I know you.

I know you wear your heart on your sleeve.  I know that heart is pieced together from soft driftwood and tattered suitcases and old skeleton keys and the shards of pottery you’ve tucked in your pockets from all the things you’ve seen break along your journey.

I know your soul glitters with the fragments of love affairs and fiery passion and endless nights of candlelight and whispers against bare skin.  I know you hear the echoes of long gone trains and feel the pulse of memory reminding you of things you’ve not encountered in this lifetime. I know that sometimes, the way sunlight filters through trees can bring you to your knees in breathless gratitude.

I know the path has taken you to unexpected worlds and that you’ve seen beauty beyond measure and experienced the sort of kindness that cracks you wide open.  I know it has also been hard and your edges have been made rough and sharp and then worn down, again and again.  I know that you’ve been told that you feel too much and that you can’t quite shake the fear that you’ll never truly be enough.

And I know you are tired, love. I know the ache lodged in your bones. I know it has been a long road and you yearn for rest and comfort and home. But I’ve also seen you twirling, barefoot in the grass by moonlight. And that moon? She is dancing with the sun and this wild spinning earth, coaxing the ocean to crash on the shore, over and over again, just for you. And I know there are stars traveling unfathomable distances and burning to dust when they enter our atmosphere so that you can breathe a little bit of light into your soul when you need it the most.

And then there is you. Throwing open the doors, ushering the spirit inside and keeping your rebel heart pulsing strong. You. Keeper of wonder. The child of every revolution this world has ever seen. What power you hold. What tremendous mystery and magic live in your center. How blessed this world is to know the mystical, untamable brilliance that is you.

Just look around you. At the beauty and the bliss. At the terror and the teardown. At the utter certainty and every last unknown. It is all a part of your story. Part of how you were made. Embers of grace and grit. Ashes of breakdown and breakthrough.   Born of fire.  Made of light.  Badass with a side of sacred wisdom.  Exploding like fireworks across the night sky.

You. Thank you for sharing this earth with me.

Blessed be.

Jeanette

The post embers of grace and grit {a love letter for driftwood hearts} appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

I know you have things to say.
Things you must say

Didn’t anyone ever tell you,
That we have to speak our truths

Our stories are where the revolution begins.

So, unlock it, poet
Let loose the words
Unconstrain your endless restraint
Seduce your muse
Release your wild
Welcome this rebellion
Usher it inside
Sit it down by the fire
And dance into the night.

You are warm blood,
hot skin, tight words
You are history
and future
and magic and make believe
You are deep and raw and real

You are an uprising
A revolution onto yourself
The scarcity is over
The rationing has ended
and there are words enough
for all of us

So go mad now, poet
let the power of the story
take you over
take you under
carry you home.

Don’t dare tell me
You are not a writer
Because I’ve heard words slip
Honeyed from your lips
I’ve seen the sonnets form behind
Your graceful eyes
I’ve felt novels spin from the spiral
Of your goddess hips

Don’t you dare
Make this other
This is in you
This is why you are here

This is your story
Your vital spark
Your ache and your tears and your breakdown
Your joy and your revelry and your bliss
Your desire, your fierce longing, your unceasing want
Your utterly unguilty pleasure.

This is the root of your commitment
The space of your deepest promise
That eternal vow
To live out loud
To speak freedom
To own the deep
Of your existence
To know it is true
And good
And worthy and whole.

So unlock it ocean poet
Release it windmill dancer
Splash it on canvas watercolor darling
Play the strings, you maker of music
Breathe it in yogi, and then breath it out.

Unleash it, you goddess of words, and melody and paint and dance and sweat.
There are a million ways to tell your story

I’m ready for every last one.

Try me

The post Unlock it, Poet {our stories are where the revolution begins} appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

[hr]

It’s the truth that sets you free, right?  Coming clean, that’s what I preach.

I don’t always tell you everything. Did you think I did?

You want the truth of me right now? Tonight? Should I tell you that right now there is no compassionate mother in me. I am snarling and impatient and snappy. They pull me from this. And this is what compels me.  I don’t want to mother. Not right now.

I’m not supposed to say that. It doesn’t fit within the selfless narrative I am called to embody.

