COURTNEY ROHAN YOGA

Our lives are calling us to action, but we can not create lasting change without the feminine, nurturing aspects of ourselves. For too long we have overlooked the benefit of our feminine power. We have misunderstood its importance, its strength. So, I am spending time exploring the idea of softening. This idea is not for suckers, the way it was once imagined to be. When I was younger, if you were soft, people would walk all over you. Or so it seemed. However, what I have come to realize now is the illusion: Being soft is not for suckers. It takes real strength to live softly. The illusion to dispel is within the opposition: hard, cold.. so for this let's consider the word "fight." To shift our thinking about softening, we must reconsider what fighting looks like. When we are younger, fighting is physical. Then, we develop words, and fighting can become more involved. There comes a time when we all will fight in our truth and for our truth. But as we become more w

This Sunday, I attended two live stream church services. I went first to Pastor TD Jakes and then to Pastor Steven Furtick. I enjoy what they have to say, and most Sundays this is a part of my morning. I listen to many teachers throughout the week, but I like to hear the Bible on Sundays, and when the stories are taught well, that makes me happy. It fills my day and can carrying me well into the week. It makes me feel connected to Jesus. It makes me cry sometimes. Sometimes I sing, if I like the music, I pray, I lift my hands. I thank El Shaddai, the Almighty God, for and in, spirit and truth. That’s how I like to start my Sundays, now since I can not go to a building, which for years I have only done maybe every couple months. More recently I have enjoyed being in the chat rooms with people during the service. I like this chance to share and listen and hold space in a new way while being in my home, yet at church. I love when my son walks in and hears something that resonates wi

I spend a lot of time contemplating. I have always been a thinker. The people who know me best know that words have always been my outlet, words in song. Yes, I'll take that. (Ask my family, they'll tell you that I used to rap all the time. LOL.) No really, singing was my first love. But I was scared to sing in front of people, so I would sing when my dad would ask me to sing, when I was in the forest alone, or when I was at my high school performing arts school. Going to a performing arts school, led me eventually to share my poems. I had been writing poems since... hum, I can't remember. It has been a love affair, an act to share love, for myself and with others. When I started writing blogs some years ago, I realized that sharing my words in this format was helpful. I was not just writing in my journal, but sharing something that someone else could use. I love that about words. They can help. They can resurrect, and they can also do just the opposite. Hurtf

How interesting to find ourselves in this most precarious circumstance. I hope you are doing well with it all. I hope that if you found this website for the first time, it is because you are ready to do something special, irregardless of the things that look damning. Truth is, we are not damned. We are just getting started. I know that I am.  Our time is so precious. I feel that more and more each day.  Do you? Each moment that we say NO to is one more moment lost to possibility, to opportunity. I don't mean to suggest that you should say YES to everything, but I do suggest that you say YES to your life! Saying YES to your life means seeing that in each moment there is something you can do, even when the stakes are down. Saying YES means opening to seeing what can be good versus saying NO, which is defeated. From NO, the only option is NO.  So I am inviting you to say YES today to you, to growth, to the possibilities in this moment and the next. It won't hurt. Tr

In Uncertain Times, What is Certain? I have been asking myself this question again since this pandemic became a part of our lives: what is certain? I know what I know about uncertain times. I have had many in my 40 years. I have had to grieve the mortality of my mother, my aunt and best friend, and my grandmothers and grandfathers on both sides of my family. I have had to consider my own mortality on many occasions as I have been challenged with an incurable form of chronic cancer. I know my story is not special, necessarily. I know that many can say they have experienced worse. I share this story of mortality only to shine light on how in each experience this question of certainty emerged and emerges again for me. Considering what is certain is for me a rock in the mucky water of life and death. If we have not practiced feeling the intensities of life or had to feel them to the degree that we are feeling them right now, right now may be even more challenging. If you’ve numbe

Have you been in bliss today? Last week? Most of you would probably answer "NO!" right now. Nothing is perfect right now. I get it. I often find myself saying something is bliss when I think that it feels perfect. But, let's question: is that really the only place that bliss is, in perfection? As I grapple with the term and this time in history, I realize that I have used this term ignorantly. For this, let us consider: What is perfect? Is bliss only when something feels perfect in the moment?  And if so, is bliss something that comes and goes with the rise and fall of experience? Where is the bliss?  Michael Jackson once said that “[o]ut of the bliss comes magic, wonderment and creativity.” Deepak Chopra shares that “[n]othing is more important than reconnecting with your bliss. Nothing is as rich. Nothing is more real.” Bliss does sound perfect in these instances. But, then, I still don’t know what it is. And, how do we reach it? Is it something even to be reached?

“God will sometimes lead you in what appears to you to be a circuitous route. He does it to prepare you for what [H]e is planning to do in your life. Trust that [H]e knows what [H]e is doing! Your plans and God’s plans are not always the same!”  -Bret Avlakeotes The space in between is like this, a subtle unassuming place where we must trust in what is possible and who is in charge. Before the fight, before the response, before the harvest... there is always something that had to happen first. In those moments, before, it is best for us to move slowly and listen carefully. How are you being called, and to do what? The only way to know is to take time to hear. This requires patience. You have never been here before. So patience for the road ahead will be required. If we force, or rush ahead too quickly, we are certain to stub, crack or break under the pressure. The route before us is not like the one that has brought us to here. And yet, here we are. Wherever we are on the path, n