Author: Melissa Payne

The month of March is the beginning of Spring, and lately it has felt very appropriate. It has also held the beginning of Lent, for those of you who follow the church calendar. This time in life has felt like a "reset" in a lot of ways for me; and I think the beginning of … Continue reading Refresh

Acceptance is hard. Plain and simple. It can feel passive, or like giving up. It can feel like weakness, and resignation. But it can also feel like freedom. It can feel like walking through life with a spaciousness inside, the kind you get when you take a giant exhale from the deepest part of your … Continue reading Acceptance

Paulo Coelho wrote, from his best-selling book The Alchemist, "When you can't go back, you only have to worry about the best way of moving forward." Something we all must come to reckon with. Whether we have left a home, a geographical place, a specific season of life, a relationship, a job, a way of seeing … Continue reading Moving Forward

This new year didn't begin quite how I expected it to. When the clock turned midnight on December 31st, I danced in the New Year with good friends, with such a hopeful expectation for all this new year would bring. But, I really didn't expect to end up in a brace and on crutches just … Continue reading Expectations.

Healing feels a lot like a tearing open, a seeping out of soul of all that was given, taken, shared and remembered. Healing is painful, probably one of the most painful things we will endure. And though excruciating, for a time, eventually it leads us into deeper experiences of pleasure and poise. It is not … Continue reading Healing.

My friend Staci Lee and I have been collaborating on some of these writing projects. We decided this month to choose one of our favourite poems to share. I always find it a bit difficult to choose favourites. I have favourites for different reasons, and some that speak to me more profoundly during different seasons … Continue reading Words from a Poet

The days are getting shorter now, as autumn has fully emerged from the warm summer months. Darkness has subtly welcomed our mornings and taken more from our evening light. We wrap ourselves in layers of comfort, to ease the chill of these colder days. Naturally, I think, we take on a slower pace. We cannot … Continue reading Darkness.

In the last couple of years there has been a surge of literature, both spiritual and psychological, on the benefits of practicing gratitude. If I am perfectly honest, whenever this topic was brought up or encouraged in my life, I would feel a cringe inside of me, almost an aversion to it. I would nod … Continue reading Take Notice

What is it that you really want? What do you most deeply desire?  My Spiritual Director asked me these two questions two years ago, and to this day they still echo in the corners of my spirit. Desire is one of the most fundamental aspects to what it means to be human, and often the … Continue reading Desire

Monday morning has consisted of reading the lines from a poem by Anita Barrows (which you'll read below) and sipping coffee on my parents porch. These are the sacramental moments in the mundanity of Mondays - poems and porch sitting. Poetry has been apart of my life since I was basically able to read and … Continue reading Poetry as Sacrament