is no gold medal for struggling to do it all on your own.

No prizes awarded for not allowing yourself the gift of what you want when it’s being offered with open arms.

You don’t earn extra lives by making the one you’ve been given even the slightest bit harder for a single solitary minute.

That’s some bullshit baggage we’ve been handed by this deeply broken, fucked up, transactional, tit-for-tat culture. And it needs to end now.

Yes, I know you’ve got wounds from past lives, and triggers and baggage and trauma and a ridiculous measure of stubbornness and enough pride for ten people.

We all do.

But if you’re still having trouble, remember how good it feels when you get to give from a space of solidity and truth. When your tank is filled and you know you’ve got something to offer. When you love someone or want someone or look up to someone enough to want to give them what you have. And (and this is important) when they accept it with gratitude and grace.

That shit feels AMAZING.

Truth: blocking what the universe is offering (when you know you really want and need it) you is kinda an insult. It muddies some really beautiful waters with a tangle of past shit that doesn’t have any place in your current reality. It blocks the energy flow for both the giver and the would-be receiver — and nobody gets to take in the gift.

And that, my friend, is a pity.

So do me a favor and make this one word your prayer. Your mantra. Your rosary. Your meditation. Your holy grail.

RECEIVE.

Say it with me now… RECEIVE

receive-receive-receive-receive-receive.

The goodness.
The rest.
The care.
The heat.
The help.
The healing.
The offering.
The assistance.
The respite.
The honoring.
The tenderness.
The boost.
The laughter.
The money.
The pleasure.
The pleasure.
My-god-my-god-my-god, the pleasure.

From your partner. From your lover. From your friend. From the random intersection of serendipity and luck and coincidence. From your parents. From your mentor. From your peer. From your spouse. From the universe.

Recieve.

It honors the offering and the one who makes the offer. But most of all it honors YOU. Your ability to feel gratitude that overrides guilt. Your willingness to stretch into acceptance instead of control. Your worthiness. Your deservingness.

You, you bright startlight of a human. YOU. 

Let it be your time.
Let it be your space.
Let the whole room and everything in it be devoted to meeting your needs.

Just for a moment. 
Just long enough that you are fed. 
Just deep enough that you are filled. 

This is why we are all here, together.

To do what we can when we can do it.
To lift and lay down. 
To offer and receive.

Whole hearts. Tender bodies. Miraculous souls.

So for the love of all things good and holy, let it in, dear human…

Lay back and surrender and let it all the way in.

The post You Are Allowed To Receive appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

This shit is hard. I want to write something eloquent and heartfelt with a side of gentle humor. But I can’t really muster that right now.

And also, I’m thinking that instead of waiting for me to collect all the right words maybe you just need to hear it plain and simple.

This shit is hard.

Tears in the back of the closet so nobody hears hard. Wracking your brain for the next miracle hustle you’ll pull out of thin air to cover the end of month bills hard. Kids delivering up the brutal truth of how exactly not present you are because you’re torn in ten directions hard.

Christmas tree not decorated and panic attacks in the shower over how the hell to pull off Christmas hard. Trying to be everywhere at once hard. Coming face-to-face with your limitations and damn humanness every moment hard.

Being everything to everyone hard. Feeling alone and underwater hard. Dinner not cooked till 9 pm hard. House like a demolition zone hard. Life nothing like you wanted or expected hard. Ain’t nobody there to dry your tears so you’d better hold it together hard. Not gonna lose it till they go to bed hard.

And yes there are blessings and privileges and deep joy.

But it’s actually okay if you’re not feeling them or dwelling there tonight.

Some nights, it’s okay to let what is hard be hard without putting some forced gratitude positive spin on things.

I’m telling you it’s got to be okay mostly because I need it to be okay.

Because yes, this shit is hard.

It’s hard if you do it alone part-time and it is even harder to do it alone full time. I’ve done both and there isn’t an easy road here.

There’s a reason this parenting thing has always typically been done in pairs. A reason that extended families stayed close and sayings like “it takes a village” exist.

We are not fucking meant to do this alone.

Like most specific realities, single parenting is a reality I don’t believe it’s possible to even remotely understand unless you’ve lived it. And if you’re living it with the extra burden of financial fears or uninvolved or difficult ex-partners or medical or mental health issues (or any number of other life complications that I can’t even begin to know or understand) it becomes exponentially harder.

I’m a self-employed single mama who barely scrapes by most months. And even in that, I know all the ways I’ve got it good. I sure as hell do not have it the hardest.

But yes. Still. This shit is hard.

And I see all of you in it. In all your specific single parenting realities and challenges. And by god, I feel you deeply.

So if you’re out there tonight doing it alone.

And if it’s feeling hard as hell and even lonelier and more isolating than that… just know you’re not alone.

