A very warm Write Space welcome to our gorgeous new members today @Nicola Whitehouse and @Mary Spicer We are so happy you are here. We look forward to Co journaling with you, please take your time getting to know our community and get settled in, there is no pressure to perform, please join in when you feel the time is right. Our Theme for Journaling this week is empowerment - Taking your power back. Please enjoy and I will see you on the page, Love always, Silver

What have I been giving my energy to that no longer deserves so much of me? This can be as light or as deep as you want it to be. A tiny answer still counts. I’ll go first in the comments.

This week, as we sit with the theme of taking your power back, I wanted to share a poem called Bones. This poem almost made me cry when I wrote it. I don’t know how many times I have had to walk through fire, feel burned, or be reduced to ash by life’s casual atrocities. I think many of us know that feeling in some way. Everyone has war wounds, battle scars, burns. We can be hurt to the bone, and we can also love someone to their bones. I wanted to embody that feeling in this poem. Life is full of emotion, and those emotions need somewhere to rest. Even when the fires try to reduce us to ash, our bones still remember. They carry the light of experience, of knowing, of love. Even when love hurts, it was still love. Bones My bones are not mine. They belong to you. Metacarpal - I reach out, touch your soft parts. Spine - I feel your curve behind. Ribs - a guard against free will. Femur - I ran when I could no longer stay. Stirrup - the tiny beat after all. Scorched remains, charred from fires deep, blackened from smouldering ash. Splintered, cracked, ground to dust, recast, reset. The bones inside don’t forget. They grow in toughened sinew. Wisdom in flames. Burning bone-white, dance through the dark. For today’s Gathered Gold, I invite you to sit with this thought: What has life taught you that now lives in your bones? A one-word answer is more than enough. A sentence is lovely too. Share only what feels right today. I’ll go first in the comments.

Hello @Sue Green & @Lisa Shirley a very warm welcome to writespace, I hope you enjoy journaling along with us and joining in when ever it feels natural for you, there is no required performance here. I'd like to invite you to settle in and get to know our small but growing community, I'm so glad you're here and I will see you on the page, love always, Silver

When I was thinking about selecting a poem or verse for the theme - Finding Plenty in the present, I naturally went to abundance but then I started to think about this poem and what that meant too. Plenty of worry, plenty of anxiety, plenty of self doubt. Yes there is often plenty of room in life for all of these things too. Today I'm reminding myself to make room, plenty of room, to move those out of the way and replace them with something else. A Pause, an exhale, an appreciation and love for myself, (why not) Even if it is just making some room to breath - there is plenty room. Worry yesterday I worried about a day that never came long, the winding worry wove a path I’d never walk yesterday I worried the ghosts of words returned filled my face and curled my tongue yet no words were said I worried yesterday about each minute’s tick it came to pass, the hands held time the hours were enough Tomorrow I will worry about the lines that show that shape the past and future me stories in my skin Today I will not worry the now - a long exhale calm lungs pause the present, a breath in worry’s place. Odyssey - Sovereign - Silver Ramsay