“All life is being lived. Who is living it, then?
Is it the things themselves, or something waiting inside them,
like an unplayed melody in a flute?”
— Rainer Maria Rilke

Yoga Nidra. Legs up the wall. Blood cycles down like sand slipping through an hourglass. Chest cracked open, back arched—the weight of fear and pain settling into me, like dust finding stillness. Soles together, hips falling open, calmness washing down my spinal chord. The earth beneath me, bolsters surrounding me like a pillow fort.

Savasana. Breathing deeply into the ache. Blue light flickers behind closed lids—and I feel her. A presence, a memory. A few tears slip from the corners of my eyes, cool beneath the compress, streaming behind my ears, pooling in my hair. Little rivers, salty and slow—nourishing something buried. Like seeds in rich soil, my grief begins to bloom. Something living inside me. Something missing. I miss the care of being tucked in. The goodnight story. The quiet presence of being held. My inner child still longs for it—the kind of love that waits, patient and steady, like an unplayed melody in a flute.

As I come to a red light at a busy intersection, surrounded by bleak concrete, I can't help but wonder—why did we create this world we're living in today? We, as a species, had endless options. Infinite branches of possibility. Choices made, chances taken, a butterfly effect of evolution unraveling over centuries—and somehow, we ended up here. In a world of fentanyl billboards and telephone poles. Corroded tar-covered roads. Rust-stained chain-link fences and factories that never sleep. Warehouses bursting with boxes of things we don’t need. Artificial intelligence doing our thinking, while dirty money fuels our decisions. Gas guzzlers barreling into fast-food drive-thru lanes under the watch of dented guardrails lining five-lane highways. Eighteen-wheelers carrying processed food through rust belt towns built on forgotten promises.

​How can we not be depressed?

Loneliness tempered by Prozac. Movement monetized by the wellness industry. Exercise sold back to us in designer leggings and boutique fitness studios. Everything, even our healing, has a price tag. Did our higher power intend for this? For us to lace her beautiful creations with smog and steel? Did Mother Earth ever imagine carrying the burden of our weight, our waste, our want?

I feel disconnected from this world. This rust belt country fueled by sin, greed, and endless consumption. My soul longs for something simpler, quieter, real. A place where I can breathe. Where I can look up and see only sky—no tangled power lines, no glowing neon signs selling salvation. Just stars, space, stillness.

A place where the air is clean and the food is fresh, grown from soil that remembers love over profit. Is there a way back from this? Or have we passed the point of no return? Environmental conservation can only go so far if the fabric of our being is still woven by corporations. We preserve wild spaces, carve out national parks like sanctuaries—but are they enough? Are we only putting nature behind glass, keeping it safe from us? 
​
I want to believe we can change. That it’s not too late. But some days—like today—I feel the weight of it all. And it saddens me deeply, quietly, relentlessly.

Chiron—the planet of healing our deepest wounds. Active under the Libra full moon, I closed my eyes and turned inward, zooming into the galaxies behind my eyelids. Each speck of light and darkness swirled in hues of whites and blues, a celestial dance unfolding inside my brain. The instruments began to vibrate through my body, their reverberations gently pulling me deeper.

Others surrendered to sleep. Soft, rhythmic snoring rose to my left. To my right, a woman released bloated breaths, each exhale thickly punctuated by the wet sounds of saliva. These distractions weren’t just background noise—they lodged themselves deep in my awareness, stirring something primal. A strange mix of agitation and detachment coursed through me, electrifying my senses. My thoughts spiraled as fast as asteroids: from “How could they sleep through this moment?” to—“What a beautiful gift sleep must be.”

Does anything really matter?

I had come with the intention of connecting to my mother—to feel her presence, to acknowledge my guilt, to sit beside her pain and find peace in knowing she is at peace too, wherever she may be. But the snoring around me felt like static interference, as though it kept me from hearing her voice. I felt the weight of her absence, of her death, settle into my chest. I carry it every day, but in that moment I asked myself again--does any of it truly matter?

