At last, we have rain here in London. Not a phrase anyone would expect to hear, perhaps—yet, alas, it is true. This summer has been the UK’s hottest on record, with July among its driest months. The evidence is right beside me in Primrose Hill: the park’s usually lush green grass has become a vast sweep of brown.

So today, as the scent of rain drifts through my window on a crisp breeze, I welcome it in. The grey sky feels almost like a comforting hug. Ask me again in four months, when the winter blues have settled on my spirits—but for now, I’m grateful. That is what Londoners do, after all: we talk about the weather. And I seem to have adopted the custom with ease.

Perhaps it was this long, breathless heat, and the sudden proof of rain that made Friday night feel even more vivid. After weeks of overheated evenings, I found myself stepping into an altogether different kind of warmth—the delicious electricity of a tango floor. The London No Duerme Tango Marathon was in full, glittering swing, with dancers arriving from everywhere, music spilling through the room, the floor alive with embraces.

There is something deeply restorative about tango for me. After years of dancing, I still marvel at the small miracle of it. The way you meet someone in an embrace and create something that has never existed before, one song at a time. No choreography to follow or hide behind—only listening, trust, rhythm, and the willingness to respond.

And then there was the dress… I had agreed to dance and model a gorgeous dress alongside ten other couples for one beautiful orchestral song. For so many of us, to be seen can so often feel like an invitation to shrink, or play to others’ expectations. But instead, I could enjoy the sensuality of movement, the music, the pleasure of adornment, and dance in my embodied expression. The whole thing felt like being handed an opportunity to step into embodied expression before a crowd of onlookers and be seen. Bold, free, present.

It is said in tango, that we followers, allow ourselves to be lead. We are the ones choosing to be led and giving that trust to our leader, therefore we are not strictly followers. Tango has always reminded me how femininity can be fluid. Soft and strong, ornamental and purposeful, sensual and self-possessed all at once. There is receptivity in it, certainly, but not passivity.

Perhaps this is a small form of female agency: the freedom to decide how we move through the world; to be receptive without being passive; to welcome beauty and visibility without giving away our inner authority. Tango holds this paradox so beautifully. We listen, respond, and share an embrace, but we do not disappear within it.

That feeling has stayed with me, perhaps because it touches something at the heart of The Rose Temple. How might we return to a more embodied, intuitive, and radiant way of being?

In its own utterly contemporary way, tango asks similar questions. It asks us to listen. It asks us to be present in our bodies. It asks for responsiveness rather than control, and for a kind of courage in allowing ourselves to be seen. The Rose Temple is, in part, a story about that return to desire, devotion, feminine wisdom, and the sanctuary within.

The ancient world of the story may be far from contemporary London, but the question remains intimately familiar: how do we come home to ourselves, and then choose how we wish to be seen, then live that authentically?

UPDATES

With just around six weeks to go until official publishing day for The Rose Temple novelette, I’ll be sharing more reflections weekly, right here, along with updates to keep you informed about events and conversations. Be sure you’re subscribed here and to redrosethorns press, where you can be ahead of the game to get your copy of this wonderful book. Whether you come for the mythology, the historical world, the themes around the divine feminine, or simply for a beautiful story to slip into as summer begins to turn… this is the story for you.

Our next event with redrosethorns press will be in person, in London! Click here to be a part of our evening of Literature: Conversation and Connection Roses, Reading and Red Wine, 14 October.

If you’d like to secure your ticket to the in-person book signing and launch event, 16 October click here! You have the option to purchase a ticket or a ticket with a book. We will go from 6- 8 pm London time. Would love to see you there!

If you have ever had a place, a song, a garment, a dance, or perhaps a ritual that made you feel more fully yourself, I would love to hear about it in the comments.

With love,

Christin

As I prepare some topics for the upcoming Roses Reading and Red Wine event part of my book tour for The Rose Temple, with redrosethorns press, it got me contemplating on the broader concept of what it means to recognize the Goddess. Here are those reflections…

COZY REFLECTIONS

One thing I loved about writing The Rose Temple was being able to dip into a world full of mythic presence. An ancient Greek world where gods and goddesses gave form to the fundamental forces of being, offering a mythic framework through which individuals and the polis might seek to flourish. Each goddess and god carried distinct powers and domains, for example: justice, agriculture, fertility, festivity, love, poetry, and more. While first shaping this story, and devoting my imagined Rose Temple to Aphrodite, I couldn’t help but contemplate the mythic and archetypal nature of the Goddess herself. In today’s world so shaped and dominated by religions with priests and a male God in the sky, split off from his female counterpart, I wanted to explore how the Goddess shows up and is vital in our lives and how important it is that we recognize her. For the Greek ancients they had Aphrodite, Demeter, Athena, Artemis, Persephone, and the stories that accompanied them, while today we have historically grounded figures such as: Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, and mystics like Hildegard of Bingen, Clare of Assisi, and Teresa of Avila to pray and look up to, but who, for most people today, seem to exist somewhere in the shadows. Represented in ancient myth and preserved in these women saints, we can remember, reflect on and revere the Goddess still.

Writing a story set in Classical era Crete, alive with the memory of goddess worship, has felt like opening an ancient time capsule and letting it burst forth into present day. It has certainly awakened a divine feminine remembrance within myself, encouraging me to explore further what we even mean when we say Goddess, and release whatever stigma still clings to the word. It is easy to regard the Goddess as belonging to another age, an image on a vase, a crumbling statue, or just as someone from a half-remembered myth. But I don’t think she’s a relic from a world that no longer exists. I think she is a language many of us are longing to recover, one that has always been there, waiting to be recognized. This language feels like a way of being that aligns us with our bodies, our instincts, the earth, one another, and even the mysterious currents of the soul. Joseph Campbell’s work on myth as symbol sheds more light on this living language, reminding us how myth is a way of illuminating the present and our inner lives. Campbell would likely say that the Goddess myth is beneficial because it restores a symbolic relationship to life as sacred, cyclical, embodied, and interconnected.

I believe that today, we can understand the Goddess as a living archetype: a symbolic language through which the many powers of the feminine—eros, wisdom, sovereignty, intuition, inspiration, creativity, grief, protection, and renewal—become conscious within us, shaping not only how we know ourselves, but the world we choose to create. The Goddess is neither an aesthetic nor a simplistic gender binary, but an archetypal and philosophical mode of consciousness. She is the voice that recalls us to Beauty, eros, soul, relationality, and the sacred intelligibility of life (beauty here meaning coherence, not appearance). The Goddess, or Divine Feminine, is not confined to women, nor does it erase the masculine. It names a neglected dimension of human wholeness available to everyone that is ready to be heard. She is a voice within us, asking us to restore what we have forgotten to revere: beauty, tenderness, imagination, grief, sensuality, the earth, the soul. Recognizing her, understanding her as myth, archetype, and lifeforce, is essential to our becoming. The Goddess archetype is the embodiment of the sacred feminine forces of love, wisdom, creativity, and renewal. She is the living pattern through which beauty, eros, and reverence for life become conscious within us.

This excerpt from The Rose Temple exemplifies the feminine force I speak of, and how essential it is for healing society.

Throughout my ancient Greek inspired writing, I discovered a concept called, eudaimonia, an ideal centered around that of human flourishing. It asks what it truly means to live well. Beyond simplistic passing happiness, toward a life participating in right relationship with what is good, beautiful and true. Essentially this means letting your choices be led by what makes life more truthful, humane, right in conduct, and whole—not merely easier, more profitable, or more immediately gratifying. It is safe to say society has put more value on the latter. Today we can see mythic frameworks as a way of recognizing the archetypal forces still moving through us, and of imagining a more conscious, beautiful, and flourishing way to live.

This line from The Rose Temple exemplifies just that:

When I imagine eudaimonia fused with the archetypal divine feminine, I picture a life shaped by the active practice of virtue and the fullest realization of human capacity. I imagine a world where the divine feminine and the divine masculine function in balance and harmony. A reality where the voice of the Goddess is as alive and sovereign now as she was in ancient days.

Myths preserve questions that modernity urgently needs to ask again. Myth does not ask us to retreat into the past. It asks us to recognize the past still moving within us. Rather, the Goddess may be encountered through the many forms she takes: as a living archetypal presence within the stories, symbols, visions, and spiritual women who have continued to carry her qualities through time. It is the gradual remembrance that we are not separate from one another; that beauty matters; that the body is wise; that compassion is not weakness; and that a civilization cannot call itself evolved while it remains at war with life, unreconciled with its own feminine counterpart.

UPDATES

What becomes possible when we remember the sacred feminine not as an idea, but as a living force within our relationships, our creativity, our bodies, and our visions for the world?

This is one of the topics I would love to bring into the room at Roses, Reading & Red Wine event happening 14, October. What might we remember when we gather, read together, journal, speak honestly, and allow ourselves to be moved?

We will read, reflect, and share. There will be roses, journaling, red wine, and the space to linger with questions that invite us to feel the aliveness of the Goddess within.

The Rose Temple will be available 13 October, for readers drawn to ancient Greece, Aphrodite, myth, devotion, and the Goddess as a living archetype. You can purchase yours at redrosethorns press.

With love,

Christin

Con amor,

Christin

I can still hear the SPLAT. Hands clapping against cement, stunned, I lift my gaze to see I’ve landed on the slick, brick-red pavement and before me are the scattered contents I’d been holding: my strewn backpack, phone, tea thermos, and the sunglasses flown from my head. In full-blown panic, without another second to waste, I rose like a phoenix, scooped my things, and ran like the wind. To back up the train–pun intended­–seconds before, in a panic, amidst Madrid’s bustling railway station, I was sprinting down the escalator, spotting my 9:40 train in the distance. It was probably 9:41 and the one-hour train ride to my destination of Vallavolid was not one I could afford to miss. The young, male ticket agent spotted me in full gallop and yelled out an encouraging, “Corre, corre!” And corre I did, panting for air about to zip by him. “Tickete, tickete,” he whined, beckoning me stop. He scanned my phone with team-like efficiency, cheering, “Corre como nunca!” and when I heeded his command, summoning my forces to take off for my next sprint to catch the train, found myself flat out, after my tired legs failed after a mere two steps.

The athlete ego in me doesn’t like to admit the truth of almost defeat from this story. I exercise regularly, and am a former ballroom pro used to dancing all day in heels; a couple of sprints are nothing. But the fact was, that for the past four days I had walked the shit out of Madrid by day and danced limitless hours of Argentine tango by night. My legs…were… sore.

I’m happy to report, I did make that train, and thankfully so, because I ended up with my friend at his winery, did a private tour and tasting, ate some ridiculously delicious local specialties, happened upon the town’s annual running with the bulls’ festivities, went to a wine museum in a 300-year-old castle, and ended the day visiting the once-residence of legendary Spanish writer, Miguel Cervantes. Whew! The bruised hip would be worth it.

Madrid was bustling with tourists and locals alike, out and about soaking up all the springtime feels. It was hard to believe that 18 years had passed since I’d first visited this city with my Spanish study abroad program, while living in Valencia. This time though, I could experience it in a different way—on my own whims. Walking around 5 ½ miles a day, I had my way with the museums, delighted in Spanish food specialties, admired the architecture around the Centro, and shopped!

The museums were especially inspiring this go around, and my senses were much more attuned to experiencing artwork. Being solo in a museum, and not led in a group, means you can really get lost in your own track of lingering in front of a painting, or being drawn over to another, all at your own whim, without having to worry about keeping to agenda. The Museo del Prado is a massive, fine collection of classic, far-western European artists. At large, the paintings appear highly realistic across a breadth of portraits, landscapes, and countless religious paintings, from 12^th century on through early 20th. Most of these paintings were commissioned for royalty and cathedrals, and many were so large they practically took up the whole wall. From mood, tones, brush strokes, and life-like depictions, the artistry coming from these painters was truly striking to behold, and gazing at them was like feasting on a time capsule.

The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia is a different beast. The building itself is a noteworthy structure of architecture, and houses works of a more modern period from late 19^th century to present day. These are the Picasso’s, Miro’s and the Dali’s, oozing Surrealism, Cubism, and anything Avant Garde. A Dali painting is captivating for any eye. You can stare lengthily at his paintings and gradually your sight discovers new intricacies continually popping out at you. A figure used in one painting makes an appearance in another… a disguised guitar floating within one Dali realm, again recycled into a different. An eye, which upon further observation is actually a rowboat, and on and on like this. There was and is no one like him; if there is, please introduce me.

I couldn’t help feel moved having experienced such former Classicism juxtaposed alongside such modernity and its stark changes of artist themes. Before me were the breath and soul of a generation of artists experimenting, breaking rules and new ground, creating art like never before, and for its own sake. As someone who studied photography in the days when we were still developing in dark rooms, I was especially drawn to the displayed works of Man Ray and his contemporaries. He was truly Avant Gard creating surrealist works through photography and dark room contrivances. I loved how architecture angles posed as abstract paintings, his use of the female figure, and also how double exposures painted unique final effects. There was room for error, experimentation and desirous surprises! These effects, in addition to the silvery quality from film and its lovely graininess, are facets lost in the precision of today’s digital world of perfection which simply cannot be repeated.

I could feel the impulse of unconventional artistry projected from that 1920’s Parisian era beating at me from all directions; as an artist, it was truly inspiring. But following my swim in this uplifting current, the waves soon dropped, leaving me wading in sadness. It was a heavy realization knowing that art like this would never again exist in this way and perhaps would soon lose its appreciation altogether. The way our world is moving within a growing digital world, and how AI apps are taking over everything from daily mind tasks to artistry—stealing the show of human capacity—I mourned the loss of such gallant forces once housed in that Surrealist era in history which had seeded its tentacles into the world. What will come of our new transition? Painted before my eyes on one side was the vision of all that was, and on the other side, the unknown potential of all that will be. And yet who knows? All things are possible. Perhaps even with the infiltration of psychedelic plant medicine into the mainstream, there could be a new surgency of artwork presently unimaginable.