Right now I want a shack by the beach and I want to create and I want to be fed green grapes and bittersweet chocolate by pretty girls with nothing better to do. And I want to toss back shots of whiskey at an old bar with men whose skin has been worn to leather from a life on the sea. I want to weave my way steady to the bow of a boat and let the spray encrust me with grit and the waves fill me with the sound of home. And then I want to return, to my weathered wood cottage, and turn the music up loud and light incense and candles and cigarettes and lap dance for the muse until she puts the fuck out for me every single time I ask. Because it’s hot, what I’m making, and even she – fickle as she can be – doesn’t want to miss a second of this flame.

I’m probably not supposed to say that either.

I want a bike with a basket big enough to get the food I need, and the chocolate and the whiskey and the wine and cigarettes.  I want endless miles of coastline to ride along, until my legs ache from honest exertion. I want to let go of the handles and remember just how good my balance can be when I trust it.

I want a bonfire right outside my front door. Where the lovely girls and pretty man-boys cavort and dance and strip off all their clothing to tumble into the sea where the kisses always taste like salt.  I want this every single night. Until even my skin is permeated with the burn-down-rise-up scent of wood smoke and sand and sea. I want to be singed with the heat of it. I want it, saturated, in my pores until my breath feels gritty and real again. Until the skin on skin gives off the heat of flame. Until even the words burn as they are birthed.

I know I’m not supposed to say all of that.

I’m not supposed to like this about myself. This selfish that lives inside. Supposed to keep it hidden.  Soften it for you. Take the rough off my edges. Round out my sharp corners. I am told they are wrong.   The wants. The excessive need for solitude. For life on my own terms. Not ladylike. Not generous.  Not mother. That I’m not who you knew. Not who you know, even.

I don’t like it. But then I do. My wants speak to my needs which translate the terms of my survival.  The compulsions of art that will drive me and put me at war and seduce me into the crucible at the center of pure creation. There’s alchemy in owning it all.  Unabashed. Unapologetic. Without shame.

Oh, I know I’m not supposed to be shameless. This world, it’s got all kinds of words for women like me.

But there’s more to this than just me.

Because I have daughters. Because living on my own terms comes down to more than just my own survival.

My girls, they will know me as human. As creatrix as much as mother. As ugly and dirty and real as much as calm and patient and loving. See my struggle as well as my bliss. My unmet longing as counter to my grace. My deep rooted insecurity and my narcissism. My hard fall of tears as much the sweetness of my laugh. The way we all can storm and cry and flail and then fall into my big marshmallow bed, a tangle of limbs and heart and tears, and fall asleep intertwined, secure and at peace.

And they will know what it is for a woman like me to live in fullness with herself. To fight for it. To know she is within choice at each moment. To make contracts with self as the path to wholeness, even when this comes at great cost. To find the integrity within that space, even if that looks different than what the world would call true. To understand that even fullness can sometimes feel dark and bleak and empty.

That even regret and unmet hopes bring untold richness to what will be born. That it can be a raw and primal thing, this unceasing drive to make something from within one’s self. That great art is birthed of both great pain and great joy and sometimes directly as we navigate the tenuous space between the two. That we birth our art as we birth ourselves. Both, often, in the midst of struggle.

I think I’m probably not supposed to say that either. I’m supposed to make it gentle.  Pretty it up a little for everyone.

But I want them to know well the selfish and the selfless that lives within each of us, and the delicate dance between the two. To experience the wilderness of reclamation and the surrender of relinquishment that is a part of every negotiation we will walk as women who burn and ask and risk.   Who refuse to follow the rules given us by culture and upbringing and expectation.

I want them to know it’s okay to exist from the center of absolute unknowing. To live the ugly and the confused and the sad and the broken,  honest and out loud. That it’s equally okay to dive into the bliss.

I want, by the very root of my life, to show them a narrative that diverges from the one this world would have them live.

A narrative that is bloody and powerful and full of heat and sweat and sex and a sweet, holy joy that is owned and chosen. And a grief and teardown that is owned just as fully.  And an autonomy of self that rushes from within their goddess center, and a voice that rings true and tells the stories that will be key to their survival.

