Nevaeh Rhodes (Emily Murff)
Bio
I love to create. Writing is what I am most passionate about. I just want to create things people will enjoy. I believe that words are very important, and the delivery of them is important as well. I hope to captivate you with my stories.
Stories (9/0)
The Guardian
The Guardian In old Norse folklore it was said that Freyja was the Goddess Of Many things. She was the Goddess of War, fertility, death and magic but above all she was the Goddess of Love and with that came the ability to look into the future. It was said that Freyja ruled over Valhalla with Odin and each of them received half of the souls that have fallen in battle.
By Nevaeh Rhodes (Emily Murff)3 years ago in Futurism
Everywhere Is The Park
I’ve come a long way from where I was a year ago and I know I’m nowhere near where I’m going to be, but I can’t help but feel like I’ve made it. I hadn’t had a car in almost a year and I was okay with that. It wasn’t that I couldn’t afford one as much as it was a matter of not really thinking I needed one. I came and went as I pleased and found myself wherever the winds of change happened to take me. This was odd for me because from early on in life I had had this fantastic fascination with cars and always kept one or two in my driveway. If I’m being honest, this was the first time since I was 16 that I hadn’t owned a car. In January of last year my current partner and I went to Puerto Rico for two weeks to meditate. We spent 14 amazing days on the luscious beaches with our feet in the sand and our heads in the clouds. 14 days engulfed in pure peace in paradise, free from the chaos of everyday life. It wasn’t too long after our return home, that I found myself longing to be back on Puerto Rico’s magical beaches. One warm summer night we sat beneath the stars in the parking lot of our favorite park, laid back in his Tahoe smoking some really potent reefer, talking about life, when I voiced my desire to return to our blissful spot in the sand. This was the night he introduced me to the idea that “everywhere was the park”. He quieted my anxious mind and explained how we didn’t have to go back there because we had already been and we would always have those beautiful memories, therefor we could be there anytime we wanted. He passed the perfectly pearled blunt to me and calmly directed me to just breathe. We meditated together in silence for the next several minutes. He coached me to remember the way the air smelled, how the salt from the ocean revived my sun-kissed skin, the way I felt and the way the city looked from the roof top of our hotel. I inhaled a few times before feeling my body relax. When I breathed in again and closed my eyes I could see the city and the beach. I could see him standing next to me as we looked out over the water from our favorite spot. I could feel the warmth of the Puerto Rican air on my skin. I could smell the salt in the air and I was once again intoxicated by the energy of it all. It was as exhilarating as it was on our first night there. The night we found our spot. I drank the memory all the way in imagining that I could be there forever. When my conscious mind came back down to Earth some part of me braced for disappointment but it didn’t come. I remember feeling so content in that moment. I said “I like this place pretty well too”, to which he replied “everywhere is the park dear.” I have revisited that night many times in my mind. Able to view it almost as an inception movie. I can feel the love and energies of both places as if they were one and It always gives me peace of mind.
By Nevaeh Rhodes (Emily Murff)3 years ago in Potent
Happy What the Heck-La-Days
Happy what the heck-la-days! This year is about to make an exit leaving our heads whirling asking what the heck was that. It was a long and difficult year, to say the least, for most. Our kids had to transition into E-learning and walked around the house skipping class right in front of our faces. We didn’t have concerts or scheduled events. Sporting events were canceled and we had to ask people to wear their masks so our kids could wear their helmets. We avoided family and friends like the plague...because...well because it kinda was. I don’t know if this virus is going away or if its here to stay for awhile but my two teenage boys and I decided to create a holiday card we hoped would bring a smile to the faces of our loved ones. One that would be a small beacon of light among the seemingly dark days.