I meandered outside the Reina Sofia and plopped on a ledge overlooking the plaza. My mind drifted, taken away to a daydream fantasy implanting me right into that Surrealist Movement era in 20’s, 30’s Paris. If I could be alive during another era in our more recent centuries it would surely be then. There I was, an artist, basking at Café de Flore, buxom in my emerald-green, feminine pant suit, poising a long cigarette in my dainty fingers. I crossed my slender legs and tilted my head, so that my matching, wide-brimmed, musketeer hat blocked the golden sun rays beaming down at our round table. I am deep in conversation about the latest literary revelry, inhale a long drag then spew out something about the importance of imagination, and then move to matters about our place in the world—considering its current harrowing atmosphere. I picked up my champagne glass, threw back a long gulp, and while keeping the empty glass raised to my peers, spouted the last stanza to my latest poem. I quickly followed with something sharp and witty then let out a hearty laugh while free-flowing between French, Spanish, and English. Seeing that my cigarette was exhausted, I looked at my thin gold and pearled wristwatch, then with a soft gesture stood up, excusing myself. “I have to get going,” I’d say, “I’m posing at Man Ray’s studio in twenty minutes and don’t want to be late.” I’d lean down, doing the parting double kisses on each of my companions’ cheeks. Just before turning to leave, I spot Salvador Dali walking up alongside us in his navy-blue, pinstripe suit, his mustache curled at each end like little question marks. At the last second before losing his gaze, he winks my way, the corner of his mouth curling up with his quintessential smirk… Such was his wink, so penetrating, that it moved through me, fading into the stone café walls behind. A wink so telling of time engendered… and too, of stories still untold.

I can’t end a post about Madrid without touching on Flamenco. Yes, Flamenco is most originally from Spain’s south, Andalusia, but there’s plenty of it floating around Madrid for the tourist’s sake. Let me tell you, it is a show that should not be missed! I must say I got lucky on the place I went. I had stumbled upon the alleyway street one afternoon, saw the sign in the window, and bought a ticket for that very night. They took us down into the crypt, you could say, a cave-like, narrow, open room with old brick walls and arched ceiling. A single, tiny stage rested at one end. Out came the guitarist, the drummer on cajon, one singer, and three dancers.

The singer cried out his lament. And when I say cried out, I do mean cried out. In my mind I have labeled Flamenco music along the same vibe as Blues music. Spanish Blues, belted with gipsy flair. It’s meant to move you, make you feel something, at least Classic, proper Flamenco will. Well, it did its job. The female dancer stood up from her tiny wooden stool and graced the stage. She waited. Gathering her skirt... and her forces... she tapped in to something beyond. The force overtook her and she moved with the song, arching and rounding her body, stomping staccato percussion against the wooden stage. Her face contorted as the emotion flowed through her, forehead rippled with intensity. A look I will never forget, whose story moved me to tears. Threads in the imminent existence of our eternal something. Perhaps she was tapping in to the soul of flamenco, and as she carried it, projected it to us, a willing audience, watching the moving paintings memorialized—now seeded within our beings.

The cover design for The Rose Temple is here, my dears! What a proud moment that was to unveil it to you all on Instagram last week. It also marked the two-month countdown until the official release of this story live into the world. The smiles were real…

In the meantime, I’m also feeling rather giddy about the forthcoming book-tour events. The in-person book launch celebration and signing will take place just a neighborhood over from me, at the Belsize Community Library, in Belsize Park, London. I went for a wander over the weekend and was delighted to find the library in such a sweet spot tucked along a quiet street of brick homes. The library itself is also that quintessential London-brick charm, its long windows adorned by planter boxes bright with colorful flowers. It seems unreal to imagine that, in two months time, I’ll be inside there, launching The Rose Temple with so many you—many I have met, and others I have not yet.

With the cover complete, we are ready to send out ARCs—advance reader copies— of the completed digital book to our first reviewers. This is another important threshold in the pre-launch journey of a book. For The Rose Temple, we seek reviewers and early readers who feel aligned with its world, because those first honest responses can help future readers approach the book with trust. The hope is not merely for praise, but for connection: for the story to reach those drawn to myth told through a female perspective, the sacred feminine, ancient landscapes, and the timeless expression of our longings.

When I think about what motivates my work, community is one of the values I hold most closely. Reviewers may also introduce the novelette to their own communities, widening its discovery, and those who resonate with its themes and setting to find it more easily. It’s going to be so exciting to see how these readers describe the book’s qualities and to hear what moved them!

If you’d like to secure your ticket to the in-person signing and launch event, 16 October click here! You have the option to purchase a ticket or a ticket with a book. We will go from 6- 8 pm London time. Would love to see you there!

If you’re not in the London area for the in-person launch signing day, don’t worry we have an online launch happening 17 October, 2pm EST for all of our global followers!

If you are a book reviewer or enthusiast and feel called to this story and redrosethorns press, feel free to reach out or comment below.

With love,

Christin

This week, I’m sharing a poem that returns to that strange territory of memory, longing, and the stories we carry long after they seem to have ended. Pages in Time moves through the ache of a love remembered—one that feels both intimate and ancient, as though it has been encountered before in the pages of another life.

For my Spanish speaking/ bilingual fam and readers, I have included the Spanish version alongside the original, allowing the poem to be heard in another rhythm, another tenderness. I hope they offer you a moment of quiet reflection. A pause to honor what has been lost, what remains, and the beautiful inner space we reclaim for ourselves.

With love,

Christin Marie

PAGES IN TIME	
								
I knew you from other times it seems
Like the pages of a book
A story I once knew.

I pull back the cover
And read 
 your smile, so bright
The curves of your lips
 The archway to enter into
Your paradise, so rich, so voluminous.

Caught up I become with speech
No words can hold your tongue 
 as you reach through and say, 
the words I so long to hear once more

As if I was turning back those pages in time
Fighting away the brokenness 
 that misshaped longing, lonely nights
Beginning and ending at the frown of your mouth 
 when you said you were through.

I ran to new corners to fight nights of sorrow, remorse
I remember sleepless tremors
No more do I beg for your touch

Crimson, now the pages bleed
And I exhaust every outlet to find out why
Why the distance, why the hurt
Why he will not return to me

For now, I sink into a new page, rewrite the pain, 
for I remember now what is truly there
‘Cause I knew you from other times it seems

Time when fables and fairy tales adorned the pages
Where true love’s song emerged
And time was tempered with a stronger knowing 
To rise and regain the ample space within your heart
A precious resting place for my sorrows and loneliness 
A sweet space to call home

I knew you then
 

PAGINAS DE OTRO TIEMPO

Te conocía de otros tiempos, parece
Como las páginas de un libro,
Una historia que alguna vez supe.

Retiro la cubierta
Y leo
tu sonrisa, tan brillante,
Las curvas de tus labios,
El arco por donde entro
A tu paraíso, tan rico, tan voluminoso.

Me enredo en palabras
Ninguna puede retener tu lengua
mientras atraviesas y dices
las palabras que tanto anhelo volver a oír.

Como si diera vuelta a esas páginas en el tiempo,
Luchando contra la ruptura,
ese anhelo deformado, noches solitarias,
Que empiezan y terminan en el ceño de tu boca
cuando dijiste que habías terminado.

Corrí a nuevos rincones para luchar contra noches de pena, de remordimiento,
Recuerdo temblores sin sueño,
Ya no ruego por tu toque.

Carmesí, ahora sangran las páginas,
Y agoto cada salida para saber por qué,
Por qué la distancia, por qué el dolor,
Por qué él no regresa a mí.

Por ahora, me hundo en una nueva página, reescribo el dolor,
porque ahora recuerdo lo que de verdad hay,
Porque te conocía de otros tiempos, parece.

Tiempos en que fábulas y cuentos de hadas adornaban las páginas,
Donde emergía la canción del amor verdadero,
Y el tiempo se templaba con un saber más fuerte,
Para alzarse y recuperar el amplio espacio de tu corazón,
Un lugar precioso de descanso para mis penas y soledades,
Un dulce espacio al que llamar hogar.

Te conocía en aquel tiempo.

- Christin Marie 

COZY REFLECTIONS

It’s a toasty summer day here in bustling London. Blackberries and baby plums are making their appearance, and everywhere I walk, whimsical willow seed fluff floats by in its silky white down, drifting on the breeze like enlarged dandelion parachutes. My mind goes right to wishes, I wonder how many have been puffed from hopeful lips—or perhaps they are mine, finding their way back to me as an affirming sign.

Speaking of wishes, as I write this, it happens to be the greatly anticipated day of the 8/8 Lion’s Gate portal. In everyday terms, the Lion’s Gate is a modern spiritual observance that is commonly held from late July into mid-August, reaching its symbolic peak on 8/8. It is inspired by Leo season, the symbolism of Sirius, and Sirius’s ancient association with renewal in Egypt. It’s powerful symbolic peak falls on August 8 (8/8), and many people regard it as a potent time for intention-setting, renewal, and conscious creation. Spiritual people have been gearing up for this for weeks, because apparently, it’s the most amplified manifestation window of the whole year.

What I had not fully appreciated is the ancient Egyptian undercurrent beneath much of the Lion’s Gate mythology. The heliacal rising of Sirius—the star’s first visible appearance before dawn after a period out of sight—was historically observed as a seasonal celestial event and became intertwined with the coming Nile inundation: water, fertility, renewal, and life after the desiccation of summer. I find the symbolism so relevant to healing. Some parts of us don’t need to be fixed, they need to be watered, witnessed, and welcomed back into the temple of the self.

But if I’m being honest, I feel the word manifestation—manifestation, manifestation, manifestation has become overused and overplayed. Yes, manifestation may be a spiritual law of the universe, but I feel the concept has been so misunderstood, pillaged and adulterated. What feels more activating and aligned to me is this: the season can be a time of remembrance, when sovereign desire and heart-led creation meet us consciously, inviting us to choose and co-create the life we are here to embody These are subjects I love contemplating and writing about, so it is no wonder similar themes found their way into my romantasy novelette, The Rose Temple. The story’s heroine, Pathyjose, undergoes her own heart-centered journey: activating her desire, stepping into her power, and answering the call of the authentic life beckoning her into embodiment. I hope readers, too, will receive the story as an activation of their own, recognizing the whispers calling them toward their expanded potential. So, during this Lion’s Gate opening, I prefer the reframe that it is not merely about manifesting what you want, but asking: What are you finally ready to become responsible for creating? Less about asking the universe to deliver and more about becoming a clear vessel for what you already know is trying to arrive.

The symbolism of 8/8/8 feels especially beautiful to me because it invites you to become the creator of your life. It’s all about connecting to and harnessing the energies these aligned celestial bodies awaken within us. Sounds great, but practically how do we go about it? This is where ritual comes in. And ritual is not just some new-age shit. Ritual is older than civilization. Long before formal temples and written prayers, human beings gathered around the mysteries of death, transformation, fertility, grief, and renewal—using earth, pigment, gesture, flame, and repetition to make contact with what could not be explained. So you see, it is embedded in our human consciousness; it’s just that in modern Western life, many of us have forgotten it.

Across many cultures, ritual and offering remain living, everyday languages of devotion. Most of us have probably been enacting rituals without even realizing: the blessed morning cup of coffee, and the corner of the couch you curl into, the song we put on when we want to feel happy. Most of us are so distracted and caught up in mundane life and routine that we need something intentional to ignite our power and bring about that transformation of the greatness we are aligning to. This is where ritual becomes your great ally. I feel like it is an activating of your power of intention—that moment of co-creation we are all meant to embody. Through it we can touch that subtle inner space of reverence and sacredness.

A ritual can take any form. It might be picking flowers, creating a little altar, or making an offering to Spirit. You might intentionally set your space with a candle or incense, and even a few objects which hold deep significance for you. You might write your intentions in a journal, then mindfully speak them aloud. Then, let yourself feel as though those intentions have already come to pass. Afterwards, release your expectations. It is a way of allowing our inner worlds and their great longings come to the surface and feel real. In a previous newsletter, I wrote about healing and the importance of making space for what needs to be heard, felt, and then allowed to pass. Ritual is another tool that can support us on our path of healing.

All of this is to say: these celestial influences can be allies, illuminating a way for you to enact your power—the power of co-creation with the universe, in service of a life aligned with your deepest heart’s yearnings.

You are a powerful creator. Remember that.

It’s not the moon. It’s not the portal.

It is you.

It was you all along.

UPDATES

Ritual is one of the subjects I teach within in my e-Course, Radiant Quill Method, an invitation for writers and creatives to draw on its power, alongside devotion, to stay in flow with their writing and creative projects. Explore it here.

To witness how Pathyjose uses ritual as a path toward healing and growth, read the full story of The Rose Temple, releasing on 13 October–just nine weeks away! For launch updates, upcoming events, and everything unfolding before and after publication, sign up for my publisher, redrosethorns Press’s newsletter and subscribe to their Substack, if you have not already.

What ritual or offerings do you practice? And which ones have you perhaps been doing all along without realizing? Tell me in the comments below.

With love,

Christin

With love,

Christin

You’ve heard it before, the maxim, “Know Thyself.” Attributed to the great philosopher Socrates, it’s often interpreted that to live a meaningful life one should contemplate the self in order to understand better their character, motivations, and limitations–ultimately achieving wisdom. To highlight a bit of such wisdom, let us continue and close off the story of my summer’s Mediterranean Voyage, with Malta, then to the heart of Ancient philosophy itself–Greece.