Stories that can be lived and written and told by no other voice but their own.

I cannot teach this from within a container of acceptable and predictable.

Because if they feel trapped or small or lost at 20 or 30 or 40, I hope they shall take the freedom to run for the sea and to heed her wild call. To hear the whisper through mountain top pines speaking ancient truth and knowing deep in their bones that the forest will hold their scared vows. I want them to burn sage and creosote and speak ancient incantation and call forth the goddess. I want them to splash paint on canvas under full pink moon while the coyote howl and the fire rages and to not fear the wild power that wells up from within on such a night.  I want them to own their sex as holy.  To know their desire as a divinity. To place a ring on their own ring finger and make promises that they will never speak to another. Unless they want to, and then I want them to do exactly that. To know it’s all in them, as it has been in all of us, all along.

And me.  Their mother?

I am never more than a sliver of space from the center of the paradox. From the glorious reality of complete contradiction. Not unbalanced, no. The {im}perfect center. Point and counterpoint. I seek it others. And when I look deeply enough, I find it in myself.

I don’t want to be where I am, but I cannot be where I belong. I am always searching for home, always seeking the next idea, the next embodiment of what may be. I am broken, and I am whole.

And yes, there is an unrest there, an ceaseless searching. A wolf who comes calling, whispering, howling. She leads me to hunt and prowl and burn. And she guides me to that delicate sliver of space, right at the core, that is pure peace.

I am opened finally, to a relentless sort of hope. For that forever love that the movies try to prove to me is real. And I believe. God damn, after all this time and all this ache, I actually believe.

But I also want to be pressed hard against a rough wall by someone who has the right not to give a fuck who I am or was or ever will be. I want a family of kids and grandkids and chosen souls and a 40-year partner in crime to surround me until the end of my days. And I want to be left the hell alone – to get old and grow gray and soft with the company of books and seagulls and worn wooden floors and chipped pottery that holds my morning tea. To take lovers when I want and discard them when I don’t.

I’m probably not supposed to speak that, am I? Not supposed to honor the way they swirl together, am I? That contradiction between the safe and the wild that lives in all of us. We are to choose one or the other and not look back. If we feel a pull to that which we’ve left behind or that which we have not yet found, we are to ignore and suppress and forget. There are truths that are easier for others to bear if we commit to never speaking them aloud.

Once upon a time I silently agreed to do just that.

I cannot.  Not any longer.

Tonight I feel the glow of the candles on my face and the cool of air on my back and the peace of the rain that falls and falls and falls outside. It quenches the packed, dry earth of desert and something in me as well. Taking what was hard and making it soft. Liquid. Inevitable. The way water flows. Just like it was the last time my body met another body and current met current and it all flowed into mystery. The way I move when I stop fighting my nature.

Until it’s all liquid alchemy. Wet heat. The way home.

I don’t care anymore what I’m supposed to say. This is my story. You can listen if you want. You can join me if you will.

Because these words and this life are my own.   Even when I contradict itself.  Even when I make every sense and no sense at all. Even when it changes from minute to minute. Whether they ring true or untrue. These things are nobody’s but mine.

And I’ve got a story to tell.  And so I begin and begin and begin.  Again.

 {images by iamchanelle photography}

The post The Truth Of A Woman Like Me appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

The time of grasping tight and trying hard and still, in the end, being forced to let go. Of fingers locked tight and pried stiff from that which you’d hoped to hold for so very long.

It’s been the falling down time. The confused and lost and broken time. The ill-fitting skin that begs to be shed time. The kneecaps bruised from prayer time. The time of keening howl that rises from the center of the earth and pleads, no more. Not now. Please.

The endings, they came to you slowly. Pulling away inch by imperceptible inch. Till suddenly you realized the hand you’d held for years had slipped from yours and you were now reaching across a chasm of relentless empty.

And they came sudden. Hard and fast, so that there you were, without warning, curled in a fetal position on the rough carpet of an unfamiliar hotel room floor, black eyeliner smeared across your face and a lifetime ocean of tears being pulled like the tides from your obliterated heart.

