{"id":1178,"date":"2025-10-17T15:19:46","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T22:19:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cherylrostek.com\/?p=1178"},"modified":"2025-10-17T15:19:46","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T22:19:46","slug":"river-prayer-week-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cherylrostek.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/17\/river-prayer-week-two\/","title":{"rendered":"River Prayer Week Two"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">River Wisdom<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On scan day morning, a Sunday, I sit by the river wondering how I feel. I notice that tears are close to the surface. <em>Hello tears<\/em> I say. Curious how my tears will respond, while I watch the stream. While I&#8217;m hugged by nature. <em>Hello<\/em>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>We are one<\/em>, the River says to my tears. <em>One.\u00a0 Flesh and bone and brains and mother Earth. One. I&#8217;ll hold you<\/em> the River coos to me, <em>cry dear, cry with me. Release the fear and the pent up stress lingering on this MRI day. Let go of the pressing parenthood challenges. Sink into the flow, my beloved. The Divine flow. She&#8217;ll carry you so you can rest into the kisses that disarm stress, that break the bonds of the lies snickering that flesh and bones are not enough. Because <\/em><\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I live in you,\u00a0 I&#8217;ll carry you. My arms are vast and wide. We&#8217;ll dream as we float downstream. We&#8217;ll chant with resilience as we climb Upstream.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And I,\u00a0 will be there, always there right with you.\u00a0 <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0The little girl living inside of me emerges.\u00a0 She is scared. She&#8217;s scared because uncertainty is unnerving. She&#8217;s sad because today she knows, oh she knows, the transience of life, no matter one&#8217;s age. And she&#8217;s okay because Mother Earth holds her, grounds her and her big feels. And the beauty of the butterfly flirting with the leaves- as it is now- around me, reminds her: today is beautiful. Today is a gift. And today is hard. Because life is hard. This can all coexist.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I thank the little girl inside for the reminder so that today I&#8217;ll be able to feel it all I step into the sterile hospital, that feels rather vile. And so I remember the River and meet Her inside the MRI tube too.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The MRI\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I dislike the half-hour highway drive to the hospital. Halfway there, fed up by the clenching in my chest I ask myself, &#8220;what is the worst that could happen on this drive?&#8221;\u00a0 The answer comes quick (and though there may be worse scenarios this pops into my brain,) &#8220;I could die &#8220;. Strangely, I&#8217;m soothed by this answer. I chuckle to myself, <em>the worst that can happen is that I die<\/em>. My eased chest an indication of my previous extensive existential processing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0When I arrive at the hospital I&#8217;ve forgotten my morning river meditation entirely.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet emerging from the scanner, from the hospital, there&#8217;s lightness in my steps and an easiness in my unclenched jaw as I drive home. And I know Mother Earth and her river wisdom were with me all along.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>xo<br \/>\nCheryl<\/p>\n<p>Check out my video @ Instagram or Facebook. Linked at the very bottom of the page under my dandelion logo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>River Wisdom On scan day morning, a Sunday, I sit by the river wondering how I feel. I notice that tears are close to the surface. Hello tears I say. Curious how my tears will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>River Prayer Week Two - Cheryl Rostek<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Facing MRI anxiety, a brain cancer survivor finds healing, strength, and peace through nature\u2019s wisdom and a mindful river meditation.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cherylrostek.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/17\/river-prayer-week-two\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"River Prayer Week Two - 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