With the work trip over in Malta, I was able to stay a few days to do a little exploring before being repatriated. Malta had always been on my radar as a dream destination, and most specifically after seeing it on the Netflix show, Ancient Apocalypse, I was even more keen to venture to the island’s ancient ruins. The main island of Malta and its sister islands are home to an amazing, six megalithic temple sites–most dating back to between 3600 BC and 2500 BC, (according to conventional historians and archaeological evidence, not ancient astronaut theorists ;). Next to Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, they are the oldest free-standing structures on the planet.

Another interesting fact is that like so many of the ancient megalithic structures, such as Stonehenge, in England or El Castillo in Chichen Itza, Mexico, the Maltese temple, Mnajdra, was constructed approximately so that its main axis aligns with the rising sun on the spring and autumn equinoxes. On these days, sunlight passes through the main entrance and illuminates a specific stone on the rear wall, perhaps suggesting the structures served as ancient astronomical calendars or observatories. And so, I lived out my Graham Hancock dream, and hopped on a bus over to Ġgantija, Ħaġar Qim. Even on the hot summer day, these limestone temples were nothing short of incredible to walk through and witness their sacredness.

Walking around Malta’s capital, Valletta, it is clear the blend of cultures this country has welcomed throughout its history. Some include the Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Spaniards, and the Knights of St. John, evident throughout the unique architecture and surviving art. Stunning in natural beauty, another must is visiting the island’s Blue Grotto–it’ll blow your mind!

Before heading back to London and chilly weather, there was just one last Mediterranean adventure to complete. Draw a line east from Malta and you hit Greece! The flight from Malta to Athens is just over an hour and a half, and seeing as my novel trilogy is set in Ancient Greece, it was the perfect opportunity to visit the ancient sites I’d be referencing in the second book. Oh, and it just so happened my gorgeous Greek goddess and longtime friend was home on the east coast with her wonderful husband.

The ancient site at Delphi was and is still considered one of the most spiritual or sacred places on the planet. It was home to the entire Greek world as a religious and spiritual sanctuary. Home to the god Apollo and the famous Oracle of Delphi, pilgrims from all over the world would travel there for guidance and worship. So, in great pilgrimage style, I hopped in my little Fiat and journeyed the 3 ½ hours west. Halfway in, you leave the highway and wind into remote landscapes. Painted mountains, deep-forested green, rocky faces and silvery sun. The road climbs, curving its way up mountains and valleys below. The more I rose, the more remote and the more it was as if journeying back through time.

Slipping past tourists, I did my best to feel into the site. There was definitely something auspicious to the placement of this sanctuary tucked into the navel of this mountain. Peace lingered; a vibration sang. I took in the still impressive temple of Apollo, imagining how at one time the famous axiom, “Know Thyself” had been inscribed on its wall. What did this maxim truly mean? I contemplated. I followed the climb to the stone theater, marveling that 5,000 people could fit together there. Climbing further, I made it to the huge long stadium which used to host the Pythian Games every four years, and marveled further, imagining how it must have been so long ago.

Veering off the main path, I meandered down a dirt one through the pine forest, finding myself alone at last. Wind snaked through, rustling tree leaves, silencing the outside world. Captivated, I tuned in to its song, listening amongst the stillness of a place so entwined with ancient allure–calling to those who dare tap in to her secrets and wisdom.

I left Delphi feeling elevated. At peace. Windows down and sun still gleaming, I sang and sang, and sang and sang… I was indeed on pilgrimage this entire summer, I realized. My pilgrimage. To “know myself.” I soaked up the sensations of my freedom, savoring the sun’s rays while feasting my eyes on a blue only the Mediterranean can exude. With my body finally almost back to balance without the tiring strain of work’s endless hours, and a long drive back to Athens, I was finally fully present to delve deeper into the quiet–my quiet. I could be present with the emotions simmering within me. The sadness, the loneliness, the displacement. I was present to face head-on all that my life cycle and experience was handing me. Unplugged from any consistency, and without the filler of doing, what was it like to just simply just BE? I was knowing myself more, and I learned the depths that my heart can care for someone I loved. I learned that caring so much was one of my super powers, yet too, it carried its shadow. It was up to me only to balance that dynamic. Too, I learned just how full of love I actually am–how steeped my essence is in love. I saw deeper that I have so much love to give and offer someone. I was learning just how to give that love to myself–so much of that being compassion.

With one last day of my Mediterranean voyage to go, I was off to the east coast to meet the beautiful Marina. We caught up like girls do, communing, basking on the beach, and dipping in the cool sea. At lunch time we joined her husband and had a PROPER Greek feast. My tastebuds were sizzling with goodness, washed down with a local white wine. Soul-stirring and heart-warming company, conversations and food. How does it get better than that? <3

A quick drive south and I arrived to the temple of Poseidon– a towering structure standing gloriously alongside the jeweled sea.

Now it was time for some more first person research at Eleusis, the ancient site where the Eleusinian Mysteries were held. Another drive west, and I arrived to the sanctuary that would be the climax setting for the sequel novel to Unforgetting. Golden hour was descending upon the site and a strange sensibility loomed throughout its corners. Because it was so late, I was the only person inside and was able to venture the sacred grounds by myself. The unique thing about this archaeological site is that you can actually walk anywhere throughout the grounds, unlike the other ancient temples, which are roped off and forbidden. I stepped onto the giant stones of the Sacred Court, and was amazed at the mightiness I felt below me. Echoes of the past rose within, beckoning me forward and on to the Ploutonion, with its atmospheric cave backdrop–the mythical portal to the underworld. I lingered for a while then traced the steps to the great hall of initiation–the Telesterion–where the rituals were once enacted, culminating the final stages marking initiates’ transformations. I felt a rare symmetry with these ancient seekers… initiates. I too longed for something…something deeper. I too felt initiated after this summer.

It was all starting to make sense now. My summer Mediterranean voyage was an initiation. After the demanding work-load and stress, and through my emotional seas, I had been transformed after plunging deeper within myself. I had weathered the storms and a new version of me had been sculpted. If it hadn’t been for the emotional “suffering,” the impulses to go deeper within my own self, and “know thyself,” I wouldn’t have come out on the other side renewed with so much growth, understanding, and realignment with something bigger than myself.

I learned too, that know thyself also means we are all connected to something greater and divine. By going within, you experience how we are ALL connected to Source, to God. We are all beautiful sparks of the divine. We are also all connected by our sufferings and the trials nurturing us for greater Good. The summer voyage was full of so much beauty and so many “rough seas.” It had tested me; it had initiated me. I experienced that everything I needed and sought, was already inside me. Everything is within us.

Blurbs are those little notes you see on the back of books, inside book jackets, or somewhere within the front or back pages. Positive praise, of course, helps a book reach more readers, which is part of the intent of creating my work. Books are meant to be read, after all.

The Rose Temple is my debut novelette, so seeing it through the eyes of readers and fellow authors for the first time has been a strange and wonderful mirror. I asked a mix of people to read early copies–some established authors whose own work I deeply admire, and some everyday readers whose honest, unfiltered reactions meant just as much to me. What surprised me most wasn’t the praise itself, but how differently each person connected with the story–some through its mythology and ritual, others through the romance, and others simply through not being able to put it down.

Here is what some of the readers and fellow authors are saying:

“Prose and poetry writer Christin Marie’s The Rose Temple is a captivating, lyrical novelette that explores what it means to love in the face of duty, to transgress in the face of oppression, and to find harmony with the self, the partner, and the divine. Through Pathyjose’s story, we see a woman haunted by love and purpose—two inextricable forces driving the desires and pitfalls of a young priestess. Tasked with helping the temple’s Designations unlock the dimensions of devotion through the worship of Aphrodite, Pathyjose must navigate her own awakening, a spark of desire that threatens to burn down her devotion to the Rose Temple and her own values. In this sensual, sensuous, and sensory-rich work, Christin Marie crafts a resonant narrative for anyone who has ever felt cursed with the gift of tenderness and who longs to learn from their mistakes to find sustaining purpose. The Rose Temple is both an ancient, timeless story and a modern parable on how to fight for the heart to live authentically.”

~Michael DuBon, Author of Fragilidad y Free Dissociation (Forthcoming Fall 2027 from Girl Noise Press)

Christin Marie has given us a great gift—a beautifully moving story about looking for love and finding yourself. She transports us to another time while showing us how timeless our longings for connection are. A stunning debut!

- Elizabeth Dewberry, author of His Lovely Wife

Christin Marie’s The Rose Temple invites readers into a vividly imagined ancient world where mythology, feminine spirituality, and the enduring search for love and purpose intertwine. Readers who enjoy historical fiction with mystical themes and stories of the heart will find much to savor in these pages.

- Grace Sammon, Award-winning author and recipient of the Inspirational Women in Literature, Media, and Journalism Award

“There are writers and then there are women who open portals with their words. She is the latter. Her writing is whimsical, yes–but also deeply felt, devotional, and alive in a way that stays with you long after you’ve read it. It lights me on fire.”

~Victoria

“Not a genre I would have typically picked up to read, yet it drew me in immediately, and I couldn’t put it down.”

~James

“In Classical Greece, 390 BC, powerful men were designated to the Rose Temple to be healed and fortified at the expense of temple priestesses. Pathyjose, a seasoned priestess, longs for fulfillment beyond the rose-guarded institution. Can she navigate honoring the Divine Feminine to live with authenticity? Will her intuition lead her to greater self-actualization? Can she accept an invitation that leads her away from the familiar?

Christin Marie’s debut novelette seamlessly blends romance and ritual, mythology and philosophy. As Pathyjose’s intimate story unfolds, it will magnetize you to keep reading until its resolution.” ~ Sarah Carter

Which blurb resonated most with you? What do you look for in a blurb before buying a book? Reply in the comments below.

Here’s your first taste of story’s prose itself, straight from Pathyjose’s own voice:

I still marvel at the blurbs, little mirrors reflecting back to me a piece of art that I’ve crafted and that has at last mades its impact in its own little way. Together, they cover so much ground–mythological depth, sensual prose, emotional resonance, unexpected page-turning pull–which tells me The Rose Temple has something to offer readers no matter what draws them to a book in the first place.

If you haven’t already marked your calendar, the release date for The Rose Temple romantasy is October 13th–just about ten weeks away now. And for those of you that have been asking, and for anyone else wondering, you’ll be able to order your copy straight from the redrosethorns press website. Also, stay tuned, there will be exciting live and online events leading up to the launch, including a reading at redrosethorns next online Open Mic Event, August 29th.

With love,

Christin

Alongside my love for writing sensuous Classical, historical romantasy fiction is my love of poetry, equally sensorial, if I do say so myself. Within the pages of my upcoming romantasy release, The Rose Temple, there are not one, but two poems woven in.

So for today’s pause, I thought I’d share a love poem of mine. There’s even an audio of me reading it if you prefer to listen along. I hope you enjoy and hope that it touches someone within, wherever you may find yourself.

With love,

Christin

Prism										

The lines of your face I know by heart
 I’ve traced them so many times with my finger
Like the lock of curl I sweep away
 and meet your gaze again
Everywhere I look, I am yours

The strength of a thousand currents flows through me
 enlivening every pore, 
  every cell
Every inanimate speck that begs lifting
 remains tied to the force sparking it

Like wild fire we bloom 
caress and finesse, 
 strokes of sincere beauty, 
the remains of a far-away space
Latent with curiosities, 
 a container for your love
to sit with, to soothe,
 to fill the emptiness 
  which ruptures the great catastrophe burdening this distance

Construct me a prism
 where I can live inside of, shine
Shine like the brilliance of our reckoning
 make you see my love.
Remember me like this

-Christin Marie

If you enjoy sensuous and sensorial writing like this, be sure you’re subscribed, and check out more of my work across all platforms. Stay tuned for the upcoming release of my feminist romantasy novelette, The Rose Temple, released this October with redrosethorns press.

COZY REFLECTIONS

I found myself among the roses yesterday. Completely by accident. A last-second watery decision to walk the hour home instead of taking the bus, so I could meander through London’s Regent’s Park on my way. The truth was, I needed to walk. Walk, and walk, further and onward, so perhaps whatever weight, buried wherever the fuck inside me, would dislodge itself and give its voice so it could heal.

The colors are what first drew me. Beds of pinks, white, yellow… I saw to my surprise that the roses were still in bloom, and I had likely caught their last week. Wandering along the paved path, I found myself in the park’s inner circle, within the labyrinth that is Queen Mary’s Rose Gardens, alight with bountiful blossoms of every color, stretching beyond what my eye could see. The tender scent surprised my senses, and I chuckled to myself, realizing that only the day before I had just polished the section from my novelette The Rose Temple, where the main character finds herself lost among the rose beds surrounding the temple sanctuary. She, too, carried a weight she was trying to sort out. I could hardly believe the parallel, and yet here I was, walking the same path as Pathyjose.

On the surface, I was just fine. I was easily reacclimating to my London life, and giving my body its recovery time after the demanding cheffing work trip, but deep down, I knew I had lost a lot of my softness and joy which were so naturally my essence. Things were starting to come to light when I booked in for a tune-up with my acupuncturist upon my return. I remember the look on her face when she started my pulse diagnosis, hovering over me like a worried mother hen, then imploring me to get plenty of rest, drink more water, and get some iron in me. Days later when I ventured out to restock my Ayurvedic beauty products, it just so happened that the Ayurvedic doctor on site was giving free thirty-minute assessments, so I said, why not. A similar expression of worry came across this doctor’s face. In fact, she looked quite puzzled. “From the outside,” she explained, “you seem quite healthy and glowing. I would assume you are a Vata dosha type, but… your pulse is telling me something else. There is a heaviness; you are presenting as Kapha dosha.”