By Nevaeh Rhodes (Emily Murff)3 years ago in Humans
Mindful Gifting
Mindful Gifting I think we can all agree that the year 2020 has been interesting to say the least and it definitely got a little weird. Regardless of your political beliefs, conspiracy theories or television preferences we all experienced a life changing pandemic, and no matter how separated we seemed to be we all experienced it together. One thing is for sure it has been a life altering year for the whole wide world. The time out changed my life in many amazing ways. I am grateful to say the least. During my time in quarantine I feel like something naturally came over me that lit a desire to change. I felt like if I was ever going to get healthier and live a better life it would in some way have to be now or never. I mean I no longer had the excuse of not having the time to workout or to eat healthy. All I seemed to have was time. So I was able to get my life together a bit and realized that the healthier I became the more I concerned myself with topics that if I’m being honest I had never previously thought about much less worried about or concerned myself with,. Topics such as having a greener more economic life and reducing my carbon footprint. If I couldn’t reduce the karmic ties of my carbon footprint from the life I had already lived then I wanted to do my best to minimize it for how ever much life I have left on this beautiful and oh so forgiving planet of ours. As Christmas draws near with the speed and grace of a bullet train stuck in overdrive I found myself motivated to find some holiday alternatives this year. I hope you will find some inspiring ideas in the list I have created for you as well as be inspired to find your own sustainable and eco-friendly solutions this year and in all the years to come. Our planet is crying out for us to change. I know this year was tragic and traumatizing for us as the human inhabitants on this third rock from the sun, but with all of us tucked safely away in our homes, our beautiful mother Earth was able to once again breathe. Lets continue to help her and take pride in where we live...before the damage is irreversible and the scars we gave her are the only thing that remains. Join me in an environmentally benign holiday extravaganza.
By Nevaeh Rhodes (Emily Murff)3 years ago in Lifehack
The Perfect Pairing
The perfect pairing Cajun Jambalaya and Sweet Red Moscato Julia Child once said "People that love to eat are always the best people". I feel though that it is the people that love to eat and drink socially who are in fact the best people. It is true that a good meal can be enjoyed without the accompaniment of a beverage as well as the same concept vise versa, I feel how ever though that the perfect melding of ingredients paired with the aromatic structure of the perfect glass of wine is what elevates the experience of one or the other on its own to an entirely new level of enjoyment. A match created in heaven if you will.
By Nevaeh Rhodes (Emily Murff)3 years ago in Feast
Ink Therapy and the Ascension of Me
By: Nevaeh Rhodes I had spent 18 torturous years loving my high school sweet heart. It was so good in the beginning but turned to a high level of toxicity shortly after high school. We had 2 boys and a boat load of issues over the years. We had this push and pull dynamic that when it was good it was so so good, but when it wasn't the destruction was devastating. We would later discover that my partner had some severe mental health concerns. He was diagnosed a narcissistic bi-polar with schizoaffective tendencies, after being admitted to a mental health facility for attempting suicide and threatening to kill me. I felt bad for him and wanted only to aid in easing his cries for help. However I didn't know anything about mental health. I turned to my own research, reading books, joining support groups and talking to his therapists. Up until this point our time together had been quite rough and he had refused help of any kind. Since he was willing to try I decided I owed him one last hurrah. I was going to put my all in for this man one last time. We spent 6 months back and fourth with therapy and group sessions. I thought we were making some progress. He started to seem happy or at least content again, and at least was at ease some of the time. That was until he came to me on a random Tuesday afternoon and announced he had met the love of his life and was moving in with her to take care of her and her 3 children by 3 different men. (That's how he worded it to me.) I was blown away. He gave no thought to me or our boys. He was just gone. He was like my kryptonite though. It was like he had this spell on me, this unbreakable hold. A few weeks later when they had assaulted each other and the relationship ended he called me to come get him, and I did. I took him back and again we were trying to regain some sort of stability and sustenance to our relationship but he was on drugs and not the ones prescribed by doctors and hell I did them occasionally as well to cope with the mental abuse and anguish he was consistently putting me through. He terrorized our whole household on a daily basis. I saw what this trauma and life style was doing to our boys and made a vow to myself i was going to get myself and my boys away from this situation once and for all...even if it killed me...which it did but I'll come back to that