It’s my fellow single parents who keep me afloat on nights like this. Because they get it. They get it like nobody else can. The totality of it. The pressure. The don’t you dare drop a ball but balls are dropping all over the damn place anyway. The exhaustion. The relentlessness. The holding up an entire world (or two or three or more) all by yourself.

So if you’re having a night the way I’m having a night. I’m here. You’re not alone. I get it. I’m with you.

Sometimes just knowing that is the only thing that saves us.

The post Shout out my fellow single parents. appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

Hey you,

If you’re alone tonight and you don’t want to be —come join me in the togetherness we can always find when we stare up at the wisdom of the same bright moon. You whisper her your secrets, and I will whisper her mine, and she’ll hold them both safely and wink back at us to remind us that we’re never really alone as long as she’s watching.

If you’re in your own dark night of the soul and things seem bleak, and you’re not quite sure how you’re going to make it one more moment — come and sit here together with me in the sort of silence that knows all things. Let me light a candle as we sit in vigil for each other, because god knows we all need a little more light and a little more presence and a little more of something that feels like it should be called holy. 

If you’re grieving or heartbroken or wondering how you’re going to go on without someone in your life or in this world or in your heart or in your arms — I’ll meet you there, out in the place where hope retreats into the shadows.  I’ll tell you stories of all the times I had given up, only to find magic that I could never have seen coming. And you’ll remember stories of your own. And then we’ll throw our heads back and laugh at how easily we forget how much we’ve already survived and just how possible it is to love again and again and all over again. 

If your body is hurting, bones and muscle and joints and all the moving and beating and breathing parts not working like they should. If this robs you of independence or identity or ability or options or desperately needed rest. If the silence left in the wake of holding it in, of being stoic, of not letting on just how bad it really is becomes a roaring cacophony that fills in all the spaces. If it wears you down and down and down again, all that your one finite body must hold in a single day — give me some of your load to carry. Tell me where it hurts, let me lay my hands on the aching parts and offering healing and love and care and tenderness as if you already knew you deserved it.

If the bills are high and the tension is mounting, and you can’t see a pathway through no matter where you look. If it feels like everyone is looking to you for the answers and all you have are increasingly desperate questions. If you’re working deep into the night and waking before dawn and giving it your all only to feel like it all keeps slipping between your fingers — reach a little farther into that void.  Grab my hand and hold tight and I’ll hold tight too, and together we’ll remember just how much more you can carry and hold when you’ve got two sets of hands to do all the lifting.

If you’re so starved for connection, for contact, for the feeling of a body holding yours or to lie in the arms of another. If it’s been so long since your skin has felt the weight of another body that it tries to forget that it ever mattered and to erase the muscle memory of a time when it was here. If your skin is hungry and your body is ravenous, and your soul is desperate  — let’s just lie here, heart to heart. I’ll hold you, and you hold me, and we will stay without moving until the fierce animal of our bodies begin to relax and unwind into something that feels like breathing. 

If joy feels like a distant, far away thing. If you’ve wandered far enough off the path that you can’t quite sense yourself any longer. If questions about what you like or want or need send you into a tailspin of panic because you had forgotten you had a right to those answers.  If the sadness or the depression or the anxiety has cost so much, cut you off not only from the people you love but from the root of your own heart, come out into the earth with me, barefoot and ready. Let’s imagine we are trees, with the roots we most need growing out of our own feet and deep down into the earth, and the sun above raising our arms as branches to the sky so hungry for the light, and we are living and living and living without even knowing how, because we are. We always are. 

When all that you hold is too impossibly heavy, let’s find somewhere beautiful to lay it down together. 

When the hurt runs so deep and so high that the dam threatens to burst, let’s cut a swath through the terrain and thunder our way to the ocean. 

When you think that you’ve never felt more alone, let’s play marco polo at the top of our lungs until we can find each other in the dark. 

When it’s all just too much, let’s remind each other that we are always and forever precisely enough. 

When protection and walls and hurt have barricaded your heart, invite me over for a demolition party. 

When the demons speak loudly and try to convince you that you do not have worth, you call me up and let me remind you that you are priceless. 

When the silence fills the room, let’s turn up the music and dance. 

When it seems like there is no chance, let’s paint the walls with an endless list of just how many second chances got us to where we are right now. 

When the loss is too much to bear, let’s redistribute the weight and find a different way to carry the load. 

When the light threatens to go out, let’s light a thousand more candles until the whole world glows. 

You’re not meant to do this alone. 
You’re not meant to bear this alone.
You’re not meant to live through this alone. 
You’re not meant to have to keep all the lights lit or the demons at bay or the questions answered alone. 
You’re not meant to suffer in silence or deny your pain or hold it all inside alone.
You’re not meant to walk this alone, nor survive this alone, nor heal this alone.

We are not made to be alone. 