You knew it was coming. You collected the red flags and tucked them back in the corner  – hidden behind stacks of books scrawled with all the stories you told yourself so that you could continue to believe what you desperately needed to believe. Every now and then you took out those flags and counted them, didn’t you? As if by will you could force their numbers to decrease.  You couldn’t.  We never can.

And you. You had no idea. Blinders and rose-colored glasses have been your specialty for years. You’ve got a closet full. They kept you so safe. But on that last day there were no storm clouds, no early warning system to get you to shelter. Just a tornado that swept in from the east and flattened every last thing it touched. Until in the aftermath there was just you, standing in the midst of the rubble of a entire life.

You’ve been left. You walked into strong open arms and found a home that you imagined would be shelter and protection into a beautiful future. You had so much hope and faith, cloaked in all that tender cynicism. And such a hard layer of hurt hiding just beneath your fearlessly optimistic heart. And still, you gave yourself over to the sheer bliss of believing. You didn’t know you still had it in you to be that happy.

And you’ve done the leaving. You’ve walked away from the deepest of loves because you had to break before you were broken again. Because your wrecked runs so deep that there wasn’t enough love in all this world to hold your ache. Because in the end, you had to save yourself. Because, in the end, that’s all any of us can ever do. And nobody knows as well as you, just how much it costs to leave.

But here you are, love. Here WE are.

Still standing. Fierce with the reality of love and loss. Wearing the truth of our hearts on our tattered sleeves. And yes, this one very nearly took us out. And yes, there were days when the darkness was heavy and the climb out of that rabbit hole required us to mine our depths for strength we didn’t even know we had.

And here we are.

Broken open by hope. Cracked wide by loss. Full of longing and grief and the burn of that phoenix fire.   Warrior painted with ashes. Embers from the blaze still clinging to our newborn skin, leaving us forever marked with scars of rebirth.

And just look at you. Heart broken but still beating. Arms empty but still open. Face raised to the sky and giving thanks for the light, even when it hurts your eyes.

My god, you are beautiful.

And this love. This loss. The one you have pulled around you like a blanket that still keeps you warm at night. Even though it is tattered and worn and full of holes and has no shelter to offer. It is a conduit. A bridge that you have unwillingly crossed. On one side who you were, and on the other who you will be. It was a long, lonely walk.

The ache is a ferocious kind of alchemy, the catalyst for transformation. The unanswered call? It creates the space and the silence you needed to learn to once again hear your own voice. The unmet hope gifts a crystalized understanding of your holy need. The longing that still curls in stubbornly hopeful tendrils from your open wounds? These will be your roots, seeking through hard earth to find you exactly what you need to thrive. The grief that took you the ground? It will help form the bedrock of your eventual rise.

So here we are, you and I. Grief is both relentless isolation and a common language that all hearts speak. Look into my sea glass eyes. Let me see your angel face. We come together in our sorrow because loss knows loss and needs no translation. And we come together in our joy, and our hope and our begin again – because always, it is together that we rise.

So yes love, I know this has been a losing time. And I know there were moments you imagined you might not survive. But here you still are, just like me. Here we still stand. Here our hearts still beat. Here we still love.

And in the end, you are here, broken and whole and still alive. Made even more tenderly beautiful in the depths of the shatter. Finding your way back to the truth of your soul and listening to the song of your stubbornly beating heart. And in the end, there is no greater testament to the power of love than this.

 I tell stories with music as well as words.  Listen with me on spotify.
A playlist for the ache || A playlist for the dream ||  A playlist for a hopeful heart

The post broken || open {a love letter for the broken-hearted} appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

back to the mat, no exceptions. fall asleep in savasana. cry in pigeon. laugh out loud in happy baby.

mascara and groomed brows, always.  red lipstick when you need it most. save your highest heels for the days you feel the lowest. wear clothing as costume. match it to your mood. always wear perfume, it helps you remember yourself. 

chin up. best foot forward.

find comfort in words and wine and the women who love you. cuddle sleeping children. leave your comfort zone, at least once a week. dance alone in the living room, at least once a day.

guyatri by candlelight. inhale. exhale. inhale again. do the work. do the work. do the work.

