A mourning dove perches low sunlight gold on cold stone, while rock sleeps, the faithful wait for a sign of life below. Hide and seek, lost and found-- spring’s miracles are waiting games —but really, who has forty days to pray to the frozen ground?   I now move too slow, like everything, I am learning to walk again, or is it the first time?   Quietly growing new bones. The old gods never had patience-- but I learned to wrap myself in persistence— my grandmothers called it love— and on this cold morning on my walk at the edge of the path, I was blessed-- through scattered ..read more

“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Out of small things, big things grow. Out of one small change, many changes can come. Healing happens because you say one word, you make one move, you try one more time. An acorn produces an oak, which in a good year can produce 70,000 – 150,000 acorns. One seed. One tree. Exponential change.  Exponential change. But not immediate change. Oaks take a long while to grow. They are lovely young trees, but you don’t get the full effect for at least a decade, sometime two. But they are growing every day. And it is hard ..read more

Rilke said that the purpose of life is to be defeated by bigger and bigger things.  And there are just some nights, like this one, where this feels truer than others. I don’t mean that the past week was bad. I mean that it was a week where I threw myself out into the waves and got rolled around a lot. Where I had to try new things, and old things. Where I had the opportunity to learn and make some new mistakes. And I did. I made some beautiful mistakes. But I also know that it wasn’t just the challenges that got me. When Rilke talked about the bigger things defeating us—he meant the bigg ..read more

“I mean, what bird sings in a blizzard? And how can I learn that kind of hope?” — GLS This morning when I got up and looked out of my window, a chubby red cardinal was sitting on the fence next door looking around. He was surveying the yard covered with the flotsam and jetsam of early spring storms And of course he was singing. Or flirting. I don’t really know. I don’t speak Cardinal. Lately I have been writing about the hope and longing for Spring and seeing him, cheeky and red this morning made me feel hopeful. Made me feel like I had ordered him out of some ‘Looking for signs of Spring’ ca ..read more

“It is said that before entering the sea a river trembles with fear. She looks back at the path she has traveled, from the peaks of the mountains, the long winding road crossing forests and villages. And in front of her, she sees an ocean so vast, that to enter there seems nothing more than to disappear forever. But there is no other way. The river cannot go back. Nobody can go back. To go back is impossible in existence. The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean because only then will fear disappear, because that’s where the river will know it’s not about disappearing into the o ..read more

For those of you who have been hurt or who grew up with trauma you may know the word love, but you may not understand what it means. Or maybe you understand what it means in fiction, or movies, or other people, but you don’t know what it feels like. When people say they love you—you can think about the word love, you have an idea of what they are trying to say, you know they are trying to be nice, but your body feels numb, or you feel like you are watching the whole conversation from the outside. Love is something other people understand. Love is an abstraction. Survival mode makes it hard to ..read more

We often think that when we have messed up or have made a mistake (again), and tell someone, we think what we want is reassurance. “Oh, it's OK” or “I’m sure it wasn't that bad” or “I’ll bet no one even noticed.”  Something to take the sting, or embarrassment or shame out of that experience. Something to make that bad feeling go away. But I found that there is a different response that is actually bigger than reassurance, and it’s even bigger than making that bad feeling go away. Many years ago, I offered to make dinner for what turned out to be a dinner party at a friend's house. I had ..read more

The Grand Canyon I sit at the edge of the canyon looking out. So vast, incomprehensible, its farthest reaches beyond my ability to see from where I sit. With reluctance and passion, fear and hope, I go into the worlds of light and shadow.   Immeasurable abyss (of wants and needs) yet I don’t want to fill it in. Beautiful, layers of years wearing away, revealing. In fact, it is what it is, only because rough water, carving, left in its path, a wonder. Gretchen Schmelzer ©2024 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD ..read more

“They don’t even know they have wings.” — Mary Oliver, This Morning, Felicity I have a hard time with transitions—the day or days before a big trip—the shift from one big project to the next—basically any time I leave or arrive. I used to think it was a character flaw but over time I have come to understand it more as a part of how I am built. And I’m endeavoring to write about it because I know I am not alone. Some of you who are reading also struggle with transitions—and some of you who are reading this have children or loved ones who do. I get irritable and anxious. I perseverate about stu ..read more

“Some prized the pilgrimage, wrapping themselves in new white linen to ride buses across miles of vacant sand. When they arrived at Mecca they would circle the holy places, on foot, many times… While for certain cousins and grandmothers the pilgrimage occurred daily, lugging water from the spring or balancing the baskets of grapes. ” — Naomi Shihab Nye “Different Ways to Pray” Every year, in the week leading up to the anniversary of when I started therapy, I dig out my day planner from that year and stare at the page where I wrote the appointment down. I stare at my handwriting. I stare at ..read more