We are made for a complex and infinite web of love and family and community. We fit inside of it all, each a puzzle piece with a million possible placements, but not a single one that doesn’t fit somewhere and everywhere all at once. 

This is it, I am learning. The whole fucking reason for the whole fucking thing. We are in this together. 

We have to be, or it all ends. 

We have to be, or what’s the point?

We have to be, because if not, we just keep wounding each other. 

We have to be, because that is how we were made and this is what we were made for. 

So lay it all down, just for a moment. 

The pain, the hurt, the grief, the depression, the trauma, the heartbreak, the anxiety, the strain, the loneliness, the fear. 

The all.

All is not lost. 

You belong to something greater. 

I promise you this. 

We all do. 

We belong to each other. Fumbling caretakers though we may be. We belong to each other. 

So, lay every last bit down right now. 

And come find me, out there in the vastness of this world, this lifetime, this night. 

Come find me.

The post Come Find Me {We Belong Together} appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

It’s a beautiful gift to self to come to the earth gradually and with breath and sunlight, rather than by the blare of an alarm clock. To move slowly through that period of transition. To stretch and unfurl.

And so today I decided to do something I have not done in a while, to roll out my yoga mat and give myself the gift of a short ten-minute practice.

As I do every single time I return, feeling the stretch of muscles that have been begging for release and the way breath settles deeper somehow, and the way my feet root into the earth just a little more solidly, I wonder:

Why on earth do I ever allow myself to move away from this, when there is nothing about this that does not feel needed and good?

And then it came to me, as I bent and twisted, reaching and breathing and feeling the tightness and constriction name itself, and maybe even release, just a tiny bit.

This is what it is to be human, to be walking around in these bodies of blood and bone and breath. This is the journey, to return to ourselves again and again, just as I – no matter how long away – will always return to the mat.

I’m never the star in yoga class. I don’t have the natural flexibility, nor do I usually stick to it for long enough to unlock what holds me on a more deep level. I have bent knees when others are straight. My spine curves when it ought to be lengthened. I can never quite manage to balance in crow. And so it is that I often feel the same in life. Moving slower than I would like through whatever muck I find myself in. Turning right when the rest of the room is turning left. Never quite finding the balance to master the more challenging balances with finesse and grace.

And I lose myself. Again and Again. Despite how damn good it feels when I return to wholeness and embodiment. I abandon the practice. I leave, or perhaps it is more honest to say that I forget to stay.

We all do.

I walk off the mat of my own knowing. I roll it up in the corner and I forget, moving through life without attention or intention. Becoming more constricted, more tight, more folded.

Less true.

Less alive.

Less me.

And I blame myself for that. Just as I disparage myself for not having the willpower to stick with a practice that is never anything short of a gift. I speak to myself unkindly and ask how I could be so fickle. How I could have wandered off again, leaving myself behind, betraying what I know to be true. Folding inward, tightening around my own idea of what I should be – like sails tied tightly around the mast of a docked ship that wants nothing more than to ride the open waves of the ocean she calls home.

And then it happens, as it always does. That there is a quiet night. And instead of sitting mindlessly on my phone or computer, I stop to light the candles on my coffee table. Three blood red, sitting on an Atlantic ocean stone, and one white. And I choose the music that speaks to me right then. I move a little, sliding hands over skin and remembering what it is to be here, alive. I pour the smallest amount of whiskey into a mason jar, and hold it up to the light of those candles, amber glowing in cut glass. And then I take a sip – not for the alcohol, but because there is some kind of alchemy there, in that first sip. Some sort of unfolding. A glimpse. A memory. A thread.

If I follow it, if the space is right – I can speak or write or dream or dance my way into truths I don’t fully understand yet. I can live inside of the questions and let them be sacred and fertile. I can allow the wanting of what is wanted, in that sliver of space and to name it and know it as good.

And those nights – I realize that I can return, again and again, to the spaces that are wholly me. Just like I can return to the mat. And that it isn’t the leaving that is worth all the attention, nor even the time away. That one moment of choice. It is that simple step. The stepping back. To the mat. To the music and the muse and the glow of candle light into the darkening night.

To the self.

Perhaps we don’t need to worry so much about the spaces in between. The vastness of the desert we wander through, searching for the way home. Perhaps that

time is vital in ways we will never understand. And perhaps we can find space to accept that the journey toward and away from is a part of the dance. Part of what makes the return so deep and so sweet and so whole and so holy.

This morning, on the mat, instead of blaming myself for all the days I had lived in constriction – I gave myself ten minutes to unfurl. To feel the newness of my body – different every single time I come home. To be fully in that moment of return. To fill my own sails with the air I’ve been carrying in any own lungs, all this time.

Get Lost. Breathe. Return.

This is how we live. And fuck if it isn’t beautiful.

