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.

This week’s word is hygge - hoo-gah. It means warmth, comfort, belonging, and simple contentment. For this week’s empowerment theme, I’m thinking of hygge as the feeling of becoming a safe place for yourself. This week’s wordcore prompt Think about a time when you needed to create comfort, steadiness, or ease for yourself, it may have been during a difficult time, a quiet moment alone, or even in a small everyday way that only you knew. If nothing specific comes to mind, imagine what comfort could look like for you now. What would you need? What would softness or safety feel like in your life?

Small Joys, Big Medicine My Oracle moon card today was "celebrate", which felt very fitting for this week. I’ve been thinking a lot about how celebration is so often saved for the biggest moments, when really some of the things most worth celebrating are much more ordinary than that. Coming back to the page. feeling the sun on your skin. . Noticing something beautiful. Making time for yourself again. Keeping going when nobody else can really see the effort it took. Those things matter. I think we can be so quick to move on, or brush past the very things that are helping us, just because they look small from the outside. But small joys can hold so much. This line came to mind today too: “I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes.”— Sara Teasdale I really love that. This week, I’d love to know what one small thing you’re celebrating in yourself or your life. The Philosopher I saw him sitting in his door, Trembling as old men do; His house was old, his barn was old, And yet his eyes seemed new. His eyes had seen three times my years And kept a twinkle still, Though they had looked at birth and death And three graves on a hill. “I shall sit down with you,” I said,“ And you will make me wise; Tell me how you have kept the joy Still burning in your eyes?” Then like an old-time orator He said as he arose: “I make the most of all that comes And the least of all that goes” The jingling rhythm of his words Echoed as old songs do — Yet this had kept his eyes alight Till he was ninety-two. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Typed_poem,_%22The_Philosopher,%22_by_Sara_Teasdale,_no_date_-_DPLA_-_7f202a4405cda80c20bafdc1f7d5c9b9.jpg

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

I love the way this poem speaks to beauty as something life is always offering, even when we are not always in the place to notice it. It made me think about gratitude as something deeper than a practice. A kind of devotion, maybe. Not pretending everything is beautiful. Not ignoring the harder parts. But becoming more willing to notice what is still here. Sometimes life’s loveliness is not hidden because it has gone. Sometimes it is hidden because we are looking only at what is missing. This week, we are exploring what life is still offering us. You are very welcome to share one small offering you noticed today. This week’s Gathered Gold comes from Sara Teasdale’s poem Barter. link: https://poets.org/poem/barter Barter by Sara Teasdale Life has loveliness to sell, All beautiful and splendid things, Blue waves whitened on a cliff, Soaring fire that sways and sings, And children's faces looking up Holding wonder like a cup. Life has loveliness to sell, Music like a curve of gold, Scent of pine trees in the rain, Eyes that love you, arms that hold, And for your spirit's still delight, Holy thoughts that star the night. Spend all you have for loveliness, Buy it and never count the cost; For one white singing hour of peace Count many a year of strife well lost, And for a breath of ecstasy Give all you have been, or could be.