Kapha dosha, I scoffed to myself. I am a light and airy Vata, and always have been.

“Have you recently gone through something that is weighing on you?”

You can tell all that from a pulse? I wanted to snap back. But suddenly tears welled behind my eyelids, just waiting for their green light. What the fuck is that about? I wanted to scream at them. Don’t you dare! But then a wave hit me, and I’m not sure if it was the compassion in her voice, or the vulnerability of being alone in the room with her, but something in me surrendered.

“Yes,” I replied, thinking to myself, perhaps not so recently. A year ago, I had still been swept up and sniffling over the ending of my relationship with my beloved. It had been a deep process I had undergone. But I was over him, I reflected, I thought I had already healed all that.

Little did I realize or want to acknowledge that I still had healing to do, or rather there was still unsettled emotion and pain wanting to be acknowledged and healed within me. Deep down I knew there were areas within me, things about myself, I had shut down. It would take courage to let it unfurl and express. The pulse doesn’t lie. These diagnoses I received from the two doctors showed me something about healing. That the body holds on to grief and emotion even when the mind is oblivious––or subconsciously pushing it away for survival. It reminded me that healing happens in layers. “The deeper you go, the deeper you go,” a beautiful healer relayed to me back in my twenties, when I thought I could conquer anything. It was a moment I’d always remember, as we stared at the setting sun over the water. She smiled simply, as the golden light illuminated her face, revealing so much in that expression–all the suffering, all the processing, and all the fucking beauty, wrapped in one.

Most times it’s just easier to ignore the issue, stuff it down, put it on the backburner––‘cause come on, we’ve got shit to get done. Avoidance is an easier cue. So is destruction. We could so easily reach for that drink, reach for that cigarette, fill our lives with impossible schedules and to-do’s that leave us with zero time to check in with ourselves, to process, to feel, to be… Let’s face it, nobody really wants to feel bad. We don’t want to feel negativity, and we’re conditioned by society that we should be happy all the time, and if we’re not, there’s the latest purse you can buy, the newest phone, or a painkiller, and the list goes on… So, I say with compassion, I understand that no one wants to deal with their true pain, we hardly know how to make space to heal. But this act of self-love is so necessary to our well-being, necessary to our life’s story and what we’re here to fulfill. Dare I say that all pain and suffering begging healing, only takes us to a deeper sense of ourselves. Those pieces that deepen, becoming more and more integrated, are the mirrors that show us the truths about ourselves that we haven’t actualized, or continually forget. Remembering these facets, marveling at this “great play of life” is part of what we’re meant to discover. Healing leads us on the courageous path we’re meant to walk.

I think back to only the night before at the milonga. I found myself in conversation with my tango bestie and an Argentine man about none other than healing. The two of them were discussing something around her breakup years back with his friend––another Argentine fellow––and going on and on in circles about justification etc. He resolved that she should just let it go that her ex doesn’t even say hello to her now at the tango socials. After hearing both sides of the discussion, I remember myself interjecting, that everyone operates on their own time, and has their own way of dealing with their healing (or not), around a breakup or grief, so it’s not up to us to judge it. Besides, my ex doesn’t say hello to me either, and even avoids coming at all! I complained to myself. On the flip side of healing something so we can find peace and move on, I recognize too, is a holding on to the pain or tendrils attached to the something that caused us that pain. Again, layers. Maybe it’s even more painful to fully let go because of the pain of losing them completely? I wondered why this would be? Having the conversation with another bestie, she reminded me that we all want to feel alive… feel something, even if it isn’t a peaceful or high vibration. People’s lives can be so boring. At least we feel something! I agreed then added the old proverb, “Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.” Wouldn’t you say? So how to resolve these things we have buried? Allow the emotion be expressed. Anger, sadness, grief, whatever it may be. Invite them in, like you would a guest into your home. Be with that guest and listen to their story. And when the time has come, do not let them outstay their welcome, and invite them to leave, for your boundary is to restore peace into your home.

The cool breeze blew around me, wafting the rose’s perfumed sweetness into my senses. I came to, and let my eyes dive into their generous, petaled splendor, rapt in their impossible geometrical algorithm, sacred and altogether magical, a magnetism to draw you close and captivate with beauty and an essence of LOVE. For indeed they are the flower that represents and vibrates with the highest frequency of love. Feel that one in your cells. Watch the way the sun glints across their petals, delight how they blow in the breeze, as if dancing with the current of the wind, boasting in beauty. I tapped into their rose therapy and let love curl around me like one big embrace.

Perhaps we could all benefit from doing a little pulse diagnosis, whether figuratively or physically, connecting to the deeper layer that asks for space, for recognition, to come into our home, visit for a while, then move on. Perhaps we could all benefit from getting lost in the roses. You don’t need a labyrinth to do so. Just bestow yourself with a bouquet of them and put them on display inside your home of peace.

UPDATES

My publisher, redrosethorns press, and I, are so excited to bring this story of The Rose Temple to you this October. If you resonate with themes of healing, then this one’s for you. And if you’d like to linger longer in this self-care space, the redrosethorns site offers articles, journals, and creative work across the deeper terrain of healing and self-discovery.

I feel so satisfied that this story pays homage to the power of these magical flowers––these roses with their essence of love. Ode to rose. In just over two months you’ll get to dive into this story and take the journey with our heroine Pathyjose, as she navigates her own healing, ultimately leading her onto the path towards her potential.

Subscribe if you haven’t and stay tuned for all the latest updates from myself and redrosethorns press, as well as upcoming events and discussions around the story.

With love,

Christin

Life’s Initiations in a Sea of Uncertainty: Attuning to Your Inner Compass

Voyage. I like this word. What it signifies, the ambiance it emotes. Certainly feels like this summer has been one long voyage, navigating seas of inner and outer struggles, while trying to maintain my inner compass set at PEACE.

The cheffing season was an intense one. I am not the same person I was going into it. I have traveled to new places, new depths, and discovered much within my own treasure map. This time away from my London routine has only deepened my inner relationship with myself, continuing the dive into deeper self-love.

It was mid-June and the “Med Season,” (as it’s called in yachtie terms,) was underway. The freelance chef jobs started pouring in, and my beloved Mallorca was beckoning me back into her arms. It meant leaving the London routine and rhythm I had garnered––the novel’s editing flow, weekly writers’ meetups, tango milongas, live Blues nights, and my regular walks in Hampstead Heath. I would have to shimmy away from it all for an unknown time and season– along with the man my heart still longed for. But who was I to say no to sea time and fast cash? My mermaid scales and bank accounts were drying up, so the call to plunge into this adventure proved timely.

Cooking for ten has its challenges, but all so easily soothed by the view out my galley window, gazing onto the beauty that is Mallorca. I experienced her landscape like never before, marveling how each corner and cala (cove) showed off her unbelievable coast. All of it was a feast for the eyes… dry rocky scapes, lush, leafy, dark-green forest, terracotta towns rising from the mountains’ girdle, sea-stacks molded and carved over time, sapphire and emerald coves cooing to be discovered . . .

One week charter over, (which oddly felt like a lifetime)… four-day recovery and onto the next . . . I was off to San Remo, Italy to join the next boat as a relief chef. Two full days of provisioning and we were off, cruising south along the entire length of Italy until reaching port in Palermo, Sicily. Full-on menus and nonstop days, again only soothed by tired glimpses onto the beautiful backdrop before me. Sicily boasts lovely islands off its northwestern coast––the Aeolian Islands––with notable places like Lipari, and the infamous Stromboli–where if you’re lucky you can see the volcano spewing lava at night.

We made our way over Sicily’s northern coast, through the Messina straits and around to the popular Taormina, with more stunning views at anchor, while watched over by the distant, Mount Etna, volcano. After 9 days––which again felt like I’d lived a mini lifetime––the trip finished in Syracuse, guests departed, and I had four blessed hours for my exhausted limbs to explore. Little did I know the city boasted a rich Greco-Roman history, evident in much of its architecture, as well as plenty of ancient ruins and artifacts. Later, the crew and I celebrated our freedom, toasting to sunset, and I said my goodbyes.

From there I was repatriated back to Palma for recovery-sloth-mode. I hopped on a fast ferry from the port, and in two hours was in Ibiza to join my Persian girlfriends who’d just arrived from Germany. Work hard, play hard…. Eat, drink, dance, sleep, beach, recover, repeat… is pretty much how it goes on this island–and that we did!

By Monday I was back to Palma for the week and delving into my literary endeavors, submitting my novelette and loads of poetry to literary magazines for future publication…

Next charter from Palma was eleven days, cruising more of the Balearics. It’s nothing short of fate, the people who enter your path at certain times in your life. The ones you get placed with in work and end up sharing another mini-lifetime together for the rest of the trip. One great thing about yachting is you will meet different people from different corners of the world. I got paired with my amazing Malay/Aussie stew, Amanda and a hilarious Captain from Denmark, to complete the dream team! She ended up being a soul sister, and I’m so grateful our paths collided.

I’ve said it before, internal battles are a real thing… and with the London man maintaining his distance, I was enduring random, unexpected rounds of sadness. My heart didn’t understand why it couldn’t express the love it felt for the one it loved. Why he could not meet me on that plane. My mind often toiled, unable to comprehend how when we had such a strong connection and loved each other dearly, it could not be so for us. It felt like I was in purgatory during the time away, or better yet, in jail… like I was being punished, sentenced to this time of not having what I longed for. At times this shadow would creep over me, casting its bleakness over my experience, even when I was in the midst of Mediterranean magic. Amanda was there for me with her positive energy and presence, and we bonded while lifting each other up and holding space through the processing life was presenting us.

We set off for Ibiza and docked right in the heart of Old Town. Day trips were to the beautiful Formentera, a lovely spot to serve guests a fresh lunch on anchor. The captain really knew his way around and showed guests amazing anchorages and sunset cruises. It was there at the magical, Sant Josep de Sa Talaia, where we witnessed arguably one of the most exquisite sunsets I’d ever experienced–aside from Greece’s “rainbow sunsets,” and Africa’s safari sunsets. Something about this place boasted an energy we could all feel and never forget.

Rinse, repeat. Recover, write, edit. With four days until my next work trip, I got to enjoy Palma and a bit of the Spanish culture I loved so much. Beach, live Flamenco music, vino tinto, and girlfriends were just what my soul needed.

I was back to port in Palermo for the last work trip of the season where I’d be cooking for 6 crew and around 8 guests for 18 days straight. Again, a diverse crew, Italian captain, two Croatians, a Colombian, Mexican, an English stew, and demanding American guests. Each day brought its own challenges as we were always on the move, keeping to the itinerary and navigating the challenges behind the scenes. Breakfast service was often chaotic, and I remember one morning in particular where tensions were high. It was yet another morning when the stews and myself were at our wits ends. The all-so-expensive Miele coffee machine, was acting out again in high-maintenance fashion, only puttering out cappuccinos after ten minutes, and I too had to get out six plates of smoked salmon benedict all at the same time. None of my eggs wanted to poach properly, there was a request for more avocado toast, and apparently the egg I boiled the Misses was medium and not soft. When you’re sleep deprived and your body and soul are exhausted from the fourteen-hour days, the ability to manage stress diminishes and you end up giving into the chaos without a shred of grace. To top it off I was having a morning wave of intense emotion from unwillingly thinking about my ex. Rushing, I went to make more avocado mash and plunged the immersion blender into the cup and somehow also into my finger. The next moment, blood is gushing, and the pain intensifying… and breakfast was still not out. Did I mention it was also the full moon eclipse? Wrapping a wad of paper towels around my finger, which I feared would need stitches, the girls and I finally got the coffees and the breakfast out . . .

That’s when I gave myself a voluntary time out. That’s when I realized that I had been giving way too many fucks– all at my own expense. Along with the “shredding” of my finger, I realized that being too wrapped up in my emotions had made me carelessly hurt myself. From that moment, I was done! I cut it loose, cut him loose, cut myself loose, and was freed at last from my shadowy emotional prison. I took a long hard look at myself and realized all the ways in which I overly aim to people-please––guests, crew––without realizing, and all at my own expense. I would choose self-love. Miraculously, I was healed of the hovering cloud, and luckily too, my finger would heal just fine without the need for stitches. Another mini-lifetime was lived.

The days dredged on, and the only things that saved me were podcasts, music, and the laughter and connection with my stews. But the most beautiful gift came when we were rounding off the southeastern corner of Sicily and a pod of dolphins showed up to cruise with us. They were smaller in size, grey backed and extremely playful. They jumped and twirled in our wake, putting on a grand show. They stayed with us for probably 15 minutes, moving up to the bow, swimming with expert agility. That gift was the most extraordinary thing I’d ever witnessed at sea.

A three-hour cruise south from Sicily and we arrived to the Maltese island of Gozo. I could hardly believe my eyes as I looked up from my galley window to find a dramatic view of high, limestone cliffs––an exotic, rugged beauty––caves and arches etched and carved by centuries of elemental forces. It was one of those sights where you wanted to stop and stare in awe . . . but alas, I had to get dinners out on time.

That night at anchor, after dinner service was all cleaned up, I snuck away to the bow with my tea, and sprawled on the teak where no one could see me. Within seconds I heard the sounds of fireworks and looked out to see them blasting away over the main town in the distance. I later came to find they were celebrating their annual PRIDE holiday. I relished those fireworks, celebrating how far I’d come enduring the challenges pushed my way.