The post Return To Yourself – Again and Again appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

tadasana, urdhva hastasana, uttanasana,
anjaneyasana, plank, chaturanga dandasana,
urdhva mukha svanasana, adho mukha svanasana.

over and over again.

tadasana, urdhva hastasana, uttanasana,
anjaneyasana, plank, chaturanga dandasana,
urdhva mukha svanasana, adho mukha svanasana.

over and over again.

tadasana, urdhva hastasana, uttanasana,
anjaneyasana, plank, chaturanga dandasana,
urdhva mukha svanasana, adho mukha svanasana.

over and over again.

tadasana, urdhva hastasana, uttanasana,
anjaneyasana, plank, chaturanga dandasana,
urdhva mukha svanasana, adho mukha svanasana.

over and over again.

The post Over and over and over again appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

The week of wine in mason jars and the tears that hit so hard I became salt water for a while and as the night grew deeper I pulled a chair into the kitchen to reach high on tip toes to search for the cigarette hidden so many months ago. The week of sitting on the patio at midnight feeling the desert heat blanket my body and pulling smoke into lungs and watching the embers burn.

This was the week the shots went down smooth and hard and the sun baked bones and I jumped in the pool and swam with all my clothes on under the light of the desert moon.

The week that both bank accounts surrendered to the pressure and flared red and overdraft charges lit up my phone, ping, ping, ping to announce just how far I am from my ideas of where I think I should be. And it is also the week that angels appeared, out of the blue, and said, “Your art, It is good. Thank you for making it. Please do not stop. And here is some money to show you I mean this.” And the week that I cried from the mercy of that.

It was the week of friends and laughter and the burn of whiskey mingled with the tart sweetness of berries and walking city streets and feeling all the way alive.

It was the week of the two step floor and the return to self that only ever happens in the center of the quick-quick-slow-slow and the way my being knows to follow the slightest pressure on back or arm without thought. It just does what bodies are meant to do and we spin and spin and spin under the neon lights.

This was the week the words returned. The week the pen began to find it’s hungry path along page and she said to me that the desert turned ocean. The week of poetry flowing liquid honey smooth, without hiding its jagged edges – like truth spilled hard into fractured light.

The week of chipped nails and carefully painted lips, the color of dark red wine and old blood and the deepest and richest of memories.

It was the week of the beginning of an unnamed reckoning, which is different than a reckoning itself, but a beginning nonetheless.

It was the week I lit the red candles and burned the black silk and opened a cigar box filled to the brim with reverence and lessons I imagined already learned returned – as they always do – to teach me more.

This was the week of cut off jeans and black spaghetti strap tanks and the lightest kimonos that trailed across my skin and danced around my legs as I walked. The week of bare feet in wet grass and honest sweat and a soft, almost impossible tenderness to self in the moments it counted most.

It was the week of standing up and rooting down and saying here I stay, at least for a little while, at least until the ground becomes firm beneath these feet of mine. The week of testing out the beginnings of a path that leads to some mysterious somewhere that might be a sort of one day home. The week of recentering and of finding the beginnings of my own knowing and naming it good.

It is the week of craving the hard asphalt of the streets and graffitied grit of a city that does not yet know me. And wanting a crowded dark and bodies against bodies against bodies and taking in the things that make the edges blur and being there, right there, and falling into an abandon that encompasses everything.

This was the week my body, finally, let go just a little. Just enough.

The week the feather and the light and the far away earth quake came to teach me of the ways we make meaning of things and what the word truth really means and to remind me why.

This is the week that the melody rose from my skin and my home filled with music again. From the time of waking until sleep – so that the week, in its own way, turned into a dance. The week of that one ‘I’m On Fire’ cover played on repeat – hundreds of times, or maybe more. Until it moved itself through me and filled the space around me and spoke to me of the way I am always wanting.

The week that we three found some measure of equilibrium, finally, in the topsy turvy that has been life. Where darkness fell and found us in the marshmallow bed, me in the center, one head on each shoulder and one of my arms wrapped around each one. Their weight against me, hearts falling in sync. The week I knew enough to name this feeling peace and grace and the reason for all.

The week we shared the near perfect rendition of Bust-a-Move together while driving to hockey. Each word delivered on time and in it’s place. And we smiled at each other as we sang and I knew in my being both the memory and experience of joy.

The week that the coffee tasted like gratitude and I conjured the ghosts and chose the terms of my own haunting.

This was the week the unfolding began.

And this was the week that I danced. Finally. All alone in that dark room, while the candles cast their shadows against the wall and the music undid something way deep inside.

This was the week that finally, I danced.

The post the week the unfolding began appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

“If I needed you. Would you come to me? Would you come to me for to ease my pain?
If you needed me, I would come to you. I would swim the sea for to ease your pain.”
~If I needed You – Emmylou Harris

Dear sweet strong one,

We see you.

