cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
Our dear sailing friend Len died several weeks ago. He was sixty years young. At his memorial service, my husband said Len was the most beautifully complex contradiction of a human he had ever known. More insecure, more bold, more obstinate, more open, more brilliant, more foolish, more connected to death, and more alive to the resurrection…
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This is not a eulogy. This is a wild ce-le-bra-tion. Lived out in staccato, fast breaths and clapped hands. This is a reverie of light that actively stomped the darkness. She was a determined, defiant dance. This is ce-le-bra-tion. She was coffee and cocoa-bean, sugar cane and deep earth. Caribbean and cradle of civilization. She was…
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I sit on the airplane, wedged between Tim, my husband, and Reed, my younger son. Seth, my older son, sits just across the narrow aisle. The flight attendant moves down the aisle closing the overhead baggage compartments, signaling that boarding is over and our departure is at hand. I pull my AirPods out of my…
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It’s a blurry line really, A delicate balancing act: Holding you, holding me. I’ve ignored you And denied you. Pretended you were someone else.
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In honor of the tenth anniversary of Red Tent Living, we are featuring a monthly legacy post written by one of our regular contributors from the past decade. Maureen Gebben was one of the original Red Tent Writers; this post originally appeared in September 2013. I’ve had a bolus of change in my life with…
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I am not ready to let go. The tears and memories still come to the surface, far too quickly, and for this I hold immense gratitude. I am still holding the glorious faces, stories, words, and brilliant questions of those who went through our institute. The beautiful work was done in partnership and communion alongside…
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It has been 40 years since my dad died and almost 25 years since my mom breathed her last. My in-laws have been gone close to two decades. As a young woman, I was already navigating life without any hope of a living presence of my parents. During certain stages of life, this absence has…
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Dear Queen, I see you in your garden there In your yard, in the back. Tucked. and hidden. Where the chickens roam free And the dirt brings you close To the grief in your eyes. Broken and bruised. Battered and beat.
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The queen’s calling is to hold the weight of the present as it begs us for a way forward as we navigate life in our beautifully broken world. I write and talk a lot about the archetype of the queen and have come to see her as a part of all of us that is…
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To my Love during this holiday season, You look down at your belly and place your hand gently on the slight natural curve. You wonder, What happened? What did I do? Why is there no baby inside? You breathe a deep sigh, which leads to a release of salty water welling up in your eyes,…
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