spin your hoop, your hips, your dreams. mountain top church every wednesday – never you mind the unmet dreams, you still can kiss the sky.

feet to pavement, music blasting in ears. forget everything but the run.

remember why you are here. remember yourself. remember yourself. remember yourself.

cultivate presence. become fierce about your autonomy. take long drives with the windows down.

bless everything, even your regrets. accept your regrets and allow them to teach you. welcome admiration but decline the pedestal. make friends with your unmet hope and allow it to guide you. kiss your solitude and allow it to work through you.

be infinitely tender. show up for others. live out loud. live as the personification of wide-open-vulnerable-crazy-free. stick your landings.

live in kindness. keep a prayer candle burning for someone at all times. give thanks, every day. practice intentional, loving touch. om namo guru dev namo.

tidy your space before bed. know it as an act of love. make your bed tightly with the brand new sheets. when your naked skin slides inside them for the first time, know it as a gift to yourself.

let the sadness flatten you. stay in bed until it lifts. do not rush your grief. do not rush your grief. do not rush your grief.

honor the divinity that is everywhere. get down with your inner badass. turn off your phone, and your computer and your mind.  find your heart center and send it compassion. see the holiness in everyone you meet. honor it.

know your worth. know your worth. know your worth. accept no less. become familiar with the space where compromise is unkind. nuture your exquisite loneliness. let it teach you.

light candles at every opportunity. touch your inked ribs lightly when you forget who you are.

let yourself be moved. seek out art. surround yourself with artists, creative, deep thinkers, high divers and earth shakers of all kinds. accept gifts offered with whole heart. even when such acceptance is difficult.  

stop behaving.

eat food that nourishes body and soul. cook with those you love. seek perspective. do not chastise yourself for believing and dreaming and trying. open yourself always to love.

know your body as holy, your want as holy and your shattered heart as whole.

continue to believe in lucky pennies, shooting stars and signs from the universe.

get rid of what does not serve. let go of what no longer feels like you – clothing, decorations, people. holding on just fills up space that could be put to much better use. hold tight to that which brings you to your highest realization of self.

ground your feet to the earth, at least once a day. reach for the sky every night. sit in the quiet darkness and let your mind go wild. find quiet peace in the midst of chaos. drink as many lattes as you want.

own your losses, wear them clean. write the letter. speak the truth. unleash your voice.

let the music be your mourning and your memory. let the music be your celebration and your reclamation. let the music be. let it wind it’s way through you. let it all wind it’s way through you. it will anyway, so don’t try to fight.

it’s okay if you fight.

remember your inherently flawed humanity exists nestled side by side with your inborn divinity.

forgive yourself everything.

and make sure you don’t forget buy a lavender plant. fall asleep with sprigs of it on your chest.  breathe it deeply, all the way inside.

it makes all the difference in the world.

The post 115 ways to heal your own broken heart. appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

do not
look away
right now you are
mine

right now
i am
lifting hair
from neck
running my finger
gently there.  across
the line of
clavicle.
down curve of rib
following
concave of waist
coming to rest on
the hard of hip.

revel, now
in the shiver that
rises
along your spine

it means you are awake.

stay awake , lover
because this is
a treatise of touch

{image via unsplash}

this is
a dedication to
the divinity
of want
this is an ode
to the fierce hunger of
your
animal skin
so bless your righteous body
bless it’s ancient hunger
bless it’s sacred need
bless the magnet pull
the utter madness
of want
and the selfish haunting
of desire

right here
on electric hipbone
right here
on staircase spine
here on nape of neck
on hollow of throat
on line and curve
on slick and sweat
here in the space where
body meets body
where want answers want
where primal, exalted lust
delivers
you
to your
knees

we all
pray best
on our knees

so let us pray

sanctify the body holy
the wicked desire
the backroom covenants of flesh
the slow slide of acquiesce
the hallowed space of want
the heavy shudder of yes
the burn of craving
the bliss of the fire.

find now
the center of your
longing
meet it where it lives
coax the tender tremor
tease response from
edge to depth to surface
to bone
to salt
to sweat
to skin
to teeth
to yes
to this

this is the
consecrated profanity of
seduction
this is the space where
shame is shed
you are a vessel of want

you are a master of desire
you are the fierce of supplication
the gentle of domination
you are holy
you are holy

you are holy

ask for what you need, lover
take what you want
bring it home
refuse the disgrace
with which you were raised
claim your untamable
unbind your wild
petition the air for your
every desire