You can hold up entire worlds with the force of your love. You nurture and you hold and you knit together and you dry tears and you heal the wounds of this world. And it’s true – you can do it all by yourself, without even a bit of help.

Don’t think we don’t see your strength. Don’t for a second don’t think we don’t honor your ferocity and tenacity and all that blessed grit.

After all, that grit is what has kept you here.

We’ve seen you do battle and we know exactly how strong you had to be to surrender and walk away. 

It’s the hardest and most beautiful thing – the courage it takes to choose yourself.

“All the girls in the Paris light. All the girls in the pale moonlight. All the girls with the shopping bags. All the girls with the washing rags. All the girls on the telephone. All the girls standing all alone. All the girls sitting on the wire. One by one fly into the fire. Be careful how you bend me. Be careful where you send me. Be careful how you end me.  Be careful, with me.”
Be Careful – Patty Griffin

Yes, you are so strong. So strong that sometimes they forget to be careful.

So strong that sometimes they do not see just how thin the wind has worn your skin. So strong that nobody sees when your shoulders start to curve forward and your head drops and the weariness and grief hits hard as a freight train. So strong they don’t notice when you sneak away and hide in the back of the closet so that your body can finally shake with the force of the silent tears that can no longer be held. 

And so strong that you wipe those tears and stand up and take enough shaky breaths to steady yourself and go back out there to do it again.

Strong enough to keep working the magic that you do to keep making things good and tidy and safe. To keep them loved and fed and sheltered and whole. To keep holding up the whole wide world – just the way you’ve always done.

So strong, in fact, that they forget just how deep you feel and just how impossibly hard it is to hold it all.

As if that was all you were here for – to carry it all alone.

As if you weren’t brought to this earth for so much more.

As if you weren’t here for poetry and the kind of joy that cracks worlds wide open and the heat of sex and the fullness of desire and the baptism of the cold and crashing sea and a love so big it changes everything. As if you weren’t here for all of that and so much more.

Do you know that, love? Do you a remember a time before that was all buried beneath the weight of all that has been and must be?

We do.

“If you can’t remember a better time you can have mine, little one. In days to come when your heart feels undone may you always find an open hand and take comfort wherever you can.”
~Comfort – Deb Talan

This life, you know  – it’s all bittersweet paradox and hot blood and skinned-knee redemption. 

Sometimes it slip-slide-tumbles from bliss to the hard edge of loss so fast you’d swear the ground disappeared beneath your feet, and nothing seems sturdy enough to hold your weight.

This life, sometimes it’s just too much – even for you.

Even for me.

And if this is true of you today, or it was true last night or last year or you think it might be true soon  – then listen to me now.

You’re not in this alone.

“But if you break down, I’ll drive out and find you. If you forget my love, I’ll try to remind you. And stay by you when it don’t come easy.”
~If It Don’t Come Easy – Patty Griffin

You’re not in this alone. Even if it feels like it.

Even if you could swear that there is nobody to hear you cry.

Even if you carry it all on your own.

Even if you’ve howled your grief at the dark side of too many full moons to count.

Even if you are bone weary.

Even if you are in the deep ache of alone and convinced of your unworthiness.

Even if the night is dark and deep and the air is heavy and you sure that you’ve cried enough rivers to fill all the oceans by now.

Even if you’ve given up searching for the savior that you’re pretty sure isn’t ever going to come.

Even if the sliver of hope that remains hurts more than everything else combined.

Even if these few words are slim comfort in the midst of your reality and you’re reading with more skepticism than faith.

Even then.

Be still now. Close your eyes. Breathe.  No matter what – it is your breath that will guide you home.

You are not alone.

“But you are not alone in this. And you are not alone in this. As brothers we will stand and we’ll hold your hand.”
~Timshel, Mumford and Sons

Do you hear me?  You’re not alone.

We’re all around you. Even when you can’t feel us or hear us or sense the presence of a single soul.

We are here. We are always here.

We’re here. Your tribe. Your pack. Your people.  Your angels. A family chosen and claimed, faceless and nameless though we may be to you right now.

We are here.

We are the burn down stubborn risers. The bruised but not broken. The weary travelers through the land of spirit and soul. The too much lovers. The tender dreamers. The wild hearts that won’t stop beating. We are the pack of wolves that circle around you and keep you safe while you heal.

We know you. We’ve been there. And when you can’t find the strength to take one more step – we’ll be there to carry you through.

All you need to do is call us in.

“Walk me through this one, don’t leave me alone. Calling all angels, calling all angels. We’re trying, we’re hoping, we’re hurting, we’re loving. We’re crying, we’re calling ’cause we’re not sure how this goes.”
~Calling All Angels, KD Lang and Jane Sibbery

Lay it all down with us. Right here. We’ve got arms outstretched and room enough to hold it all.

