Anna Kaehler

writer. beachcomber. dreamer

Browsing Category

Change

Choice and the Inner Landscape

Change, Dreams, Play By annakaehler September 4, 2023 Tags: Dreams No Comments

I’ve been playing around with conscious and lucid dreaming lately, or the practice of bringing awareness into my dream life. These kinds of night journeys are sometimes referred to as waking up while asleep, and they’ve taught me a lot about my power to choose.

The other night I had a dream that was all about emotionally navigating a particular relationship in my life (I know, I know so original). Anyway, there I was bumbling around this dream world I’d created when suddenly I was aware of the emotions I was feeling and how I was using them to affect my interaction with the other person.

Then I became aware that I could choose the emotion I wanted to feel, and that this choice would change the dynamic between us.

I Am (in the bath)

Change, Self-discovery By annakaehler January 25, 2023 2 Comments

This person I thought up

This person I am

is becoming something else

entirely

The bath she fills

drop by drop

and the crumbs on the table,

new foundlings

Patterns assemble

but less fixed

more space in

the kaleidoscope’s eye,

grounding

Days are songs

their verses come hither

and loving,

alone in the bath

is ecstatic drowning

Please Show Me

An Authentic Life, Change By annakaehler September 11, 2022 No Comments

I just got off the phone with a friend who is going through an Enormous Life Event. It’s one of those rites of passage most of us will experience—the passing of a parent—with all its attendant emotions, requirements, and mind-splattering world alterations. In short, it’s an effing lot.

Knowing

Change, Self-discovery, Writing By annakaehler August 7, 2021 Tags: Knowing No Comments

Summer in Portland—those longed for, beatific days promising dry weather for play—is as much a darling as dominatrix.

There’s the constant pressure to get outside, and then there’s the still, hot air when you do. We run for shade and we bathe our delicate Pacific Northwest skins in sunscreen from hairline to pinkie toes. Ahhh, we sweat at each other, glorious. And won’t it be an even more glorious fall?

When Breaking

Change, Compassion, Outloudish By annakaehler March 16, 2021 No Comments

When Breaking

Brother

Change By annakaehler January 17, 2021 No Comments

I noticed him as soon as we parked. Short and bent, his lank mane of greying hair and months-old beard spilled over a loose black rain jacket that appeared to be fashioned out of a can liner. I remember noting that he carried nothing.

Normalcy and Other Obscure Notions

Change, Power By annakaehler December 8, 2020 No Comments

Let’s talk about this year for a moment, shall we? Wait, you’re burned out on that? One more 2020 meme and you might junk social media for good? I understand, I do. But the below is a conversation that seems to be showing up just about everywhere in my life right now, and I think it merits unpacking.

A Habit of Holding

Change, Power, Self-discovery By annakaehler August 28, 2020 No Comments

I finished a nine day cleanse yesterday, and to celebrate I walked myself around the park (naturally). This was the only movement I had any real energy for, and even then I could only manage one loop.

The temperature was perfect on my arms. I let myself feel it. The sun was as soft as warm cotton, the grass smelling of seed. The soccer kids were all practicing their artful crosses, balls sliding into goals. Perfect.

Most of the cleanse felt nothing like this.

An Inside Job

Change By annakaehler August 17, 2020 No Comments

The other day I drove home from work with the radio on as usual, avoiding potholes and generally disappearing into the glaze of sun off my windshield. The sky pulsed blue and dogs lifted their legs at trees. A summer evening like many others.

I made it home as usual and parked. My partner, Kate, appeared from behind the front hedge with her bike. I got out of the car to greet her.

Play Me

Change, Play, Power By annakaehler August 5, 2020 No Comments

If you’ve been watching the news, you know that Portland has had a hard time of it over the past months. Our downtown, once an eclectic hub, is now a dystopian pantomime. There appears to be conflict everywhere. A lot of us are homeless and others unemployed, writing our futures not in pencil but in sidewalk chalk that fades fast with the rain.

1 2