Debra Phillips, Certified Life Celebrant

09/23/2025

Shanah Tovah! Happy Rosh Hashanah - Wishing everyone that celebrates a new year filled with peace, hope and good health. ✡️

09/21/2025

“Some days,” said Pooh, “I don’t quite feel like myself. My body’s tired and my heart feels heavy, and even getting out of bed feels like a very big adventure.

But then I remember — it’s okay to be slow. It’s okay to hurt. And it’s even okay to be a little sad sometimes.

Because being brave doesn’t always mean doing something big. Sometimes, it just means being yourself… even when it’s hard.

Hope,” Pooh whispered, “is the little hum that keeps playing quietly when everything else feels still. And I think that’s worth listening to.”

09/20/2025

09/10/2025

The 10 Commandments of Grief #9

09/07/2025

The Ten Commandments of Grief

08/24/2025

Happy Sunday!
My serenity always includes coffee!

08/23/2025

One year ago today this beautiful couple allowed me the honor of officiating their wedding ceremony - congratulations, G & G 🤍

08/16/2025

So, grief walked up to love,
and asked if it would dance.
Love blamed grief for everything
and rudely answered "no chance."

Grief stood there watching love.
Knowing there was nothing it could do.
It shared in every teardrop
and felt the heartache too.

Love hated grief so fiercely,
and prayed for it to go away.
Grief could never leave though
and it was here to stay.

Every day it asked the same question,
"Love, please dance with me."
Everyday was met with the answer
"Please just leave me be."

Grief and love shared every moment.
Every thought was just the same.
Every day they fought a battle,
Of love along with blame.

Grief finally stopped asking,
and pulled love to its chest.
Together they swayed to memories,
and shared their empty nest.

Grief never let go of love again.
They made better music as one.
After all if there was no love,
then grief wouldn't belong...

Joanne Boyle ~ Heartfelt

08/10/2025

Be gentle with life; it’s fragile you know.
It can shatter in a second.
It can be hard, and it can be easy to try and harden yourself to it.

But be gentle. Tread lightly.

Cracked ice needs soft footsteps to stop it from splintering into tiny, unsalvageable fragments.
Shadows need light to stop them from sinking further into the shade.
And a broken vase needs careful attention to slowly bring it back together.

They don’t need heaviness or darkness or carelessness.

Shattered things need holding together.
And softness,
tenderness,
light...

That’s what life needs when it’s falling apart.

Life is fragile you know.

Be gentle with it.

*****

Because sometimes we get news that turns our whole world upside down. And when that happens, your world needs you to wrap your arms around it, and just hold it for a while ###

Becky Hemsley 2025
Beautiful mosaic artwork by Laura Harris Mosaic Art

08/09/2025

When you are grieving,
every single day is different.

Not just in how it feels,
But in how you exist inside of it.

Some days, you wake
and for a moment, you forget.
There’s a breath,
a blink,
a second of lightness,
before the wave returns.

Other days,
the weight greets you first,
before the sun,
before your thoughts,
before anything else.

And it is heavy.

Grief is not a straight road.
There is no map.
There is no right pace.

It moves like water,
still one moment,
crashing the next.

One day,
you may laugh at a memory
and feel warmth rise like spring.

The next,
a single sound,
a scent,
a place,
might break you all over again.

And that’s okay.

You are not failing.
You are not lost.
You are learning how to carry love
in a world that feels emptier without them.

Healing does not mean forgetting.
Moving forward does not mean moving on.

Grief becomes part of you,
a quiet companion,
a second skin.

It teaches you how to walk with absence.
How to speak with silence.
How to live beside the ache,
without letting it define you.

You are not who you were.
But you are still here.
And you are becoming.

Not better. Not worse.
Just becoming.

Breath by breath.
Step by step.
Moment by moment.

This is your path.
And every step,
even the hardest ones,
are part of the way forward.

~ ‘Grief: Every Day is Different’ by Spirit of a Hippie

✍️ Mary Anne Byrne

~ Art Unknown

06/15/2025

❤️❤️‍🩹❤️