I know. You can do it by yourself. Of course you can. You always do and you always have. But you don’t have to. Not now. Not anymore.

There is a source of comfort. A place of rest. An energetic connection of souls that will step forward.

All you need to do is call us in and open your hands to receive.

“Don’t push so hard against the world. you can’t do it all alone & if you could, would you really want to? Even though you’re a big strong girl, come on, come on, lay it down. The best made plans are your open hands.”
~Big Strong Girl – Deb Talan

Because we see you.

We see your tender grace, your indestructible spirit, your wide-open heart. We see your fire and your fury and fierce resolve. We see your fractured desire and your unspoken want.

We see your doubt and your trauma and your shame. We see the landmine of triggers and the threats from all corners and the way you still refuse to carry the gun. We see the horrible words absorbed like fists into that holy body. And we’ve seen those blows land, the literal ones that broke skin and broke bones and broke your heart and figurative blows that fractured sprit and soul and faith in your own divinity.

Yes, We have seen the way those blows have knocked you down, over and over and over again.

And you know what else?

We’ve seen you get back up.

We’ve seen you rise and we’ve seen you pull yourself up to your full power and take up all the space meant for you.  And we’ve seen you dance.

Oh holy you, have we seen you dance.

And we were mesmerized. Every single time.

And we know right now you don’t feel like dancing.

We know that right now – you’re just working on breathing.  And that’s okay too.

“But all that I know is I’m breathing. All I can do is keep breathing. All we can do is keep breathing. Now.”
~Keep Breathing – Ingrid Michelson.

If breath is all you can manage right now, that is so much more than okay.

Because it is that air in your lungs that is keeping you here. That is keeping you alive.

So stop now and breathe.

Once. Twice. Three times.

Deeper and deeper still.

All the way down to your belly. All the way down to your toes. All the way down to the earth beneath you.

Till your chest expands and you expand and there is even just a tiny spark of something that feels a little more alive.

Now let it go. Release. Exhale. Surrender. Lay down your weapons. There is time for rest for even warriors like you. Release until you are empty. Until you can feel the space inside you that has been so long filled by things that do not serve. 

Now breathe in again.

With intention this time. Breathe in a breath that feels like the beginning of something more than tears and running.

“No more running, no more hiding, no more hurting, no more crying. No more trouble, no more sighing. No more falling, no more striving. No more heartache, no more fighting. No more fears, only flying.”
~Lifehouse – Flight.

Because you don’t have to run anymore. Now you can stay. There is a space past flight and fight and freeze and we’ve cleared it for you. Wide open and protected on all sides.

Picture yourself here, in the clearing. We’ve linked arms around the permitter and filled it with all that comforts and fills and sustains you. The sun is warm and the air holds the promise of grace and healing. The light is golden and you are free.

From here you can rise. And dance. And you can fly.

And when you are ready, you can lay down. And you can be still. And you can rest.

Fully. Deeply. Here you can sleep the sleep that heals.

“When darkness comes upon you. And covers you with fear and shame. Be still and know that I’m with you. And I will say your name If terror falls upon your bed. And sleep no longer comes. Remember all the words I said. Be still, be still, and know.”
~Be Still – The Fray

When you wake the darkness will blanket you and the moon will shine down into the clearing. You will be by yourself but never alone.

Do you see the millions of tiny lights we are holding for you, to remind you of our presence. We are here. We have always been here. We always will be here.

Now call in the ghosts and call in the wolves and call in the lover you’ve always dreamed of. Call in your peace and your fire and your wisdom.

And light your own candle. Hold it high – and howl and love and carry yourself home.

“Look around you, into the darkness. Searching, longing deeply to be known. May you find a light. May you find a light. May you find a light to guide you home. May you find a light.”
~May You Find A Light – The Brilliance

xo.

The post I would swim the sea for to ease your pain {a love letter for the weariest souls} appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

I see you, turning on the shower and standing under the hot spray, hoping that waterfall of sound is enough to muffle the signs of your tears from the children outside.

I see you, holding up the weight of the world and trying so very hard and knowing, in your bones, that it just won’t be enough to keep it all from crashing down.

I see you there; arms stretched in asana, the mantra of your heart beating steady onward – Stay true. Stay true. Stay true.

I see you, loving so good and strong. And losing it all anyway.

I see you, being judged and found wanting.

I see you looking at her. I see your naked desire. I see your relentless need.

I see you, flawed and humble and road weary and proud and still in spite of the deep ache, somehow sure you’ve done all you can.

I see all you feel but cannot speak. I see the way the words grow and swell, expanding your chest and pressing against the confines in your throat until they form the most unbearable pain, and the air around you so heavy with the weight of words unsaid.

I see the way your chest caves in and your shoulders curl around and your arms hold your knees so tight that you circle in upon yourself.

