My sacred fire. I thought this depleted. The last months feel a test, a reckoning, a renewal. My body rupturing—one infected stone turned an intricate system upside down. How delicate every cell. How reliant one upon the other.
I’ve thought my body depleted before. Other illness, self-destruction, a war, a death. Even the beauty of birth can feel like depletion of self. The sacred fire ever trying to hold herself. The reminder that when all else falls away—the body, the breath, the inner noise—the flicker, surprisingly, keeps her cadence.
The fire only survives because someone brings fuel. Someone outside of you creates a stir. A line from Oliver or Lee or Hirsch. A deep dive into Rumi. A twilit moment on the back porch, alone. Not alone. Never alone.
Someone helps care for the sanctuary. The GAIA instructor leading me through Kundalini. The writer guiding me through somatic healing. Hynde or Young or O’Connor howling my body into movement.
The noticing begins with the weakening flame.
The noticing is not sudden.
…continue reading on Write2Heal (my free Substack)
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Published by Rebecca Evans | Poet | Essayist | Artist | Warrior
Rebecca Evans writes the difficult, the heart-full, the guidebooks for survivors. She’s a memoirist, essayist, artist, and poet, infusing her love of empowerment with craft. She teaches high school teens in the Juvie system through journaling, empowerment and visual art. Rebecca is also a military veteran, an avid gardener, and shares space with four Newfoundlands and her sons. She specializes in craft and explorative workshops for those who seek to dive deeper. She co-hosts Radio Boise’s Writer to Writer show on Stray Theater.
She's earned two MFAs, one in creative nonfiction, the other in poetry, University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe. Her poems and essays have appeared in Narratively, The Rumpus, Hypertext Magazine, War, Literature & the Arts, The Limberlost Review, and more.
Her books include When There are Nine (an anthology tributed to the life and achievements of Ruth Bader Ginsburg), Tangled in Blood (a memoir-in-verse)(2026 Literary Titan Award), Safe Handling (a collection-length poem), and AfterBurn (a flash essay collection, Moon Tide Press).
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