Image © chanelle sinclair

this body is not the enemy
your sex is not a scandal
your skin needs no censor
you are not here for denial
your pleasure is
what the universe
demands
it is the purpose
of your
creation
anything else
is
blasphemy

so tattoo want along your rib
name it religion and church
and the rite of communion
take the body and the blood
sprinkle it with holy water
let the salt steam rise

and listen
just listen, lover
always
our bodies tell us
where
to
begin.

Listen:
The poem:

The soundtrack:

Treatise of touch: the official playlist for shedding shame and owning desire}

30 questions to bring you closer to your wild heart.
Join me for a month of prompts and write your way back home.
30 days | 30 questions |30 dollars — begins Feb. 14th 2016

The post a treatise of touch appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

Blessed be the long, slow slide into desire. The swift plunging wound to the heart. The bleeding out onto the kitchen floor.

Blessed be the fierce of want and the howl of despair and the swan dive of surrender.

Blessed be the indignation of right and the never more naked of wrong.

Blessed be your strong smooth body and your roadmap of scars and brittle bones that give way under the weight of lives unlived.

Blessed be the unmet passion, the ruthless boredom, the absolute certainty of regret.

Blessed be the sweet laughter. The hard fuck. The bitter fight. The soft impossible forgiveness.

Blessed be the restless seeker. The relentless urgency. The unanswered call.

Blessed be the giving up. The hope unraveled. The void at the end. The clenched fists and the desperate grasping and the way it all slides away when the time comes.

Blessed be your trembling breath and your strong knees. Blessed be your siren song and your briny tears and your frantic prayer.

Blessed be your violin body, your electric hipbone, your staircase ribs.

Blessed be your slaughtered dreams and your cynical projection. Blessed be your fire of initiation. Your ritual of comfort. Your secret shame.  Your whispered confession. Blessed be your primal roar.

Blessed be the rejection. The hollowed out, disregarded heart. Blessed be the end of the rope, the absence of expectation, the way it all gives way eventually.

Blessed be the blood and guts and gore of it all.

Blessed be the wanton emptiness of greed and the brutal havoc of love and the way peace grows in between cracks in cement.

Blessed be the dirty street corner hustle and the pretty surface of things and where they meet in the most sacred center.

Blessed be the harsh divinity. The winged flight. The salt skin. The symphony of lust.

Blessed be the holy and the worship. Blessed be the sacred mother. Blessed be the faithless edges. Blessed be the ritual of liturgy and agnostic devotion. Blessed be the profane and the provocation.

Blessed be the brazen orgy, the unabashed revelry, the stained glass cathedral of your hungry flesh.

Blessed be the solitary pilgrimage and the long journey home.

Blessed be the one who contains herself. Blessed be the one who contains us all.

Blessed be the truth that demands reckoning and the goodbye that wrenches secrets from behind closed lips. Blessed be the sucker punch bruises.

Blessed be smooth slide of sun behind the mountains. Blessed be the wise desert and the pounding sea.

Blessed be the sweet swell of words. The luxury of punctuation. The silent spaces between bodies. The ragged sigh of breath on bone.

Blessed be the poet and the poem and the one between them who has no words of her own.

Blessed be the plagiarism, the thievery, the rash disregard for origin, the gratitude for the beginning of things.

Blessed be our free fall into destiny. Our slow burn. Our consuming fire. Blessed be the breaking and the becoming.

Blessed be the ugly. Blessed be the sweet sin. Blessed be the rage. Blessed be the grace.

Blessed be. Blessed be.  Blessed be.

In the end, all words are just another way to say amen.

The post Blessed Be appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

***

“Are you happy?” they ask. The question comes from concern, a need for affirmation, desperation for a guarantee that they will one day reclaim that word for themselves.

