Ode to Body Writers

This was shared with me by a Body Writer after a recent circle.

I'm sharing it here with her permission to celebrate her voice, and because it's so meaningful to me.

She does a singular and beautiful job of capturing what Body Writers is like and what it does truly give all of us inside: that circles are deep, rich, restorative, tender, soft, vulnerable, filled with womxn finding their strength through giving their bodies a voice, loving, compassionate, magical, courageous and holding in a way that heals us deeply as sensitive womxn, myself included.

I'm so honored to share the following, written about Body Writers, by Body Writer Nikki Shay:

To the Ones Who Hold It All

You are the ink that stains the stars, the breath between the breaking and the becoming,

the steady hands catching the words that tremble their way into the light.

Jennifer –

you built this home from the bones of courage,

threading softness into the seams of every aching, unseen thing. 

You are alchemy,

a lighthouse for the voices that once whispered,

teaching them to rise –

to wail, to wonder, to wield. 

This space, this circle –

is not just a room, not just a call.

It is a body. A breathing, pulsing, holding body.

A body that bends without breaking, that cradles what is too heavy to carry alone,

that lets us fall – not to shatter, but to be seen.

And oh, how you see us. 

How you see me.

I have wept here, unraveled here, written myself back into existence here.

I have walked in as embers

and left burning,

left alive.

To every soul in this sacred space – 

you are the echoes that make me whole.

You are the brave, the bare, the beautifully unbridled.

And Jennifer, our guide, our fire-starter –

you are the keeper of the threshold,

the tender storm,

the reason we dare to stand inside our own skin and say –

"I am here. I am whole. I am writing my way home."

Thank you.

For every word. Every silence. Every holding. 

For the sacred. 

For the salve.

For all that stirs us into something new. 

I am in awe of you. I am in utter awe.

– Nikki Shay

Body Writers is my seasonal somatic writing and healing circle. Practice giving your body a voice for somatic healing and loving presence with your body in an absolutely beautiful community of sensitive womxn here.