The first was a tragedy I unintentionally or intentionally killed a man And heard that for years He remained heavily unable Wading through Gathering up And trying to hold together Too many pieces of a false self, of a false, weak, world Unable to know anything about love The second was less tragic And…
Allegories of Death
A recurring dream I had throughout my childhood returned a few months ago, matured as I am and timely, as it was on the eve of my fortieth birthday. Though it was different in many ways from the dream of my youth, I recognized it immediately – an aged variant of a subliminal representation of…
Making America Great Again
For some reason, it seems so many people today can’t tolerate those who don’t see the world exactly as they do. It’s a dangerous trend and the lower road. I’ve been privileged to have people in my life, many in fact, whom I genuinely love and respect (not merely tolerate) with all manner of political…
A Farcical Education
My friend and I were the black sheep of our program. While most of our peers spent their time and energy arduously answering questions posed by professors, we spent ours posing different, and what in our opinion were much more important and germane questions (though most might disagree). Long past the time they’d answered scripted…
The Only Thing That Matters
“Write poetry, for God’s sake, it’s the only thing that matters.” —e.e. cummings Poetry isn’t en vogue these days but it should be. I think we need it. I know I do. My guess is that most people don’t think they have much use for poetry – they don’t relate to it – they find…
Neoliberalism and the Death of the Art of Psychotherapy
Today, as a result of external pressures from a state-driven audit culture brought about by the cultural components of neoliberalism, there exists less and less space for thoughtful psychotherapeutic study and practice, and a questioning of the assumptions of our ever-shallowing field and current organizational practices. The overregulation of psychotherapy, the manualization of both treatment…
Black Lives, All Lives, Oppressed Lives
Update: Since writing this, I have moved firmly and comfortably into the “Black Lives Matter” camp and understand why we I need to be there. I still have questions – many of which are outlined in this post, and some of which are not. A lot of what is written here still resonates, while other…
A poem: Ephemeral
We are each of us a spark Surrounded by endless night A quick and shallow breath Sunk deep in thick black blindness Perhaps this is why we are so unable To breathe in and remain present Though we live knowing it’s all we have And all that we are We strive with all of…
The Answers
In a culture pushing dichotomies and separation we must remember that the answer is almost never either/or, but almost always both/and. It is invariably somewhere in the middle, and it always depends. – M. M. Racho Though we have been trained throughout our lives to think in dichotomies, I try my damnedest to reject them. They…
The Space We Share
I recently discovered that from 1883 until his death in 1905, a man named John Milton Hay owned the land we recently purchased and now live on, as well as the hundreds of acres surrounding us. We live in the upper portion of a mountain community called Crystal Park, right beside Pikes Peak and just…
MELISSA M. RACHO 