naked Archives · Ashley Barnes

Daily Bliss – August 3

Daily Bliss

The unraveling,

It never seems to end,

The pulling of one thread

And then another

Until she’s naked,

Flesh and bone no match

For the truth of her heart,

A gift unto herself

©Ashley Castle Barnes

Famed author and researcher, Brené Brown once wrote: “Midlife is not a crisis. Midlife is an unraveling….Midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulders, pulls you close, and whispers in your ear:

I’m not screwing around. All of this pretending and performing—these coping mechanisms that you’ve developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt—has to go. Your armor is preventing you from growing into your gifts. I understand that you needed these protections when you were small. I understand that you believed your armor could help you secure all of the things you needed to feel worthy and lovable, but you’re still searching and you’re more lost than ever. Time is growing short. There are unexplored adventures ahead of you. You can’t live the rest of your life worried about what other people think. You were born worthy of love and belonging. Courage and daring are coursing through your veins. You were made to live and love with your whole heart. It’s time to show up and be seen.

This unraveling is not only part of midlife though.

For many of us, it’s a part of the experience of deciding to embark on a path of growth – which is decidedly not for the faint of heart.

And yet all the raw vulnerability, the feeling of nakedness as we slowly peel back the layers and uncover the gold underneath, is an amazing gift to ourselves.

We were never truly broken, no matter what the world told us.

Maybe a bit tarnished or cracked, and covered in protective layers.

But at our core, whole. Perfect. Just as we are.

Who else needed to be reminded of this today?

{POEM} Your Love

Poetic Healing

Photo by Naletu on Unsplash

Your love,
It reaches to me
Across oceans,
Through unrequited nights,
And the pounding thunder
Of soulful storms

Your love,
It reaches to me
Through the cracks which make up
My broken inner being,

My naked soul,
Open for the taking,
Masqueraded in the cloak of human life,
Trials and tribulations but a dream
To the love which reaches through

Your love,
Reaches into the depths
Of my unshakable soul

Your love,
It makes me whole

©SpiritLed 2017

{POEM} Love’s Healing Touch

Awakenings, Poetic Healing

Your love,
It’s too deep to contain,
Too unique to ignore,
Too vast to hide

There is great power
In your love,
If only you choose
To give it freely,
Without restraint
Or fear

The purest form of living
Connects us
Each to another,
Love is the bridge,
With your love as needed
As any other

No past transgressions too low
To mask the intensity
Of the love inside you
The love that IS you

Do you dare
To let it out,
Naked and unconditional,
Raw before the men
Who need it most,
Before a world which needs
Love’s healing touch?

Great Goodness

Poetic Healing, Poetry

Great goodness becomes us
When we become goodness
When we share our gifts to the world
When we reach deep inside to know our true soul
And then bare it

Naked for the world to see
Exposed, but not afraid
Inviting others to do the same
Showing that underneath our skin
We truly are all alike
That love does not come in a color

Our goodness, deep within
Vibrant like a rainbow
Shining across all skies
The pot gold not found at the end
But rather in connecting in love to one another

Naked, Like Trees

Poetic Healing, Spirit Reveries

The wicked finality of life is almost more beautiful
than birth, the grace and forcefulness with which the body
unbinds from the constraints of humanity each

day, slowing more and more, the measured
breaking down of flesh and ego, a thinning of the
veil that shrouds the Spirit from its home,

until one day you see it in their eyes,
you know they have seen Home
and they are ready
and you are ready
to let go as they have

Oh, the cruel and terrible dichotomy of grief, to hold your
beloved, to never want to let loose your
connection, yet to look death in the face and know surrender
is the only promise for true salvation and peace for both.

Like walking outside on a brisk fall day,
naked as trees, wearing only the cloak of nature’s
chill, allow tears to flow, in colorful waves as leaves
fall, purposefully and with finality, and hope,
rotting on the ground through the
dormancy of winter, only to regenerate new
life when the sun once again warms the skin.

Your liberation, it may not come until years later,
when you can finally take comfort in the distance
between suffering and release, when you can

set up your altar and place your heart there to be
cleansed and unburdened, light the candle, assemble the
stones and blessings in the order that sets things right for your

spirit to grieve, and then leave it there exposed, to be
encased in love and peace until it is, eventually, your
time to also begin the journey Home.