Today’s Gathered Gold comes from Words Have Weight, from the Reflections collection. This piece feels perfect for this week because we are working with voice, trust, and the words that have shaped us. Some words stay with us. For Whatever reasons, some beautiful, some painful. Some marked upon us like a tattoo. Here is the poem for today: Words Have Weight There are times in my life - a word sealed my fate. The moment it was said - the word had weight. “Sorry.” “Goodbye.” “Love.” I didn’t know what I know now. The word on their tongue, or mine, could be the deepest pool - an alternate path in time. “Promise.” “Lie.” “Deny.” The reflection was my own, the step was mine. The word belonged to me - to carry in my mind. “Guilt.” “Truth.” “Clarity.” Marked by words, caressed by words, loved, scarred,and shaped by words. Bound by words. “Honour.” “Pride.” “Fail.” Choose the route - slip into the pool. ripples of words cascade - sound waves on water. “Scream.” “Silence.” “Surrender.” Journal prompt What is one word that has shaped me, and what word am I ready to choose now?

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 Gathered Gold is from “Love After Love” by Derek Walcott. This week’s theme is empowerment: becoming the safe place you needed and the poem I've chosen is just beautiful - "Love After Love" by Derek Walcott. This poem speaks about whats already there and returning to it. When you recognise yourself and that you have been there all along to love yourself and know yourself more than anyone. there is a softness here in that realisation. There is something beautiful in the idea of giving your own heart back to itself. It reminds me that empowerment does not always begin with a bold decision. Sometimes it begins with a softer one. Writing prompt: Where in your life are you being invited to give your heart back to itself? You might write about a part of you that has felt ignored, judged, rushed, hidden, or left behind. What would it look like to welcome that part of you back with care? The link to the full poem is below https://poems.com/poem/love-after-love/

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