Aah to have lived another day… She said
to watch the sun bow down before us.
I AM humbled.
In awe of such a gesture of Mother Earth.
Yes it has been a good day.
An even more amazing year of freedom.
I hope you are blessed by the glow within
as you create magic.
High Five to Your Triumph!
©Te’ Werner
©2019 Photo
Te’ blessed by the golden light of day; Horse Heaven Hills, WA
She walked away from Her past…
away from shouldering
life times of regret and longing.
She walked…
towards HerSelf.
High Five to Your Triumph!
©2019 Te’ Werner
©2019 Photo
Te’ Autumn Magic: Skyline Vista with Her Luna Girl
What if
you didn’t make this all about them?
What if
you accepted responsibility for your feelings?
What if
you let in and trusted?
What if
you created a new path for yourself?
What if
you recognized the amazingness of your own being?
What if
you experienced joy?
What if
you simply were yourself?
What if?
High Five to Your Triumph!
©2019 Te’ Werner
Excerpted from Rise & Shine
©2019 Photo
Te’ along the river’s edge; Columbia River, WA
There is so much I feel… She said.
right now
today
most often really.
Life has a way of opening up the raw edges of our remembrance.
I hope you allow love and light into the shadows.
High Five to Your Triumph!
©2019 Te’ Werner
©Photo
Te’ journal handwriting
Thank you for celebrating this amazing journey with me…
High Five to Your Triumph!
©2019 Te’ Werner
©Photo HandwriTe’
I have never been to war to fight for freedom.
But I have crossed onto foreign soil
to take a stand.
I have never walked in your shoes
or experienced what you have.
But I have walked in mine.
I have not seen for my own eyes
the devastation of what you have.
But I have seen pictures that attempt to capture history.
I can tell you this…
You are brave.
You have walked or been carried.
You may feel so much grief that it grips
you unexpectedly in moment of great distress.
You may do your best to try and not see
the images playing reruns in your mind
yet they still may only appear more vivid
in the darkness of night.
You are alive. Breathing.
They taught you.
To be strong.
To keep your emotions in check.
Now only to be encouraged to share and feel all that seems so hard to reach.
Why am I alive?
Why not me instead of him or her?
Would I be better off dead then here right now feeling half alive?
Seeing helplessness in the mirror.
Reflected back in another eyes.
Can you know freedom that you have fought for us to celebrate?
~
How could She begin to possibly understand
or write about something that may bring hope or offer insight… when the furthest She has ever been away from home by HerSelf was 700 miles?
She does know of heart ache and loss.
Of loosing people close to Her due to accidents and sickness. Old age.
Of fighting personal battles in life with courage.
She has seen the devastation of cancer.
The ravages of a disease eating away at Her papa’s once handsome face.
She has Her own hidden emotional scars of feeling inadequate and afraid.
Feeling deep empathy for others that at times She cannot separate from HerSelf.
Yet She sits here in the bright morning sunlight.
Trusting.
The song of birds outside Her window.
How does this bring hope? Offer insight?
Through wielding of Her pencil as it etches its way across the page.
Why is She sitting here alone?
With a thought so distant from what She woke up with.
To write with such conviction
on a topic she feels strangely drawn to…
Grief.
The long held sorrow that carries itself within you for a love, a life you will never fully know again.
~
Yet I write. As if I know first hand the battle scars you carry buried deep inside your soul. Darkening your spirit of trust. I applaud your bravery…
To take another breathe.
To take another step however painful.
To take another chance.
On living.
On yourself.
On life.
Thank you for your courageous bravery.
High Five to you Freedom Warrior!
©Te’ Werner
Revised excerpt from Trusting Warrior
© Photo
Te’ walking along the Klickitat Trail, WA
It’s the things…
we don’t say
we won’t say
we “shouldn’t” say
we didn’t say
that must be said.
Break your inner silence.
Hear yourself.
Listen with utmost compassion.
High Five to Your Triumph!
©2019 Te’ Werner
excerpt from When Tears Fall
©Photo
Te’ journal writing
I hold the space of compassion within myself… She said.