I see how in spite of this you are expanding, even though others wish you small and in spite of your own efforts to keep peace. I see that you are a wild thing, not meant for containment.

I see you setting that boundary. I see you marking that line and choosing a side and I see that steely resolve that means you have found your way back to yourself.

I see how you want and want and want. I see the unceasing swell of your desire. I see how you look in those spaces, small and large, where you begin to know that desire as holy.

I see you there, in the moment that last burning ember of hope died. I see your face then, the way it went blank for a moment and the pain that flashed in your eyes. And then I see you pull it back together, because there is laundry to do and children to care for and a family that needs you – and what else is there to do but continue?

I see how you always continue. How survival is in your bones. How thriving is what you were born for. How you were meant to rise.

I see you rising, you beautiful phoenix. I see your wise heart. I see your hot tears. I see your bruised knees. I see your prayers rising like poems around you in the cold night air.

I see you in your spiraling doubt and I see you weaving in and out of the shadows and the demons and the ghosts of those gone but not forgotten. I see you dancing there, and it is beautiful.

I see your knowing and your not wanting to know and I see the way every plea you make sounds like that one name you’ll never stop calling out in your sleep.

I see you on your good days and I see you on your bad days. And I see what lives there, just beneath your skin, on the days when you know for sure that very few pay close enough attention to tell the difference.

I see you, in your fierce insistence on living as true as you can, in spite of all the breaking.

I see you, by the light of so many candles and the unmistakable glow of grief. I see you folding and refolding that handwritten note that once held the promise of all things.

I see the way you live every breath as redemption.

I see you in your grace and in your grit and in the way they meet in the very center of things.

I see you there, searching for that just sad enough song song that will release all that is bottled inside. I see you let it go and I see you go to ground with the sobs that look as if they will break you into pieces.

I see you take that breath. And inhale again. And I see your resolve settle in your bones. I see you rise again, still broken, and somehow always whole.

I see you, beneath the surface. I see your untamable wild. I see your billowing heart. I see your unshed tears and your not yet dreams and your devotion to spirit. I see you howl at the moon and call the ocean home and ground to earth and grow taller than the trees.

I see you.

You are not alone. You are not invisible.

You are seen. You are seen. You are seen.

And my god, you are beautiful.

x0,

The post You are seen. You are seen. You are seen. appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

It can be said that we are built by many things. Biology and lineage. Grit and moonlight and ocean stone. By fire and water and air. By the lessons of the grandmothers and the pounding of blood through veins and the very first break. The way it felt when you learned the truth of boundary and by the day you stood there and knew nothing could every be the same.  

Yes – it can be said that we are built by many, many things.

But all of these things are really, at the core, one thing.

Love.

Love with its many faces and songs. Healthy and strong and damaging and untrue. Bloodlines and lust. That which fills and the way it empties us to the solid truth of ourselves. It is held in hands and raised high to the sky.  And it is tucked in old wooden boxes and buried – either in the earth or in the silent unspoken aches. It’s in the slick skin on skin and breath on breath and the want that slices you wide open. And it’s in arms holding child and holding open the door for a stranger and holding the sign that demands change. Everything and everywhere. Under and over and through.

And yes, I have been built by love.

So to love. To all of it, of course, but tonight it is to the love of desire and romance and partnership bonds that the words call.

To the ghosts of love past. And love present. And love yet to come, or to come again, or to be glimpsed from across a room and yet never touched. To the love that crosses lifetimes or that lives between the lines. To the forevers and the brief chapters and the just right nows. To the love that is the warm body in bed that will never be touched again but that saves your life. To the loves that have left brands on my skin and to the loves that made a rough cut across the heavy red muscle of my heart. To the spaces of betrayal and betrayed and to the redemption that knits them together. To all of my loves, those found in these lines and all the rest. In the harsh grace and tender brutality and the spaces in between.

This is for all of you.

To the one who showed me that poetry and lust can come alive in the same dark room. Who broke down my conceptions of the very definitions of love that I had taken to be unbendable truth. Thank you for making it all fluid and open. From you I learned that being seen in both body and mind can be the catalyst for a most delightful spontaneous combustion. This forever changed my knowing of my own needs.

To the one who knew to open my heart by first opening my body. Who took arms folded across heart and gently, one at a time, eased them – and me – wide open. You taught me that sometimes almost strangers can know us better than we know ourselves. We worked so hard for so long. Walking away is a small, quiet sadness I will hold inside of myself always.

To the love who taught me what it is to love in my mother tongue. For the gift of a loving that did not need translation. Timeless and spacious and free. It is groundwater and poetry. It is cigar boxes and seashells. It is claiming my own name and knowing it was always, somehow, known by you. It is shared memory, as mysterious and mystical as real and true. Your love brought me to my knees, and even now – in its long-gone-yet-never-leaves way – it is the grace that saves me.

