hello and welcome <3

sacred somethings debut

hiiii substack!

I have been wanting to start publishing here for a while, but have always managed to talk myself out of it and unfortunately, I am very convincing.

What if you have nothing worth saying? 

What if you write and everyone hates it? 

What if you say the wrong thing?

What if nobody gives a fuck about the experience of another white woman with anxiety and student debt?

I could probably write out fifty other reasons not to share my writing. And some of them might even be reasonable. Luckily, I have another voice in my head and she might just win this time. This other voice echoes from deep within my being, reminding me that there is immense power in being vulnerable. She sings sweetly to my spirit. She reaches into the pit of shame I have exiled myself to and offers the possibility of raw human connection. 

“Come on, bring your messiness and shame and fears with you if you’d like. But get out of your damn pit, beloved. Dare to imagine something else could be possible.” 

So, here I am. Imperfect, excited, scared, gleeful. Not ready, but embarking anyway on whatever journey the divine voice within me has urged me towards. I am not certain what exactly will find its way onto this page, but I hope you will arrive here with me as your whole self too. I want nothing less than messy. 

---

I guess we’ll start with an introduction. Since I have committed to vulnerability in this space, it seems an apt time for me to share something I wrote in my journal last month in response to a journaling prompt by Michelle Chalfant. She wrote:

Do you allow yourself to be seen? We might have learned while growing up that we are too much of this and not enough of that. We change who we are in order to fit in and be included and accepted. Doing this covers up our true, authentic self.

Who are you really?

In response, I wrote:

I am sensitive, loud, thoughtful, analytical, aesthetically inclined, loyal, melancholy.

I am sacred. I am feminine. I am soft. 

I am intentional.

I am a lover, a healer, a sister. 

I am art. I am music. 

I am kenzi. 

---

I’d like to close this editorial debut with a Mary Oliver poem I’ve been holding tightly to lately. May these lines hold you just as they’ve held me.

The poppies send up their 
orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation

of bright dust, of thin
and lacy leaves. 
There isn't a place 
in this world that doesn't 

sooner or later drown
in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while, 
the roughage

shines like a miracle
as it floats above everything 
with its yellow hair
Of course nothing stops the cold,

black, curved blade
from hooking forward--
of course
loss is the great lesson.

But I also say this: that light
is an invitation 
to happiness, 
and that happiness

when it's done right,
is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields, 

touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed
in the river
of earthly delight

and what are you going to do--
what can you do
about it--
deep, blue night?

Photo by Mona Jain on Unsplash

May your happiness be palpable and redemptive.

Thank you for your presence,

Kenzi