The last days of trip were winding to a slow close, and we made our way to the historic Valletta Grand Harbor of Malta’s main island. What a grand entrance that was! I had never seen anything like it. The first thing you see is a gleaming fortress, centuries-old, of golden limestone walls protecting the city. Further in, rose historic architecture, with Baroque buildings, ornate churches, decorative facades and domes. It felt as if stepping back in time. We slid slowly past massive moored, motor and sailing yachts and tucked into our berth.

Within each mini-lifetime of each boat at sea I was pushed to grow like never before. I weathered the challenges joining each new boat brings, adapting to different appliances, different dishes, different places for provisioning, different guest and crew dynamics to the best of my ability. All while overcoming the inner challenge of “a heart on hold.” A heart longing for its expression, longing for its equal. The sea truly had been my university––like Neruda says––and in the end I had arrived at my destination of peace and with a much deeper sense of myself.

Hope you enjoyed this adventure story from the Soulful Dispatch archive. Would love to hear your stories about how life’s challenges and beauties brought you to a deeper sense of self. How did overcoming challenge make you feel? Have you had any of your own voyages?

With love,

Christin

At last, I’m back in London, and I’m already feeling oh-so cozy. These past two months away have seemed like a mini lifetime. Visiting new places with work, always on the move, there were definitely times when I would wake in the night and not remember where I was. That’s not even counting the dredging 14-hour days, dampening the system. At least new sights open up new pathways of inspiration for this artist brain of mine, and there really is something potent about being pulled out of your normal routine, your comfort zone, the consistency of rooted “reality,” and being thrust into the throngs of adaptation and resilience. Through all the travel, change, and challenges, I still stayed true to my writing devotion. It didn’t matter if I was in the galley preparing lunch, or catching a glimpse of the Mediterranean from my porthole, so many times, words were flowing through me. It was in those precious moments of word weaving–even if I couldn’t transcribe them to paper–that I remembered my true self, the piece that makes me feel most alive. Flowing words made me remember.

In moments of difficulty, my mantra was that earning through cheffing was fueling the bigger-picture dream. I had to repeat that mantra a lot. I’m sure so many of us can relate to living lives where the alignment feels a bit askew–and yet we must persevere to survive. Some of us feel the call a little deeper, a little more urgent. I am soothed that I was able to create a heroine in my feminist romantasy novelette, The Rose Temple, who portrays this urge–this yearning. And more than soothed, I am invigorated and gratified that I get to share this character and story with the world.

I am truly grateful that my publisher, redrosethorns Press, is taking this step with me. It was last summer, in the interim recovery space between cheffing gigs and different countries, that my persistent dedication did not fail me, and I sent out submissions to get this story published. That is when this submission landed with the head of the press, Kirsty Anne Richards, leading to where we are today. It is a testament I share with all of you: that persistence and dedication, mixed with a little bit of stubbornness, is what it sometimes takes to get your dreams off the ground and flying in the sky. To get yourself aligned with that great whisper that lurks in the shadows, named yearning. I’d argue that our lives–that human life–are one big, great yearning. Why else would we be imbued with desires? Why else would we be instilled with the urge to participate in this great love affair? So why not heed those whispers? Why not take those steps towards your dreams, the thing that calls you? I believe you cannot even imagine the beauty and glory waiting on the other side of that bridge. Let’s just say it’s a life of sheer satisfaction. Fulfillment. And perhaps we will never not desire and yearn. Perhaps we are a continual cycle of coming back to our never-ending desires. But I reckon it’s the thing that brings us back to ourselves… closer and deeper within. What do we find when we are in that space of remembrance? Well, that’s for you to find out . . .

UPDATES

Who knew that editing was such a never-ending process? As Toni Morrison says, “the best part of it all… is finishing it and then doing it over.” With around two months until launch date, that’s where I find myself now, combing back through The Rose Temple, making sure that every word and phrase is fluffed and refined to the best it can be. Even after numerous edits, I see I have still missed tiny tweaks. It’s such an interesting process that every time one comes back to the work, you see it with new eyes. That is why Heraclitus’ philosophical aphorism, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he is not the same man” is so on point. Not only are we seeing it differently after we’ve taken a fresh breath, allowing some air on the project, but WE are different. I happen to be one of those souls who is ever-expanding, so that makes things even more dynamic, and influences my creative work exponentially. And it’s not just creative projects; I believe that goes for relationships, whether interpersonal, or with any form of expression, whether sport or recreation–allowing space for things to breathe is absolutely essential to equilibrium. Speaking of equilibrium, that’s what I’ll be aligning with after this two-month journey. Finding my center again through my daily morning practice of breathwork and meditation, walks in nature, back to the yoga studio… and of course, lots of tango dancing! You’ll be receiving your weekly dose of write-ups from Christin Marie Writes, whether The Cashmere Diaries, Soulful Dispatch stories, and Poetry Pauses.

You’ll get to see this work released into the ether this fall. We have just recently announced our official launch date: OCTOBER 13^TH! So mark your calendars, sign up to redrosethorns newsletter, and be sure you’re subscribed here and to redrosethorns Substack to stay up to date with all the events shaping this coming to life of my novelette, The Rose Temple.

What are the things that bring you back to your equilibrium? What helps you maintain groundedness? If you feel called, share below what your life whispers are, that wait for you in the shadows.

With love,

Christin

UPDATES

I still have to pinch myself sometimes along this path of literary becoming. Just saying the words out loud, “I have a meeting with my publisher, Tuesday” sounds pretty fucking sexy. Popping my publishing cherry is uncharted territory, so I’ll be honest, I hardly know how to act underway; all I can be is me–the me connected with the best I can offer of myself at that moment, authentic, no pretension, no over-thinking. The process is a learning curve, and like anything in life, the deeper you go, the deeper you go.

What would a fly on the wall hear in a meeting like ours between publisher editor, Kirsty Anne Richards of redrosethorns and Christin Marie, author of The Rose Temple? Well, things like our goals for the launching of the book, timelines, marketing angles, and polishing up final edits. The three months leading up to publication launch are a crucial beautiful chapter of advocating for the book across socials and reviewers, as well as spreading the word about events–hyping reader interest. Since I consider myself pure creative artist, marketing requires tapping into a different creativity to engage reader audience and capture hearts. Finding inspiring ways that promote the book so it can find its home with the readers longing to be captured by such a transmission. Sourcing out my connections and network and creating avenues to let the work shine–and of course, having fun along the way. I have so much gratitude for the support of my friends and family, as well as Tia Rosa and Uncle Gio, for stoking the fires throughout my writing ambitions, to the phases leading to launch.

So, to continue the stoking, you’ll be hearing from me regularly on my usual Cashmere Diaries Newsletter, with snippets about the publishing process underway, as well as thoughts, contemplations, and inspirations linking The Rose Temple story with all the cool shit I’ve started coming up with. I endeavor to make this marketing phase one of pleasure, while simultaneously submitting to the technological algorithms ruling us, and hope, that most importantly, it connects me with the readers ready to be touched by the story and all it has to offer. Now that’s a gratifying feeling. We will release quotes from the book, as well as drop a cover launch, and offer events to connect audiences with discussion centered around the book’s themes. Everything from restoration of the Divine Feminine in our cultural programming, to listening to our life’s longing, to stepping into more authentic living, and more. So get ready for our launch date this October, we’re so excited for you to have this book on your shelf. Be sure you’re subscribed to my Substack and redrosethorns to receive all the updates.

COZY REFLECTIONS

“It is always important to know when something has reached its end. It doesn’t matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.”

- Paolo Coelho, The Zahir

There is an unnamable need for me to express. More than a need, a longing. A deep desire willing forth its essence through my own voice. The expression of words, the songs I sing, the dances I dance, the way I move upon this earth we call home. And still, many moments I simply want to take flight, soar across vast skies, swim forever through jeweled seas streaming with glittering diamond sun beams. In homage to my unique expression, it is only natural I contemplate experiences along the paths I find myself traversing. As I traverse, I want to reach up and embrace this big beautiful world, filtering it into my wings of arms and pull it into my chest, drunk in sensation of the GOODness that simply is. How blessed that my personal longing is aligning life into its manifestation.

Every one of us knows it, that thing that compels us, lights us up, sets our heart ablaze–even if we haven’t deeply connected to it. Perhaps it is in our blueprint, our wiring, and the thing that our hearts most desire, too desires us. And yet our paths are hardly ever straight, planned, and controlled. Succumbed to constant course corrections, necessities, and seemingly limited options we wake up one day to find ourselves in a hell we don’t recall creating. But this longing will always burn in you, and when you activate it, everything changes, everything conspires, and you walk the timeline towards its fulfillment and satisfaction.

It makes me think of my heroine Pathyjose, from my romantasy novelette, The Rose Temple, and I compare her to me. A character full of longing–a mirror to my own. One aware of her discontent in her present circumstances and hearing the whisper that calls her to a more fulfilling, alive life. She has to woo life forward, court it into stoking her inner desire. I contemplated this over the weekend, as I swam and swam, surrendered to these life-restoring Mediterranean waters here in Mallorca–propelling and floating myself beneath the sea’s alternate universe, into the harmonious abyss of sea creatures, sand and rock. What shape does their longing take, I wondered? Life had just thrown some major “contrast” my way, that still had me feeling tender and called for healing. I swam on, further and further, as if I could escape the remnants haunting my equilibrium. I would eventually find peace, I just had to be brave enough and let myself endure the process that wound around, past the threshold of discomfort and into the bliss after release. Processes like these are life’s little initiations–les petites morts–we must all pass through countless times. Once you recover from the pain attached to whatever trauma contrast brings (big or small) you can receive the blessing it offers you. The medicine. I glided through the water, free and light, feeling one with its underwater universe, and let the negativities attached to that experience shake free from my being. A light in a dark tunnel. Would I allow myself to feel worthy again, whole… to feel grace? My muscles remembered their equilibrium, relaxed into the joy of aliveness, and let go into a state of remembered, aligned lifeforce. The medicine was taking hold, I just had to allow myself to make it out the other side.

After briefly sharing to my friend about my recent difficult experience, he beautifully articulated that “contrast is the tool of clarification and realignment.” That one hit. Life had provided a contrast experience in order to give me what I call a “mirror moment,” where in that memorable instance we see ourselves reflected and give ourselves a good “talking to.” Mine was day 17 of straight 14-hour days cheffing on the boat, in the midst of chaos, standing in the galley next to the hot stove, fan blowing, and the energies of a miserable crew looming around my sensitivities, when I said to myself, “Christin, what the fuck are you doing?” This is not in alignment to who you are now and where you are going! That mirror moment was huge clarification that I was in a mindset apart from those I found myself surrounded by. How could people let themselves be content with misery? How could people not regulate their own selves and systems, spit and sting others with their poison?

Realignment. That’s when I made a demand to the universe. Yes, I said the word, demand, and I understand if you first shrink at that word like I did. But the truth is, we have the innate power to demand, it is up to us to harness our ability, while igniting our heart’s desire. “Universe,” I declared, “I don’t care if I have to take a pay-cut for my next gig, I want something that is more in line with the joy and pleasure I know is possible from life while receiving my money-flow. I know there is a better way.”

Taking that step to acknowledge our discontents and move into a more authentically aligned life takes–you guessed it–courage. Dare I even say, audacity. Own that shit and allow the new timeline to blossom open. My beautiful Pathyjose character came to her own recognition of clarification and alignment. She felt the something that was no longer serving her highest interest and walked the process through to the other side. But I won’t spoil the rest, for those details you’ll have to read the book ;)

Any of this resonating? Would love to hear your comments about your own personal contrasts or mirror moments. And for more words of wisdom and coaching guidance along your own path of traversing life’s contrasts and initiations, connect with my friend’s substack Soulhub.

Con amor,

Christin

I’m writing you from the Italian Riviera, live from my little, crew bunk bed (or coffin bed as I jokingly call it.) Cue the Italian song, Via Con Me, because “It’s wonderfull, it’s wonderful…chips, chips, chips…” That song–albeit silly–always makes me cheerful for some reason, and it seems like the perfect soundtrack for this next adventure story to Italy’s infamous western coast. Hope you enjoy your little glimpse into this iconic coastline, as well as the inner look into life as a yacht chef at sea.

Con amore,

Christin

The Amalfi Coast was one of those starry-eyed visions that rested in the pocket of my mind where unattainable places lie dormant and glittering. It had been on my radar for as long as I could remember, so I was more than eager to accept the freelance chef gig, sailing there and around for those five weeks. The previous summer season, I had already had my taste of the French Riviera and its superb provisions and inspirations, but I was ready to dip my toes into the Italian culture and create inspired meals based on its influence. Here I would drown out the disappointing stain of Italian-American food from my memory once and for all. We would be setting sail from Palma de Mallorca to Napoli for a three-day crossing, then after settling in, pick up guests and work our way down the Amalfi Coast and back.

To the outside observer, life as a yachtie appears quite glamorous, as if we’re constantly enjoying the spoils of sea and beautiful coastlines. Alas, I must now crack that rosy vision. For guests or owners, it is indeed the life of luxury, but for the crew it is more austere when guests are on board for trip. Although we may be yachting in the most beautiful locales alongside the likes of Tommy Hilfiger, Jeff Bezos, or David Beckham, naturally we don’t get to enjoy the experience the same way they would, stinted by the shadow of work clouding over us. With long 14-hour days, “on deck” just after sunrise, and in bed by 11 p.m., I am lucky when I get two minutes to sip in a view. We are swallowed in servitude, sentenced to crew quarters and bunk bed cabins with shared bathrooms. Of course, every boat is different, unique in its design and conditions, contingent upon size, but in general we’re condemned to small spaces with a crew you hopefully get along with. Chef life is as a whole, even more unglamorous. The responsibility of making sure everyone gets fed and fed on time is on me. I can’t just be like, “yeah I’m gonna sit this one out” and disappear to my cabin. In the mood, regardless of energy level, I have to be on-point every day–no complaining. Sitting down for five minutes in a day is myidea of luxury, and even then, doing so could put me behind. Going to use the bathroom, eat a meal sitting down, or even setting foot on deck in the fresh air is something I relish.