We give so much meaning to memory, so much heaviness to the past. But what if we didn’t? What if we let go of the stories we cling to, of the sorrow we wrap around our hearts like armor?

Just as that thought landed, the instruments shifted. A deep gong rolled through the space, vibrating through my bones, and suddenly a wave of euphoria surged through me. Gratitude arrived—purely and simply. For the breath in my lungs, for the sensations in my body, for the privilege of witnessing this moment. My awareness briefly flicked outward—I heard the bass of a car stereo from the street, giggles from passersby on the sidewalk above our quiet basement space. Distractions, yes. But also gentle reminders that we are not alone. That even in silence and stillness, life moves around and through us. We walk this Earth together.

That realization opened something in me. The ancestral connection I had been yearning for made itself known. In surrendering, I finally received. I felt my grandmother clearly, vividly, as if she resided within one of those galaxies behind my eyes. Her presence carried memories of joy, echoes of grief, the shared pain of the women who came before me. It all moved through me—like stardust in a tide.

As the sound bath neared its last vibrations, gentle chanting and chimes called me back to the room, pulling me from the dreamy spaces where my spirit had wandered. A rhythmic drum beat over my heart and sealed something in me—a lesson of duality, of light and shadow, dancing together. Five slow, intentional strikes, followed by the delicate tap of a cymbal. A soft punctuation mark on a cosmic sentence.

I am a Pisces sun, Gemini moon, Leo rising. And on this quiet Saturday in April, with Chiron eclipsing the Sun, I was given a lesson in healing. A reminder to embrace both pain and pleasure as part of the same whole. To feel deeply, to release, and to say thank you—for all of it.

Adjectives mean more than most people know. They aren’t just compliments—they're confirmations. They feel like tiny windows where someone sees beyond the surface, past the shell of the hair, the clothes, and the curated expressions, and into the marrow of who we are. But those words rarely come for some. Not the deep ones. Not the ones that touch the soul rather than skim the skin. The ones that capture one's essence. The way someone anchors a room without trying. The kindness in their timing. The magic of how their laughter lands in your chest. Those are the things that truly glow. So when someone tells me I’m beautiful, I cry. Because it feels like being seen for real, and that is rare.​

Maybe we need to hear it more often. Or maybe we need to start saying it to ourselves. People toss around the phrases “beauty comes from within” or “confidence is an inside job,” but let’s be honest—reassurance matters. Words of affirmation have become one of my love languages, one I didn’t speak fluently until recently. I used to chase connection in all the wrong ways—relationships that were more about being wanted than being loved. Good morning texts that fueled the ego, not the heart. People whose feelings ran deeper than mine, and I reveled in that imbalance. The thrill of being desired. The high of attention. The chaos of late nights and blurry mornings.

That chaos. That adrenaline. The messy lust that made for better stories than outcomes. The rollercoaster of drinking and dopamine. I realize now, in sobriety, that what I truly needed wasn't another night out—it was tending to the pieces of myself I had ignored for so long. Without substances, the silence grows louder. There’s no more numbing, no more forgetting. Just me and my feelings. And so the pendulum swings. Where I once lost count of Moscow mules and dirty martinis, I now indulge in hot fudge sundaes and thick-crust pizzas. 

Binge-watching, binge-eating, binge-everything. A search for stimulation, for texture, for variety. If it's not bouncing from classy speakeasies to skeezy dives, it's toggling between artsy cinema and trashy TV. It’s not about the consumption. It’s about the feeling. The novelty. The validation. The stories to be told.

Maybe that’s what I’ve been chasing all along—in nightlife, in substances, in food. A story. A sensation. A mirror to show me I exist and my existence matters. But the truth is, I’ve always existed. I've always mattered. I just forgot to look inward for proof.

And now, I’m learning again. I’m peeling back the layers, letting my soul's reflection speak. Even when it stings, it also soothes. This—this honesty, this depth, this vulnerability—is beautiful. And so am I.