To the lover that stood at the end of the aisle. Where you go, I will go. Together we created life. I will not know the feel of your hand on mine when we are 80 years old, and despite the rest this will always be an ache for which no words exist. To the night that I should have answered your call. I did not. That guilt has carved it’s signature in my bones. Our new modern family is deep grace and sharp pain intermingled in a way that will never fully untangle.  It is also the greatest gift and more than I think I sometimes deserve. Because of you I long feared I would never again be able to promise another forever.

To the love who taught me otherwise. Who rekindled dull cynicism into a flame of hope. You gave me back future and then hard won tears. I still believe in lucky pennies and the space between start and finish and ways the universe sometimes whispers and asks to be heard. There will always be a light in the dark for you. You are my knowing of what it is to come home.

To the boy who took from me in that basement room. I will not call you lover. That is a title you never deserved. I know what it is to watch a spirit bleed from the ceiling. I know what it is to crawl up the stairs and cry in silence while everyone sleeps. I forgive you. I give you back the shame. I finally learned it was never mine to carry. In the aftermath of your choices, I found the choice to trust myself, and that is a loving of the deepest kind.

To the lover who gave new meaning to the term my first. And second and third. Thank you. I did not know my body could do that. Or that. Or that. We were together during a period of unmatched intensity. It was all fire and ashes and tears and grief. Sometimes it’s the opposite of easy that creates the most lasting of bonds. You will always own a part of my heart.

To the lover who deserved much more kindness than I was able to give. I am so sorry. My shame was greater than my desire to do the right thing.

To the one who already belonged to somebody else. Two things. 1. If I could have, I would have pulled you into a dark corner, pressed you against that wall, and kissed you until you forgot you had ever been kissed before. 2. As it was, just watching your lips while you smoked nearly took me out.

To the love who punched a hole in the glass door of the college dorm. You were my first betrayal. My first understanding that my actions could bring bloodshed. It took me years and years more to finally find the integrity that lived inside my bones. I am eternally sorry it was too late for you.

To the one who was the catalyst for all that was to come after. I remember how your thumb felt making slow circles on my palm. It was our only physical contact and yet possibly the most erotic thing that I had ever felt. I had no idea that this would be the irrevocable moment on which all the rest would hinge and that within six months I would burn my entire life to the ground and stand in the ashes. If I had known would I still have done what I did? Yes. There could have been no other way because there was no other way.

To the almost lover. I did not show up because I knew I would fall too fast. I thought there could be no future because you were there and I was here. I was afraid. I was not brave enough to take what could be taken. Every time I see your face I wonder what might have been.

To the one I loved in a secret fumbling darkness. To the world it was wrong. Your lips were a gift that helped me remember myself. You are still the best kisser of all the kissers I have ever kissed. Yeah. Exactly. Thank you.

To the maybe one day, the possibility, the potential. You are unlike anyone else. I am not sure yet if that is a good thing, or a sign I should run the other way. We never know, do we? But we leap anyway, we fall regardless. I wonder if you’ll still be there when I land.

To the love that is my deepest truth. To the love that was hardest won and requires a most tenacious and tender commitment. To the love that always pulls between the wild and the tame. To the love that has built and broken in equal measure. Who has learned her integrity in the shadows and howled at the moon and gone to the ground and burned into the fire and carried herself into the light. This is the love of self and the one that makes space for all the others. Every single other love is held inside of this.

To the love that I still look for. Do you still exist? Did I dream you? Will you find me? I do not know. But I dream of you; on sleepless nights when only the moon is awake. You; a mysterious alchemy of imagination and memory. You; a mixture of grit and starshine. Of magical words and solid ground. A love stays and sustains, that waxes and wanes, and yet still keeps rising with a fierce and untamable light.

In the end, I will wait only for you. There is nothing else, really, I could ever do but that.

{this was written, in bits and pieces, over the course of a few years. Just a file on my desktop that I added to, and tweaked and changed as new stories were ready to be told, or as the details of old stories morphed and blurred and altered – as old stories are wont to do. I had not revisited it in almost a year.   And in the end, the important thing to know is this. There was indeed another love coming – at the end of the ache and on the heels of great loss. And I had no idea, we never do. And this love, she is grit and starshine. Bluegrass voice and guitar plucking fingers and downtown street smarts. Strong and soft and gentlewild. She calms my restless and stills my heart and has room for my expansion.

And I do not know now, any more than I knew with all those who came before, how this story goes or ends or even what the beginning is, really.  But I do know this – that it took all of what came before to lead me to this now and all of the nows that came before and all that will come.

And that knowledge is also a kind of freedom and truth, and yes – a kind of love,

The post we are built by many things {a letter to the ghosts of love} appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.