All this to say that life with guests off is significantly different and yachtie life does, of course, have its countless perks! While aboard, all expenses are paid, including food and accommodation. Throughout my years of experience, I’ve never had a budget; I hardly see prices anymore when I shop. When I’m provisioning for guests, it’s for the best of the best quality, and this is what I’m often also consuming. When we’re docked and we’ve finished our eight-to-five workday, we can take advantage and go explore the place, whether it’s a beach, a hike, shopping or food. I don’t take for granted those rare hours or days to enjoy the benefit of floating on million-dollar vessels in places most people never get to experience. We get firsthand immersion with different cultures and languages, and often meet interesting new people. So many dualities exist within this yachtie life but you can be successful if you understand the work-hard/ play-hard principle and learn to work effectively as a team. We may not be able to run home after work like most typical jobs–and are instead stuck in small quarters with other crew–but this life can certainly outweigh its constrictions and quench any thirst for adventure.

The crossing from Mallorca to Napoli was a bit like a marathon. You know you’ve got a certain length to go and you just gotta keep pushing. With this particular sailboat, we motored at 9 knots (a patient, grandma speed), then opened the main sail whenever the wind direction and speed granted us favor, pushing us to an average of 11 knots. Each of us was designated a paired watch schedule of four hours in which we continually rotated around the clock without stopping, and if you were lucky, you could get seven hours of sleep between shifts. Watches where nothing else is around you for days are an experience like none other, and although the hours continually dredge on, they’re at once soothed with the odd dolphin sighting playing in your wake, and too, vistas of precious sunrises, or fiery sunsets slipping away into sea. Sky palettes different each day; cloud contrast. Night watches promise even more surprises–granted you get clear conditions. Without any light obstruction, the starry skies are a sight to behold. So clear you can gaze at the Milky Way. So rippled with twinkling you stare in awe. With the right water conditions, you could witness the bioluminescence lighting up the water as we slosh through–like little fairy magic stars sparkling the sea.

I again found myself with a view of Mount Vesuvius in the distance, ever-present as it loomed from our slip at the Castellammare di Stabia, marina, southern Napoli. Lush deep green mountains bordered to our left and superyachts hugged in to our right. “The calm before the storm,” provisioning, planning, organizing... Guest pickup, and off we sailed down the coast. First stop: Sorrento, ensconced atop cliffs with sweeping views.

And so began the long hours standing all day, seldom breaking, lucky if I could squeeze in a seven-hour sleep. The days started to blur together. According to my photos and not my memory, the next anchorage is Positano–a dramatic cliffside village and heavily popular touristic destination. It’s a bustling little port where tourists are ferried in and unloaded to make their way to the steep and narrow, boutique and café lined streets.

From there we journeyed on, making our way to the charming town of Amalfi, nestled beneath a backdrop of–you guessed it–more cliffs, and dappled with idyllic parasol pine trees. The town square holds the legacy of its Arab-Norman history with the impressive Sant’Andrea cathedral at its heart. Amalfi also seemed considerably less run over by tourists, perhaps due to its location further south from the ferry hub of Napoli.

It was time for the star of the show. We looped back and dropped anchor at the enchanting island of Capri. A scene of rugged nature, imposing, with the most dramatic yet, rocky cliff creations shot from far beneath, shaped over centuries, and alongside picturesque grottos full of mystique. Apparently, I have a knack for reaching for the sky and letting dreams fly, letting that pocket of unattainable dream destinations shake itself free of weight. I had found myself face to face with Capri island’s legendary sea giants–the idyllic Faraglioni rocks, jutting out of the sea with its famous arch. Mythology of the rocks deems that the rocks were thrown by Polyphemus against Ulysses and were the abode of mermaids who lured sailors with their song. Seems fitting that this sea-creature would be drawn here. As soon as the guests tendered in to shore for their shopping day, the Stewardess and I threw on our bikinis as fast as we could and scrambled up to the deck to soak in the splendor–even if for ten minutes!

Many well-known talents such as Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Bridgette Bardot, Ernest Hemingway, and Giorgio Armani, were also drawn and inspired by the island. Magnetized I was by Capri’s mystique, which sang of new flavors. I mean this was the place where the Caprese salad apparently originated. Provisioning proved greater decadence with all things truffle–valuable like gold–or Stracciatella, like silver. The pulse of Italian sumptuousness was now coursing through my veins– happily compelled to recreate and reimagine. Lustily, I dove head first into all things pistachio and all things lemon. Pistachio Pannacotta, pistachio ricotta cheesecake, pistachio Chantilly cream, lemon bars... all took a seat on my dessert menu. This place was indeed what dreams were made of....

Capri

In the words of Captain Jack Sparrow: “not all treasure is silver and gold, mate.” He’s right I reckon. It’s gazing out at rugged, towering cliffs over sapphire seas, spooning pistachio cream, and sipping it all down with Brunello wine. Yo ho ho, the pirate’s life for me.

Somewhere off the coast of Sardinia

Enjoyed your adventure at sea? Be sure to subscribe and follow along for more soulful stories from sea and beyond.

Here’s that story, followed by a little poem I wrote while there. And I’m curious: what was one of the places that has reawakened your senses?

Avec amour,

Christin

The fantasy of the French Riviera seemed like a far-off dream, not easily attained and only reserved for the wealthy. Where did this stigma come from anyways? Why is it so engrained that visiting a place like this is meant to be bougie? After a little research I found that since the late 18th century British aristocrats starting wintering there for its mild climate and supposed health benefits. The arrival of the railway in the 19th century made the coast easier to reach for the upper classes, and grand hotels, casinos, and promenades were deliberately built to cater to and display luxury lifestyles. In the early 20th century, artists, writers, and avant‑garde expatriates (plus later Hollywood stars and the Cannes Film Festival from 1946 onward) turned it into a backdrop for glamour, cinema, and fashion–cementing the Riviera as a symbol of visible wealth and indulgence.

I carried the same stigma centering around the Hamptons. Only rich people, status, fancy cars, etc. etc. But, after spending summers there for work and play, I found lovely, quaint culture sparkling beneath the façade of exclusivity–just like quiet back roads beyond Saint Tropez’s main facade. Yes of course, both the Riviera and the Hamptons are stock full of every oozing luxury name brand store, but the truth is, there are a majority of areas that don’t require you to be donning your best Chloe or Louis Vuitton pumps and hand bag. Perhaps I didn’t have the full picture in my head, and being in a place considered exclusive, also could mean affording the perks of the less-trodden, less touristic, quaint lifestyle. Either way, my mind and heart were open as I landed upon the southern French soil, and I easily took in the idyllic, quintessential French-style construction in towns like Nice, Cannes, and Saint Tropez. But honestly what has always drawn me in about places like the Rivieras is the natural beauty, and dreamy, delicious culture–not the Celine shades.

The French Riviera’s azure, held up to its name. The Mediterranean’s seductive jewel-toned sea simply beckons you forward to frolic and plunge. Alongside are towns full of vibrance, and yet also sweet subtlety. A contrast of colorful flowers and sprawling bougainvillea juxtaposed alongside sun-bleached facades in pastel peaches and apricots, with pale blue sleepy shutters that remind me of weathered sea-glass. You have the bustle of coastal cities like Canne, yet also the preserved timelessness and charm of harbor villages like Villefranche Sur Mer.

Bougie constraints aside, let it also be known that a majority of Americans could do well to drop the stigma that all French people are snobby. While yes, many are impatient and carry out that New Yorker energy–places to be, people to see, not giving a shit about you–so many more are genuinely warm. We have to recognize how futile GENERALIZING is in the first place. Even the French will tell you it’s Parisians that give their people the “bad name” for being arrogant.

Being from Florida where there’s a high concentration of Latinos and Mexicans living and working, I’ve heard all too many times from American mouths something like, “I ain’t learning Spanish. They’re in ‘Merica, they need to speak our language.” With that mentality in mind, it feels deeply hypocritical when those same Americans are so quick to label the French as snobs who don’t like Americans. Many Americans who visit Paris or the Riviera lean on the fact that most French people speak English and don’t even try to learn even a little French, and are then shocked when the response from locals is less than friendly. How is you being in their country any different than the Latinos and Mexicans being in your country?

The truth is, if you simply speak to the French in their language, even if all you’ve got are the basics, they are 1,000 percent more likely to act kindly with you, and even oblige you by continuing in English. I used my basic French in the south of France and was met with warm receptivity, laughing with them that my accent etait horribluh!

What brought me to the French Riviera? Well, when I’m not consumed in my “writing hermitess, vortex,” I’m cheffing on yachts. A one-hour plane ride from Palma de Mallorca, and there I was arriving in Nice and taking on my two-week freelance gig. Although working the typical 12–14-hour days standing in a galley, I was charged with invigoration, inspired by the beautiful, fresh produce available around me. The open-air markets in France really are something to brag about. (Snooty Parisians are nodding their heads). Any yachtie knows what I mean when I speak of doing south Florida’s typical provisioning run to Publix or Wholefoods, where you enter into a time warp, your buggy as your chariot, traveling through a massive refrigerated ice box of a store, blasted with fluorescent lights. Hours go by as you fill your now, second chariot-buggy, and you’re hunched over pushing with all your might while simultaneously dodging annoying “insta-cart” or “amazon shoppers” fulfilling their orders with their portable machines and annoying beeps. And yes, many chefs and stews utilize insta cart… but that doesn’t work for me; I like to see my produce before I buy it! I need to fondle it, be inspired by it, and then add it to my bounty.

So, let’s address a fun fact here. Store bought food in America. Its atrocious. Pristine, pre-packaged, plumped, double d chicken breasts. Plastic containers, plastic wrapped and sealed produce. Ever wondered why some of your “fresh” produce lasts for weeks? Curious indeed. It’s genetically modified, mass produced, monocropped and that is why there is less flavor! Compared to many countries in Europe, like France, there is a HUGE difference in what’s provided. Newsflash: The food system in America is rigged. Gasp! That’s right, big Pharma is an advocate for processed and modified food that keeps Americans unhealthy, sick, and yes–overweight. Chew on this research: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3791249/

The food in France, most especially the open-air markets, was a complete breath of fresh air. And breathe I did, strutting along in the open-air markets, engrossed in wonder at all the different, vibrant, varieties of provisions... seafood, poultry, produce, teeming with high vibration, sure-to-be-delicious on the tongue, goodness. Oh, and everything was grown seasonally! The vendors are happy and offer out free samples of things. I bought this and that. I bought it all. Deep colored lettuces, white asparagus, baby artichokes… the most delicious strawberries I’d ever tasted in my life… Olives, pastes, fat dates… and don’t get me started on the assortment of cheese…. Provisioning was actually fun, pleasant and didn’t seem like work I had to get through. I was beyond inspired, and was able to create meals for my guests that paid homage to this Mediterranean azure paradise.

It’s no wonder the French are known for being proud. They have every right to be! Pastries, baked goods, macaroons, cheeses, wine…macaroons… ;) This is all just my personal opinion, and don’t tell Spain, but the best wine comes from Bordeaux. Let’s be real.

Food aside, my favorite memory from the whole trip was being on anchor overlooking the charming, idyllic town of Villefranche-sur-Mer. I woke up early that morning as the sun was rising, before guests had risen, before the dogs, and snuck to the aft swim platform to do my yoga and meditation session. The morning was serene. The water so calm it shone like glass, and gazing out south, the sky bled into the sea like one giant mirror. You could not tell sky from sea. Keep tracing the horizon and your eyes land upon the lovely city tucked into the mountain. Charming houses, hotels, and restaurants all in shades of whites, and peaches, topped with terracotta roofs. The sun’s morning rays cast a golden glow against the landscape, glazing it like one giant welcome apricot macaroon I wanted to sink my teeth into. Eyes drawing along the modest cliffs, stood great cypress trees sheltering and idyllic. The whole scene painted itself with beautiful reflection in the water below. Sailboats on anchor added to the allure, added to the connection in my soul–the longing for this sea life. Pure satisfaction. I plunged into the frigid water, awakening all my senses–the reinspired ones–and welcomed the day.

From Where I Sit

From where I sit
 a golden emblem flaunts its head
 over the station that guards 
a mighty fortress blazing
 the ever-gushing infinity 
Infinity where it lies 
 No one really knows
What it is utterly known though 
is how your heart flutters 
 and is captured 
by the synchronous surrender,
 that ever-present, still hums
the harp leading to the core,
to the tunnel.  That place
funneling somewhere, 
from where I sit


If this stirred something in you, I’d love to hear where it took you. Have you visited one place that when you went into it you had a certain prejudgement but then came out of it seeing a different, truer perspective?

If you enjoyed this journey be sure to subscribe and follow along for more Soulful Dispatch stories.

Con mucho amor,

Christin

"A thalassophile is someone that is completely drawn to the sea in all its forms. Someone who can’t get enough of the sun, salt, and sand. They’ll be at the beach when it’s warm and sunny, and will still be at the beach taking a walk even if it’s cold and windy. They’ll go to the ocean when they’re having a bad day for solace, and they’ll party at the beach to celebrate life."

