So this must be why they call it paradise, spirit and soul connecting, listening, being together, under blue skies and palm trees, purple cactus and lemon trees, eating herb roasted whole chicken, fennel crusted sea bass, with baby kale risotto, while drinking blood orange lemon punch, and the sun set is as dazzling as can be, everything all in glory that it must truly be paradise. I see now, heaven is when spirit and soul connects. I know my soul. We deserve to be here. So let’s do this again.

I went on a retreat with some amazing women. Winds are changing and when they blow, new things move. So to with women who connect together, build and transform together. The air is shivery with possibilities and it’s because we all came together not only to know our stories but also to make time, to remember, to know we are enough and to prepare for our possibilities. We are also intentionally making plans to know what to keep. If only you could see us, if only you could see our knowing so deep. Total strangers connecting one to one, tiptoes replaced by strides as radiant as gazelles, champions on my left and my right, some with power, so powerful like rivers, that this must truly be paradise.

Our meeting is illuminating our past, while at the same time brightening our future. We are at the summit of our lives. The ties that bind all of us, this community of women together is so divine, so magical, that it must be paradise. All we carry, all we carry like water, every single thing whether in silence through words unspoken or in pain, through tears flowing freely, so many weights that many still don’t know, that we carry on our own, everything I am discovering and learning about us is divine like a knowing so deep. We are learning, seeing and listening to all the ways we shape an untenable reality, sculpt it, sing and cry through it, reduce it to also to bits and pieces so effortless, so sterling, with no excuses too. In our ways, in our actions, in our tears, in our silence, change itself changes as we move together to the essence of our being. Keep a community of women for you. We are rare and a touchstone like a purple cactus in a desert.