Happy, I ponder? And try as I might, I can’t make the word fit. I let it roll around on tongue, slow and mellow. It feels foreign, belonging to another time and space. Perhaps I left happy sitting on that red couch with my two soul sisters, warmed by the afternoon desert sun, knowing nothing of the seismic shifts to come.

Happy is a sweet, pretty word. It is the domain, I think, of people that have not yet had shit happen. Life is layers upon layers of brilliance and pain and loss and gain and grief and guilt and celebration and rapture. Happy does not have enough substance or grit to encompass a life torn down and an existence built from the rubble.

***

The ache never leaves, you know. You just tuck it away tenderly and hold it close because sometimes the ache is the only thing left of something that was once beautiful.

Sometimes I want to tell them things – the women who write and ask if I am happy, or if it was worth it, or if I would do it again.

I want to tell them that someday you might see him in some random coffee shop, enjoying an Americano. And you will exchange meaningless small talk as if you couldn’t trace the map of his scars with your eyes closed.

I might say that it will be all that you can do to stop yourself from reaching up to touch his cheek;  your fingers aching for the memory of that eternal five o’clock shadow. You’ll want to tell him this, but instead you will fill up with unshed tears. They will build in your chest and explode – a million tiny pinpricks of painful light blooming outwards  and trailing like fireworks across your skin.  Because that touch will not be yours to have. Those tears not yours to cry. Those words not yours to speak. Not out loud. Not to him. Not in that random coffee shop over a steaming Americano.

And I would say that this ache is not the ache of mistake, or regret or quick-let-me-go-backwards-and-do-it-over-differently.  Not necessarily. Sometimes it is just the ache of an unexpected reminder of what was good, and the nostalgia brought on by a table that holds one cup of coffee, not two. And you welcome that ache because you have learned to welcome all that is real and true, even when it hurts. Because it is yours to have and know and hold. Because what is real is also solid, regardless of all the rest.

And when you walk across the room to sit at your own table, only a few steps separating this life from that one, you will finally understand. Happy is no longer enough to contain the totality of this life that you have claimed.

***

Will you have happy moments? Oh yes. Moments of such pure and simple happiness that you will be made still and humble and profoundly grateful. Moments so sweet and so good that you will bubble over with childish giggles.

But more often the moments will too vast to be contained. Moments so brilliantly beautiful that your heart will pound with their magnitude. So bittersweet that your heart will ache with their complexity. So life-altering that for a moment or two or ten, your heart will appear to stop entirely. Because this is life. The moments and the moments between moments and the moments after the moments when you see the world with clarity so brilliant it is blinding.

This life? Sweet baby jesus, it’s a wonder. It’s an intense, magical, steal the breath from your lungs, bring you to your knees roller coaster ride. It demands reverence and humility and penance and gratitude shouted loud from mountaintops. It will have you wailing at gods you don’t believe in, scratching for a hold in dirt too dry to plant yourself. It will bring you to the gift of your humanity and the core of your tenacity and the very center of your grief. It will leave you rejoicing in the kindness of strangers, in the devotion of friends, in the way your lover moves your body to rapture. It will teach you to stake fierce claim to what you know to be true and to be infinitely tender with your precious heart when your truth slips from your grasp.

And sometimes you will be blissed out. Or sad.  Or pissed.the.fuck.off. And you will grieve. And laugh. And love. And experience ecstasy. And come face to face with demons and fight the battle of your life. And at some point along this wild ride, someone may ask you if you are happy.

And you’ll smile and say simply “Yes.  I’m happy.”  And you’ll dive into the depths of your magnificent life, knowing that you are so much more. And so much less. Just so much.

So very, very much.

***

“The red couch is still in my shed”, she told me on my last visit to her home. “It’s totally trashed, probably ruined beyond repair.  I just can’t bring myself to get rid of it, you know?”

“Thank you”, I said “That makes me happy”.

The post Happy appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

Yes it is. Right now. This day. This moment. This now.

All yours.

You don’t have to wait. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t always have to finish what you started in order to begin something new. And there is no more room for playing small.

Small is so very last year.

You’ve been gathering momentum for a long time. This is a year of tipping-point greatness. Your year.

What are you waiting for?