“We’re naturally drawn to aquatic hues and people associate this color with qualities like calm, openness, depth and wisdom. We are beginning to learn that our brains are hardwired to react positively to water and that being near it can calm and connect us, increase innovation and insight, and even heal what’s broken.” -Carolyn Gregoire

I grew up being a sea creature. Give me my mask and snorkel, and I could entertain myself for hours in the water. Florida girl in my veins, I was accustomed to endless summers, and it didn’t matter if it was lakes, rivers, springs, or beaches, I was swimming in them. In central Florida we grew up going to the lake for fun and it didn’t matter that alligators were lurking somewhere nearby in the tall reeds. Where we lived, too, just so happened to be the home of the largest artesian springs in the world; clear and cold, it was a place to behold. Not too far away were the freshwater spring rivers where on most days we would encounter manatees and get to swim with them. After a family move to the west coast, our new reality was white sandy beaches, palm trees, and Gulf of Mexico, bath water. A boating day usually promised dolphins and magical sunsets.

It is said that people who live near the water are the happiest. It’s called the Blue Factor. Infusion with coastal living is linked to better physical and mental well-being. Although this could be a generalization and every body is uniquely inclined, I have found for myself that throughout my life I’m happiest when I’m living by the water–thriving is more like it. And landlocked feels a bit like suffocation. I had to face the facts: I was a mermaid. This in mind, I found myself settling in Saint Lucia, a next-level haven. Caribbean waters with volcanic rock islands and lush mountains were a new soul-gasm. After a couple of years, I moved on and joined yachting, filling my passport with Bahamas trips and more endless-summer living. There is really no place on earth like the Exumas. Gradients of teals and turquoises that will blow your mind, and not only white–but pink sand beaches. But both of those places require their own blog... now back to the Mediterranean....

And so, as my nomadic life goes, it was time to swim on. At last, I had made it to the Mediterranean, to the beautiful island of Mallorca. With about 300 coves, (called locally, “calas,”) to explore, I had my work to do. By grace, I found an amazing one-bedroom apartment on the northern coast of the island right in Port de Soller. I could stumble out to the beach from my doorstep, and from the rooftop I could slurp in sights of jewel-toned waters within my horseshoe, port paradise. I took to snorkeling along the rocks out to sea and soon made friends with a resident octopus. Practically every day after working I was out there. This was a lot of tangle for my hair, which at the time was down to my waist. Matching the changes happening in my life, it became clear I had to get rid of anything weighing me down energetically. The hair and all attachments had to go. Chopped to my chin, I would fully immerse into my sea creature self and swim every day, receiving all the beautiful benefits of the ocean.

“Ocean air contains a high percentage of ions. These mainly come from ions of sodium, magnesium, chloride and sulphate present in sea water. Sodium, the main positive ion found in sea water, is also found in extra-cellular fluids in our bodies. These fluids, such as blood plasma, bathe cells and carry out important transport functions for nutrients and waste. Positive magnesium ions are also used by the body and are an ingredient of some medicines like Epsom salts, which are commonly used to treat aches and pains. Negative chloride ions also play an important physiological role in the central nervous system and in transporting protein around the body. Therefore, it is thought that the extra charge helps our bodies take in oxygen and thus increases oxygen flow to the brain.”

– Rhiannon Buck

Going to the beach here in Mallorca is not the same as going to the beach in Florida. Florida beaching is lazy beaching. You drive up, hunt for parking for 20 minutes, then spill out with your cooler, chairs and umbrella onto the wide sand beach. In Mallorca the beaches are packed like olive oil sardines, with noisy locals, and Germans and English tourists. The better option is adventuring to coves, which give you a little more privacy, a chiller vibe, and a more interesting coastal topography! At these calas, the color gradients in the water are also more pronounced and visually stimulating and satisfying for the aesthetic eye. But mother nature makes you work a bit as a cost for such beauty. There’s always a dusty hike down involved, which in the end, is so worth it. If you’re lucky you can snag a spot on the cala’s spit of sand beach, (if there’s even sand) but more times than not, you’re laying your towel on the bordering smoothed-over limestone rock. Sometimes beaches are even not of sand or limestone, but of pebbles. An entire expanse of an infinite variety of uniquely colored rocks and sizes. Its heaven hearing the waves wash over these shores. Also be prepared, topless tanning is normal in Spain, and some places are even nude friendly. And though it’s unlikely you’ll be encountering sharks as in the Caribbean, you might spot a tiny jellyfish, or “medusas,” as they’re called here.

Mallorca’s coast is of course best appreciated by sea, and as a freelancing yacht chef I get to work on vessels and steal visions from my galley porthole between chopping. Sapphire waters sparkling below deep green mountain ridges. Memorable sunsets melting into sea. This place speaks to me like none other, soothing my longings… whatever they be . . .

Thalassophile 

Sea keeper
Light Illustress
show me your spark
divine in nature,
productive in spirit
altogether spiced with balmy resonance
A force to be recognized,
blow like the sultry breeze skimming ocean tides
swoon like enveloping sea caps
move with me
groove to this eternal heartbeat
gaping and resounding like wind strings
harmonizing an eternal welcome song 
Together we are one
Together we breathe 
Together we dance 
in love, in devotion, in playful synchronicity 
diving into the infinite wellspring 
a playground to your fruition 

For the longest time after I had moved to London, I had felt myself between worlds. Not only physically, but existentially. I would stay a few months in a short-let flat, engrossed in my literary endeavors, then when it was time to fly off for work on the yachts, put my things (4 large suitcases, two boxes, and two bags) in storage, work, visit family and friends, return after a couple of months, rinse and repeat. Feeling grounded and stabilized was something I had to work at consistently creating, and I would successfully do so, finding my rhythm and joy in my tiny London “boxes” for flats, bravely coursing the purgatory of a life between worlds. Thank Goddess for dancing London’s amazing tango scene to keep me sane! A year and a half later after the London move, the energy I had been consistently employing after many years of this kind of devotion to my fiction had at last paid off, and I signed my first book deal with redrosethorns Press, for my feminist romantasy, The Rose Temple. I had taken the first step out of the in-between realm and finally set foot on the path forward.

Little did I fully realize, that forward still does not always mean fast–something hard for my overly-driven, impatient Aries moon self to accept. Part of the medicine I am fed now is how to be ok with the process of things. You mean I can’t manifest my dream life tomorrow and be thriving in a home in Mallorca nestled between mountain and Mediterranean Sea?? Ha! More and more life has been throwing out the safety bar and forcing me to slow down. And you know what? I kinda like it. With each gradual step, I get to more fully savor and embody the moments that appear before me. It feels so juicy and alive here. Funny too how that damn phrase, it’s not about the destination but the journey, rings through my head now. Of course, I’ve had the knowledge of this axiom for two decades now, but it’s until it really becomes embodied, does it reach its sparkle of wisdom. And the reality is, that those first steps are fulfilling in so many ways. For me, not only do I get to live out my inspired intention for creating a piece of art that pays homage to the divine feminine, but too, this creation becomes a launching pad toward the next step on my path of becoming–the path of successful, traditional publishing, where my book babies reach further corners of readers seeking to be touched in the ways my art offers.

As for The Rose Temple, we’re in our type of in‑between season right now, somewhere between blossoming and becoming. The flowers here in London are in mega-bloom, (let’s not talk about the perpetual postnasal pollen drip) the days are stretching, and behind the scenes The Rose Temple too grows further into its true book form. We are in the satisfying formatting and fonts phase, and before you know it, the amazing artist crafting the cover design will reveal his image. So much to be grateful for on these first steps along the path of becoming.

UPDATES

Book Launch:

News flash in case you’re unaware, The Rose Temple is coming into the world this October with the amazing feminist indie press, redrosethorns! And yes, we will do a book launch party here in London, at a special bookshop. For my friends across the pond, we’ve got another launch cooking up for the end of the year in Sarasota.

Book Summary:

Set in a sacred temple devoted to Aphrodite, The Rose Temple follows a restless priestess who can no longer ignore the quiet dissonance between her devotional duty and the deeper longing humming beneath her skin. When a passionate companion appears, she’s thrust into an initiation of desire, heartbreak, and hard-won self-trust that forces her to ask: what if the true temple has always been inside her?

This is a story about devotion, eros, inner strength, and the courage it takes to step out of inherited roles and into a more aligned, radiant life. If you love sensual mysticism, ancient Greek temples, slow-burn longing, and heroines who dare to remake their fate, this book is for you.

Stay tuned:

Over the next few months, I’ll share more glimpses: excerpts, a cover reveal, and exciting events. You all will be the first to see them.

About the Publisher:

“redrosethorns is a feminist independent press and literary community exploring mental health, identity, and liberation. Our mission is to create a supportive space where individuals connect with their authentic selves, find their voices, and work collectively to dismantle what holds us back.”

*

To read how I came to write this story, check out the article from my editor and I, on Reclaiming the Sacred.

If something in this letter resonates with your own “between worlds” journey, I’d love to hear from you, hit reply and tell me where you are on your path. And if you know someone who might feel less alone reading this, it would mean so much if you shared it with them and invited them to subscribe.

Until then, keep on blossoming

Christin

Love,

Christin

The Fragrance of Being

The fragrance of being 
 is like a soft surrender to the gift of this life
Like wildflowers on the steep hillside 
 bowing to the breezes floating their way

They bend and reach 
 growing with the light, 
spreading their beauty and shine 
into the hemispheres

A beautiful unveiling, 
 unmasking of great potential. 
Swirls surround their essence
Gleam golden

The nearby river calls forth its own name, 
A distinct sound burbles beneath its layers
Layers–
A love song which has no end

Focused, streaming, 
winding, pairing, 
 your inanimate love-beam 
within its own shelter

Shelter, 
a disguise of plenty
Harmonized 
 to the golden key of life plain

A robust rendering 
 painted dreamy and bewildering
Focused on unseen plains
A calling to mark the dawning

Remember the melody 
 It plays within your heart
The rhapsody 
 carries forwards, backwards, and round again

Unsheathe it, let it grow and bloom 
Shining forth limitless possibility 
Wrapped neatly in a bow
Satisfaction be told 

- Christin Marie

If you resonate with this piece and long for more poetry along the same vein, check out my poetry book, Reflections by the Sea: Poems, mingled with my photography, here on Amazon. Available in kindle with my color photography, and paperback with black & white.

Reflections by the Sea: Poems, is an intimate poetry collection that weaves ocean, spirit, and love into a single tidal voice, inviting readers into a luminous inner voyage of healing, longing, and remembrance.

Con mucho amor,

Christin

“Sit down anywhere you like, a wall, a stone, a tree stump, on the grass or the earth: everywhere they surround you, a painting and a poem, everywhere the world resonates beautifully and happily around you.” -Hesse, Wandering

“Where is Mallorca exactly?” my own father has asked me more than once, even after two years of me residing off and on there.

He was not the only one I had to fill in about this island’s location. “Draw a line out from Spain’s eastern coast,” I reply on repeat, from Valencia, east, and you hit the Balearic Islands. She’s the big one, between Ibiza and Menorca.”

I already knew what question was coming next. “And why Mallorca?” It was a question that followed me throughout my life of travel and living abroad. Why St. Lucia? Why South Africa? Why Bulgaria?

Why Mallorca...? How to explain something that had no “logical reasoning.” Sure, Palma was a massive hub for someone like me working in the yachting industry, but it wasn’t as if I had a job lined up. I didn’t know anyone there. In typical style, I had moved for love. Mallorca…she chose me. That is my final answer.

The truth was the Mediterranean had always called me. I wanted nothing more than to sail her deep sapphire and emerald waters. Something so idyllic lured me in. Perhaps it was all the James Bond movies I was obsessed with as a girl which made an unconscious impression on me. I dreamed that one day I’d be winding that sexy sports car along the Mediterranean coast between sea and mountain– head scarf blowing in the wind. What I found when I arrived here was that this island was so much more than her beautiful sea and rocky swimming calas (coves), which is saying a lot for a mermaid like myself. The land and her World Heritage Site mountain range, La Tramutana, was well known for its adventure tourism. It’s become a mecca for cyclists, with apparently 16 different routes. Hikers as well can enjoy 108 different trails. Adventure was built into this island’s essence, and here I was building a relationship her, traversing her curves and coasts. Not to mention, I learned that some of my literary heroes–Anais Nin, Jorge Luis Borges, Gertrude Stein, D.H. Lawrence–had also been drawn to this island and written from the idyllic town of Deià, nestled just west of me. Here I was, working on my own novel, unknowingly following their tracks–clearly they were on to something.

Most times I look out onto my view and hardly compute it’s real. Like someone plopped down a rolled backdrop to a movie set. My glass balcony doors are my gateway to aesthetic pleasure each day. Greens fill my eyes, vibrating their various tones and textures, while rows of tree branches flutter in valley breeze. The day is called forth with distant rooster crows, the morse-code of tweeting birds, and an occasional donkey bray and bleating lamb from a nearby finca (countryside estate). The dominating Tramutana mountain range, stamped from left to right, halves the sky while sheltering the blurb of pale saffron, Sóller town nestled at its base. I often trace the top ridge contours with my morning eyes, inhaling the image into my chest. White puffy clouds linger over her today, almost like a round mobile propped over a baby’s crib. She must be cooing.

For days prior the sky was a beige haze, full of the once in a while, reddish Saharan sand visitor brought every by Calima wind, yet now I marvel at the clarity in the contrasting sky, seeing clearly too, the facets of my mountain, naked with her pine-green camouflage. Glancing below at the street beyond my windows, lined parked cars reveal evidence of the night rain which discharged the sand from the air, coating everything in a thin, red-orange blanket. Whoever owns carwashes is certainly scoring big.