A space that has held longing and regret. I had seen this space in my fathers own eyes before the light dimmed into his despair. His demise. His disease.
Could I hold this space of compassion as I grieved internally for him? A life he never fully realized as a triumph. For a life that we had shared for fifty one years.
He would not look me in the eyes the last time I saw him. This past Christmas Eve. Eyes that would tell a story he hadn’t wanted to end. A life he had feared. Denied. Raged. Shared. Loved. Regretted.
He passed five days later.
He rested on the Sabbath.
He gifted me life and encouragement.
So when I stood or sat at his side. Or listened as best I could until all he could do was text as he could no longer speak. I spoke the words he could not say. The words he longed to convey.
I forgive you papa for not being the dad. The father that I thought and knew I deserved. I know now as I have for the past umpteen years that you were being the best papa you knew to be.
I saw into the eyes of his sadness. Eyes that held such sorrow and regret. For the man I once feared. For the man he had tried to become. For the man that he dreamed of being.
I felt compassion for the little girl. For the young scared child. For the woman I had become. For the giant of man that he once was. For the man he was now. For the frail bones and sagging skin lying before me.
I wept with him.
I forgive you papa.
I bless you. And now I must let you be.
~
This past autumn I surrounded his hospital bed with a force of my own deliverance. I surrendered to letting my farewell be what he could not say. And could not yet see.
He feared dying. He felt he deserved this reality.
He did not believe he was worthy of forgiveness.
He did not know his own love for himself.
I wept for that man. Vowing to be done. To put the final nail in the coffin. Yet here I AM now. Nearing 3 am. Writing. Healing. Breaking further into my inner silence.
~
There was a time in my twenties that I felt that he was unforgivable. Anger. Resentment. Disappointment. Detached. Yet connected. By a love a daughter has for their father.
Thinking that forgiveness meant he had won. So I held unto this pain. For what I could not yet see. For what I was afraid to feel. For what I was unable then to be willing to do. To go into myself.
Until I knew.
For a decade I stood with every emotion I could muster. Pain hanging in the silence. It wasn’t easy to show up. I shouted. I cried. I begged him to surrender. I prayed for him to die. To end this suffering.
When you see a man. Your own father. Once handsome face be eaten slowly by cancer. Twenty years seems like an eternity. The last decade high hell. An era I call my raging forties.
His face distorted. Disfigured. Masked fear.
His story will be told. Our story will be heard.
As I listen to the voice of my once held silence.
A story that has been written in the depths of my heart. Pages. Long hours of weeping. “Tears for fears.” Undeniable grief. Gutted. The waiting wounded. A slain soul.
My papa my greatest life challenge and encourager. Died 29 December 2018. Seven days after I declared ‘Freedom’ as my focus. My resolve for this year. Five days after I bade him farewell.
I smile as I hear his voice. “How’s my big girl?”
I feel compassion as I see love in the depths of his soul. I told him that I would never come back and do this dance ever again with him and I meant it.
The song that plays now is a slow one. I move more gently through this grief. No longer feeling hollowed out by it. But freed because I have allowed myself the space to be with Her. To empty out. To love.
I edge closer to Her. She holds this space and I feel such freedom as tears brim these eyes. Eyes that have seen more death within Her life time than most would know.
I feel such compassion for you… She said.
Bless you father, My dear “papa”.
High Five to Your Triumph!
©Te’ Werner
excerpt from When Tears Fall
©Photo
Te’ sky gazing; Packwood, WA
The sacred magic of life is your soul’s joy… She said.
Thank you for bringing sparkle by sharing this writing journey.
High five to Your Triumph!
©2019 Te’ Werner
excerpt from Her Rising
©2019 Photo
Te’s handwritten quoTe’
Amazing…
to sit at the feet
of one’s own soul.
To honor the divine within.
To celebrate Her. Today.
In this moment
of passion
of knowing
Emerging.
High Five to Your Triumph!
©2019 Te’ Werner
Excerpt from HER RISING
©2019 Photo
Te’s hand and Her writing
Te' Werner...a writer's journey 