That’s right, ease into it now. Pulse with the life force that has been waiting just for you. Feel that rhythm vibrating through the universe and running through your soul? Undulate with it. Let it carry you away, ecstatic dance style. Spin a dervish whirl until you are dizzy on the wonder of life. Ditch the layers that are holding you down. Get naked. Come on now. Don’t be shy. Right now, in this exact moment, you are free.

Keep your eyes open wide to witness all the fierce moments of grace that surround you. Reject that not-enoughness that has been desperately grasping for a hold on your magnificent spirit. Choose authenticity over approval. Be done with trying to fit into someone else’s notion of who you are. Get comfortable with entitlement. We’re done with asking permission.  No more of that, missy.

You’ve got to claim your right to rapture.

So, love too much. Way too much. Live from the center your wide open heart. Know that you don’t have to push yourself to expand in order to fill the space you are in. You are already infinite – just as you are. Let your freak flag fly. Every last thing about you is perfect. Even the weird bits.  Especially the weird bits. Those, my dear, are exactly why I’m already head over heels in love with you.

To hell with self-acceptance. That’s way too small an order.  I want you practice radical self-celebration. Throw a party in your own honor. You don’t need a wedding or a baby or a new job. You are reason enough. You are ALWAYS reason enough. Make today the anniversary of your arrival.  Rent the ballroom. Open the bar. And whatever you do, don’t forget the piñata. Fill it with every last piece of magic inside you and around you.   Now. Knock. That. Fucker. Down. and invite the world to gather you up again. To hell with the blindfold––you don’t want to miss a second of this.

Know that every time you get beaten down and emptied out, you are also spreading the fragments of your divinity into a universe that desperately needs you. Let the kindness and the raw, aching beauty of the universe shatter you over and over again. Find peace in the knowledge that your whole is composed of the sum of all of your beautifully broken pieces. Because breaking is becoming. We never lose ourselves. We don’t break forever. We just find new configurations of wholeness. And every one is breathtakingly beautiful.  YOU are breathtakingly beautiful.

That thing you’re afraid of? That label you shy away from? That word that seems too bold? That audacious goal? The life you think you don’t deserve? Aren’t talented enough to have? Aren’t brave enough to claim? Fuck. That. Shit. None of that baggage you’ve been carrying around has a place this year. Kick to the the curb. Now. This year only has space for the bold and the audacious and the brave. Don’t try to convince me you are not those things. I know better and your excuses hold no weight here. You are brave and bold and audacious and one hell of a goddess. Always have been. Always will be. 

So fill every step you take with intention. Then remember that intention is worthless without action – so get a move on, sugar. You know that whole ‘there’s no time like the present’ cliché? Actually, the ONLY time IS the present. Stop holding back. Let yourself go. Right now. All the way. You’ll be soaring before you even realize you’ve taken the leap.

Deal resistance a death blow and make sweet love to your art all night long. Put on your fishnet thigh highs and your patent leather stilettos and your special occasion lingerie. Seduce the hell out of your own creative soul.  It’s time for an epic lap dance. Dance for your paint and canvas, for fingers tripping across keyboard, for the open arms of motherhood, for the layers of flavor in the meals you create. Wind your hips down for the click of the shutter, for the 3am bathroom poem, for the late night lesson planning. Spin around the pole like fingers stringing beads into necklaces, for bodies twisting into asana, for holding a mama as she brings life. This will not be a quickie, love. No wham-bam-thank you ma’am. No – tonight is for slow, deliberate kind of love-making that changes everything.

And when the morning light filters in and you slowly leave sleep behind, you’ll awake with the vague sensation that something has changed. Give yourself time to remember that something has. That EVERYTHING has. Revel in it. You are here now. Fully present. Fully alive. Fully claiming your rightful glory. A Radical goddess. An Audacious Artist. A Mystical Mama. Celebrating the beauty that can only come from you. Flying high. Owning It.

Nothing will ever be the same again.  

And damn girl, you throw one hell of a party.

{But for the love of all that is good and holy leave the discarded fishnets and the paint spills and all those dirty dishes from the party for someone else to clean up. Because you’ve got places to be and things to do. After all, this is your year. Get moving, chica. }

The post You’ve Got To Claim Your Right To Rapture appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.