How is it that each time I gaze out onto my view, my eyes are taking in only a portion of what’s actually there? Today I discover a new ridge, coupled by a scorched green clearing below it. I plant myself there, a tiny figment… a dapple… and peer out at the make-believe sheep grazing as I make my way up the incline to feast on views from the ridge.

There are at least five hikes you can do just from my doorstep. I hit the trail up to the finca for a view down onto the port… Instantly, I’m intoxicated by the piquant scents around me. Pine and dirt mixed like a cocktail to the head. Bounty surrounds me. After learning in a foraging class, I was easily spotting herbs, such as nettles and marshmallow for tea, edible flowers, or wild fennel and Swiss chard.

I tracked on. Cherished orange and lemon trees, figs, apricots, plums, grapevines… a hedonistic paradise if you ask me. Most prevalent are the olive trees. Some groves even date back to the time of the Moors. It’s hard to fathom the ancientness in the air. What character each tree takes on... Gnarly trunks, purple-gray and twisted, climbing out from earth into gestures frozen in time. Dancing, hugging, playing. Anthropomorphism at its finest. Oozing oil of life, buttery and robust. I applaud the fairy nymphs that surely must run around here playing and setting nature ablaze with bespoke beauty.

There goes that Hesse quote again . . .

How could we learn from these trees? Just look at them, they’ve withstood the centuries. Rooted deep, interconnected and interfacing below the surface, and uniquely expressed towards the world–towards heaven. Yielding their fruits when the season harkens. Masters they are of how to root down while lifting up. They can teach us a thing about defining our own balance, one tethered to the beautiful, magical, universal rhythm. The one keeping accord to the divine nurturing of all that is. Breathe in your surroundings, and let it work its magic. I open my eyes like never before, and thank Mallorca for all she gives, and all the many ways I forage from her for my body and soul.

Trailing

New trails I traversed 
uneven terrains humming, 
bird whistles too, 
those spring limbs wave cooing,
ever so gently in crisp breeze.
Sharp cerulean sky crowns 
mountaintop glory. 
A new view overlooking the town raised from back in time.  
Dusty orange 
walls and rocks hold streets, homes
and the standout gothic cathedral.
Golden sunset descending, 
mountains glaze terracota supreme. 

If you enjoyed this piece, check out more of these Soulful Dispatches from my adventures around the world . There’s also Poetry Pauses, as well as Newsletters to keep you up to speed with the release of my upcoming romantasy novelette, The Rose Temple with redrosethorns Press. Be sure to subscribe :)

Enjoy this little Italian adventure, as well as a poem at the end, I wrote about Tango.

Con Amore,

Christin

An Italian friend of mine from Lake Como reminded me emphatically, that “Napoli isn’t Italy.” We had a good laugh about it, and yet I still wondered, just how different could it be? I had known that Italy is divided into three parts, northern, central, and southern, but it wasn’t as if the country was as big as the United States, with all its diversity, for example. Well come to find out the distinction was just as diverse as America’s “southern culture,” is to the northern, “New Englanders.” As unmistakable as New Yorkers are to their closest surrounding states.

If you’ve read my blog, Turkey: My Love Affair with Tango and Baklava, then you’ll know that besides loving to indulge my senses in really great ethnic sweets, I love luxuriating my spirit dancing Argentine tango. While living in Mallorca, my partner–in–dancing–crime, bestie and I, are groupies to the two milongas offered each week. Sometimes though, we feel the pull to hit a new tango floor, lose ourselves amid new sensory strands. Lucky for us tangueros, there are Argentine Tango Festivals throughout the year all over Europe. She and I had both agreed that this year we would take advantage, find a festival somewhere, and have a tango adventure. Luckier for us, Palma is a great international airport hub, and in just two hours we can be almost anywhere in western Europe.

It happened something like this: We had just finished a big hike towards Cala Tuent and were sipping on our bevvies, gazing out onto the view. So, are we actually gonna book a festival or what? I pull out my phone and start scrolling the website of close to a hundred options.

“Italy?”

“Italy,” she replies emphatically.

I read on...“Roma…” We both shook our head, having already been to the city. “Ooh, this one seems to be on an island,” I gushed. “Iiisckia,” I tried pronouncing for the first time. The info was all in Italian, so I google translated. “Enjoy refined quarters,” I read the blurb aloud, emphasizing each time I came to an exciting adjective, “in a spa hotel with sumptuous dining and a piano bar. After a day of workshops by our tango masters, lavish your body in the healing thermal pools. Indulge in voluptuous Italian buffet dinners and finish with social dancing at the nightly milongas beneath the stars.” Our bellies tingled with excitement.

“Say less.” My friend was already pulling up flights. “Ryan Air, 2 hours direct,” she could barely get her words out between a 10pt smile, “60 euros roundtrip.”

With weeks immersed in finessing the last edit on my novel, I barely had time for researching our upcoming trip. I just had dancing on the brain. On the 6am flight above the clouds, Napoli was an afterthought. Luckily, we had given ourselves 24hrs to discover the city before catching the morning ferry to Ischia. Our first adventure would be Pompeii.

After a 45-minute train ride to the ruins, we delighted in our breakfast picnic of calzone and veggie frittata, while looking out onto a verdant field of red-orange poppies blowing whimsically in the breeze. Mount Vesuvius dominated the horizon, crowned by a cerulean sky littered with massive, puffy, white and grey clouds looming over. Rare it was to be face to face with a notch in history which had seemed almost mythical since the days of learning about it in our school books. Birds chirped; sirens wailed in the distance. Face to face pondering how an eruption could be the end to a city and its people. Out in front of us, the giant bronze, Roman statue, Octavius, had managed to survive above his knees– posted affront his wildflower yard of ancient strewn blocks– butt cheeks beautifully intact, head bowed to the mountain of doom.

It was incredible just how much Pompeii was preserved beneath the ash and what archaeologists were able to uncover, and even more incredible to learn that only two thirds of the city have been excavated. We roamed the narrow cobblestone streets, alight with wonder at just how advanced the Romans actually were 2,000 years ago in this proper town, alight with sidewalks and grid patterns. We passed a “downtown,” villas with fashionable courtyards, Terme baths, bakeries, temples, the Forum, a theater and an amphitheater which boasts the oldest among those known–including Rome’s Colosseum. Crumbling, colorful frescoes, to intricate floor mosaics of animals, sacred geometry, or labyrinths, to diamond patterned tiling and brickwork, statues, decorated columns, two-story facades, fountains . . .

The whole morning was a jacket-on, jacket-off, kind of confused weather mood, and midway through our roaming, the sky started sprinkling, then soon turned to pouring rain, which then turned to hailing! Luckily, we were able to duck beneath the tiniest piece of shelter in the villa’s courtyard while waiting out the storm. Four hours later, we still hadn’t seen all we had wanted to see, (that should give you perspective of how immense the place is) but with aching feet, and grumbling bellies we threw in the towel and ventured back to Napoli.

Tramping along the city streets I was perhaps beginning to see why Napoli wasn’t claimed by so many Italians. A different flavor peppered the air–a musk which took me back to stale streets of southeast Asia. This city had a grunge to it. Gritty, you could say. Overflowing garbage bins lining streets, graffiti everywhere. Noisy and chaotic, these streets held the soot and splendor of a proud people. A people with edge, brusqueness, lacking tact and “fogettaboutit” poise. Piped up on espresso sludge, their fire cannot hold itself back. Communicating with Napolitanos was a memorable experience, and many a shop-keeper was willing to indulge my laughable attempt at a broken Spanish/Italian and hand gesturing. One shopkeeper in particular, consoled me, reminding me that they themselves don’t speak Italian–they speak Napolitano. Proudly.

For dinner, thanks to a recommendation from a Captain friend, we found ourselves at Pescheria Assurra, a true, local seafood market restaurant, hidden away on a bustling street in Old town. Neon white and blue lights revealed the narrow stall of freshly splayed seafood, complete with googly eyes, and antennas. We were seated at one of the wobbly barstool tables crammed onto a sidewalk topped with withering Astroturf. Our vino Rosso came in mini, screw-top bottles, with plastic cups to drink from. Soon we were sinking our teeth into an assortment of fresh fish, prepared simply with lemon and garlic. Next came our basket of fried mixto goodness which we had seen a majority of the locals stopping in for.

No virgin evening in Italy would be complete without a gelato dessert night cap. And so, I popped my cherry, Amarena style. Maybe it was set and setting and maybe it sounds predictable, but it was the best gelato of my life. And when my friend couldn’t finish her mountain of pistachio gelato–the very round, laughing shop woman had over-scooped–I finished hers.

Ischia

The next morning, we took the fast ferry to our long-awaited island of Ischia. Dark clouds loomed overtop, but she was still a sight to behold, and it only made the medieval Castello Aragonese, (dating back to 474 B.C.) stacked on a tiny islet, look even more enigmatic.

Tango workshops, terme spa, lunch and wine, siesta, four course served dinner and wine, milonga, repeat. For three days we danced our feet until throbbing and later rejuvenated in the Spa’s Turkish bath, sauna, cold plunge, and salt room. My friend and I laughed at ourselves when we found out the whole festival and workshops were spoken and taught in Italian. But the people were warm and inviting, and in the end the language was so close to Spanish, that we managed just fine.

Everyone in attendance was Italian, minus one woman, our new friend Cici from New York, who had relocated to the island retracing her Italian roots. One evening at dinner, over a couple of bottles of Ischian Falanghina, I was truly touched by the stories this woman shared with us of her life there.

“Each day the family has lunch together,” she recounts. “Nonna prepares the meal. Usually, a pasta with whatever is fresh from the garden that day thrown in there. Once the plates are clean–meaning you’ve sopped up every last drop of sauce with the fresh bread–there’s usually a second course hiding away that Nonna pushes on you. Then when that’s done, you’re guilted into dessert. Everyday there’s wine–even if it’s just in small proportion. And not just any wine–it’s family wine. Grapes grown on our land, stomped by all of us family members, then bottled for aging. Everything is done together as a family. We’re each given our role to carry out. When it’s season, and all the tomatoes are ripe, they’re picked, then sorted through, canned with basil leaves, and brava– you have sauce for the year.”

She delighted telling us how everything is fresh, that the island hardly imports or has the need to. As she put it, when it’s strawberry season, you eat gorgeous delicious strawberries, and when it’s over–that’s it, no eating off season. Not how we’re used to it in the States where any fruit or vegetable seems to be available year-round.

Lastly, throughout the island the Sunday tradition is to have local rabbit, Coniglio, braised in a white wine sauce. This is too, when the weekday, small portions of wine, up level into whole bottles, and an assortment of pastries and cakes are bought specially from the local bakery.

It was the day before we were set to leave so we decided to skip the workshops and go explore a bit of Ischia town. Tummies rumbling, we only had pizza on the brain. Well, it must have been that kind of day where all the stars had lined up for us. Tucked away off a side road the pizzeria looked like a casual outdoor garden. Tables sat staggered, topped with charming red and white checkered cloths, and worn-in, rod iron mismatched chairs. Place settings were complete with quintessential Italian, idyllic motifs, of blue and yellow. There were hand-painted drinking glasses, and plates each with their own design, resting atop their sticky gold chargers. Eros Ramazotti’s nasally tone streamed through the speakers next to the potted hanging flowers and an incongruous chandelier. Miniature, loaded lemon trees burst from tall, terracotta urns.

We sipped on a local white, enjoying the ambiance while we waited on our pizzas. The moment of glory... A red sauce with red and yellow cherry tomatoes, anchovies, garlic, basil, oregano, and globs of gorgonzola. A fat dollop of Stracciatella (the inside decadence of a burrata), gloating in the middle. The waiter brought out a vintage looking, roma tomato tin, repurposed as a holder for the oil and vinegar bottles, and naturally I finished adorning the pizza with a proper drizzling. The crust was sheer magnificence. A magic gluten-free recipe, with tongue-tickles of sourdough. Perfectly, imperfectly charred at its border, crisp on the outside and softness on the inside. A flavor only a decades-old, seasoned wood-fired oven can embellish. I hate to throw out that “best” phrase again, but this was indeed the BEST pizza I had ever put in my mouth.

Southern Italian culture–like any culture really–shouldn’t be defined with general terms, but if I had to give my perspective or punch out a few words, I would settle on, expressive, passionate, and fiery. Similar to Spanish warmth, yet distinctly, proudly unique. With no clear sense of being a people of conformers, Southern Italy does things their way, gritty streets and all. Value is kept on family and thankfully kept on exceptional pizza and gelato.

We Do the Tango

Sultry sweet
  the way you move your feet
beat, beat, beat
  a show to dance such heat
turns and sways 
  grooves and moves
wrestled free from dancing hips 

The way you show your 
 		appetite
Satiate me 
Give me the flavor 
  unspoken yet carried. 

A vision from your hands
  which guide and stream
the life force spewing within 
with turns and pivots quick and precise. 
  The music softens
and we move like feathers, 
sweeping and carrying 
  each other 
to new dimensions
  which twirl and swirl 
songs of great anima. 
Loosening the grip only 
  to come together again 
embraced and cherished 
  reading your speed 
your quantumness– 
  its utter capacity– 
a growing ember
  flavored with poignancy 
which seasons its caress 
  with each coming measure 
beat, beat, beat
  the way you move your feet. 

Growing, waning 
  exhausting, yet filled 
lifted to the brim 
  with which we swim 
through water of life
  the air, our sphere 
has become one
  has become all
sensuous and drifting . . . 

Staccato melody 
Exude your tier
Play me a measure 
  which binds and grinds me
to the floor below
  so clenched, so slow
we glide and slide 
  a new rhythm 
our rhythm...