Like a River

by Lindsay Roznowski, LPC

This past year, I read John O’Donohue’s poem “Fluent” for the first time, and it hit me right in the chest—simple, poignant, and beautiful. It goes like this:

I would love to live

Like a river flows,

Carried by the surprise

Of its own unfolding. 

These words spoke to me for a number of different reasons—the nature-inspired aspirations; the themes of fluidity, change, and personal growth; the release of control and the acceptance of what is; the focus on curiosity and surprise, and the wild loyalty to remain present in each sacred moment. The natural world has such gifts to offer.

With the beginning of 2026 upon us, I reflected on how this poem — and the image of the river — can be a reminder and guide for how I move through the next twelve months. Many of us have created goals or resolutions for the new year, informed by how we thought 2025 went. So how can I be more like a river? Adult life can get us tangled up — so many concerns take us out of the moment and into our heads. Whether it be work, paying bills, health issues, or navigating relationships, the mental gymnastics of trying to decode “what to do” can keep us in our heads, searching for some sense of control. In Brene Brown’s book, Atlas of the Heart, she posits that when we feel like things are uncertain or too much, we go to the following places in our heads: stress, overwhelm, anxiety, worry, avoidance, dread, and fear. Being in our heads excessively — and flooded with these intense emotions — can rob us of the present moment. When we allow these thoughts and fears to dominate our energy, our thoughts can become quite toxic and create disconnection with ourselves and our loved ones. 

Consider the image of a river. Even when leaves, branches, and debris drop into it, it doesn’t stagnate but instead continues to flow. It doesn’t wonder why the leaves are there or what to do with them. It continues to be a river, to flow, to move downhill, around bends, towards the ocean. 

So as we break out our new 2026 calendars, let’s ask ourselves: “How can I be more like a river?” Here are some additional thoughts for reflection as you begin the year: 

• How can I allow myself more flow?
• How can I use movement and breath to become more present in each moment?
• How can I more intentionally welcome the unexpected turns of life’s new moments?
• How can I embrace changes as a process of evolution and do the good work to get unstuck from old patterns? 
• How can I release some control and attachment to what I think my path should look like and embrace the beauty of what it actually is? 

Wishing you happiness, presence, and flow in 2026.

Lindsay Roznowski, LPC, specializes in supporting children, teens, and adults in navigating life stressors, finding ease from anxiety, and tapping into their strengths and innate resilience. She integrates mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, positive psychology, nature-informed therapy, and a yoga training background to co-create conditions for optimal healing and well-being. She offers walk-and-talk therapy sessions in the outdoors to those interested. Starting in Spring 2026, she’ll also be offering seasonal nature-inspired therapeutic workshops — so stay tuned! To learn more, see her website at bloomwellnesscounseling.com and contact her at lindsay@bloomwellnesscounseling.com or 215-326-9665. 

The Benevolence of Beauty

by Elizabeth Venart

 

The wonder of the Beautiful is its ability to surprise us. With swift, sheer grace, it is like a divine breath that blows the heart open. – John O’Donohue in Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

 

When the world of man closed its doors in March last year, the natural world invited us outside to connect and play. Through gardening and time spent in local parks and our own backyard, we found in nature a natural balm to the weariness of an intense and fear-filled time. Nature can be a welcome antidote to stress and boredom. It provides an alternative to the rowing machines and well-worn tracks of the gym. It can also offer us something that stretches far beyond simple diversion or exercise. A walk in nature can be an immersive experience, calming our nervous system and shifting our perspective.

 

When we allow ourselves to inhabit fully the landscape of the present moment, we can delight in the magic of the changing seasons, marvel at the miracle of flowers rising through asphalt, and consider with humility our place among the living things on this planet. Our world as people may have ground to a halt in many ways, but the rest of the natural world continued. I watched how the birds outside my kitchen window built nests, as they do each year, fed their babies, plucked worms and seeds from the ground. I delighted in the birdsong each morning, the brilliant colors of fall, the snow bathing tree limbs with pearl luminescence.

 

Life always has its challenges. Beauty is always there when our eyes are ready to experience her. A child’s laugh, a cloud-speckled sky, a mother fox and her five babies, a warm embrace from a friend we haven’t seen in too long.

 

As the wheel of the year continued to move in its circular rhythm through the seasons, my fond anticipation of the daily walk only strengthened. “I wonder how that cherry tree will look today. . . Will the rhododendron bushes have loosened their tight buds and exploded into pink today?” Bringing a sense of wonder to my daily walks (or wanders when I had more time) imbued my days with delight.

 

The newsletter this month – and our social media – will focus on Beauty. I will be sharing photographs taken during my daily walks over the past year. You will see what my eyes saw, as I walked through my neighborhood delighting in the unfolding beauty of each season.  These images are moments that captured my attention, fascinated and moved me. While some are blossoms and a glimpse of a flower at the peak of its brilliance, others include transition points between the seasons, moments of awe, and the beauty of growth and decay intermingled.

 

As John O’Donohue so beautifully expresses in Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace:

 

The graced eye can glimpse beauty anywhere, for beauty does not reserve itself for special elite moments or instances; it does not wait for perfection but is present already secretly in everything. When we beautify our gaze, the grace of hidden beauty becomes our joy and our sanctuary.

 

My wish for each of you is the eye to “glimpse beauty anywhere” and to savor and delight in this experience.

 

Elizabeth Venart is the Founder and the Director of The Resiliency Center and a Licensed Professional Counselor whose practice focuses on supporting Highly Sensitive Persons, therapists (through counseling and consultation), and creative and intuitive people seeking more magic in their lives. She leads a weekly laughter yoga class and hosts a monthly Rumi and Friends Spiritual Poetry Evening to which all are welcome. To learn more, visit her website.

 

For Grief

by John O’Donohue (From To Bless the Space Between Us)

 

When you lose someone you love,

Your life becomes strange,

The ground beneath you gets fragile,

Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;

And some dead echo drags your voice down

Where words have no confidence.

 

Your heart has grown heavy with loss;

And though this loss has wounded others too,

No one knows what has been taken from you

When the silence of absence deepens.

 

Flickers of guilt kindle regret

For all that was left unsaid or undone.

 

There are days when you wake up happy;

Again inside the fullness of life,

Until the moment breaks

And you are thrown back

Onto the black tide of loss.

 

Days when you have your heart back,

You are able to function well

Until in the middle of work or encounter,

Suddenly with no warning,

You are ambushed by grief.

 

It becomes hard to trust yourself.

All you can depend on now is that

Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.

More than you, it knows its way

And will find the right time

To pull and pull the rope of grief

Until that coiled hill of tears

Has reduced to its last drop.

 

Gradually, you will learn acquaintance

With the invisible form of your departed;

And when the work of grief is done,

The wound of loss will heal

And you will have learned

To wean your eyes

From that gap in the air

And be able to enter the hearth

In your soul where your loved one

Has awaited your return

All the time.

 

For One Who Is Exhausted, a Blessing

by John O’Donohue

Source: https://onbeing.org/blog/john-odonohue-for-one-who-is-exhausted-a-blessing/

When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,

Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.