later. The only thing standing in my way was my fear of him and the awful things he promised to do to me every time I tried to create space between us. I had filed for a petition of safety with the courthouse of the county we lived in and was becoming more and more bold in my attempts to escape his tyrannical behavior. The cops had been called several times by myself and the neighbors but each time they came he put on his facade and became prince charming wooing their ears with exactly what they wanted to hear. He made me look like the jealous ex that couldn't move on because he had found new life and she hadn't. The last time the police came to our house I had begged and pleaded with them to help me to get away from the clutches of his debilitating grasps. They did not aid me that day. In fact they warned me if they had to return I would be the one going to jail regardless of what he had done. I was lost. Dead inside. I felt so hopeless and hollow. I was more desperate than I ever remember being. When the police left so did he. I still remember the smirk on his face as he drove off past me. He rolled the window down to taunt me saying "you will never escape or defeat me". Those words echoed into the depths of my soul. It was as if Satan himself was squeezing the stale air from my pungent lungs. I heard myself recall my vow. "Even if it kills me" I said out loud. I went back in the house and sent my boys to a friends house up the road. I told her not to let them return until I reached out. Both my neighbor and my boys where discerned by my freakishly calm demeanor, odd requests and behavior. My mind was dark. The future did not seem to be flowing in my favor. I had decided that this night was it. I wasn't doing this anymore. I surrendered to the acceptance that when he returned we would fight and that when we did I was committed to fight him for every single piece i had left of my life...even if that meant it was just this one last night. I was sated in this acceptance and knew my kids would be alright. I dropped to my knees and I screamed and I cried. I yelled to the heavens and begged to be somehow removed from the bondage this man held me captive in. I pleaded for my mind to be released from this tyrant. I remember just wanting it all to end and then I cried so hard and so loudly from deep within. I bellowed on my knees with all that I had. I awoke the next morning tucked in my bed with no memory of how I got there. The last thing I remembered was crying on the floor. I noticed that he had not returned from the previous evening. I also noticed that my mind was quiet with no worry or doubt. I had no anxiety and no fear. My boys came home when I gave the all clear. We watched movies and ate and played video games and just enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere. When my husband returned home late that evening we didn't fight he kept his distance in fact I remember feeling almost a pause present in the air. I went to bed to get some rest as I had court the next morning for a traffic ticket and needed to be rested to be there. He had even agreed to give me a ride to the courthouse. The next day the judge called my name and handled my case when I turned to leave the chief of police and I stood face to face. "Put your hands behind your back" I heard him say. Both myself and my husband were arrested that day for 5 year old warrants that were 4 states away. The cops in this town knew about these cases and knew the county we were wanted in wasn't going to extradite. Meaning they weren't going to pay to have either one of us brought over 1000 miles to their facility. Little did I know at this time fate was however hard at work. The officer that arrested us took his paid vacation from the county and went and worked the fairgrounds as security to come up with enough money to transport us to the county that had our warrants. Now we had already established that that county had no intentions of coming to get us, so by this officer showing up to the jail and taking us 1000 miles away without permission from the proper authorities he committed 2 counts of federal kidnapping and illegal transportation of inmates across state lines. A crime punishable by 10 years per count in jail. Not to mention the procedure was wrong in that he put us both in the back of the same squad car. Male and female shackled together. Now I was thinking exactly what you are. I'm gonna sue the shit out of y'all. Justice is gonna be served on this one for sure, right! Well it was. But not in the way you might think. Justice was served in a higher court. See then this thing happened to me. I would spend the next few months in jail and so would he. If you have never spent any kind of time in jail then you would have no real concept of the amount of time your alone with your thoughts, by yourself in your head, left to your own demise. I had never had this kind of time on my hands. In fact I didn't think it was normal to have as many thoughts as I was having. They were constant and about any and every subject. I would think and think and think and think and then once I had danced around every subject I could fathom they would call us out of our cells for breakfast and I'd wonder what on Earth I was going to fill my mind with for the remaining 23 hours and 14 minutes of this day. I started to notice when I thought about the things I missed and their absence it made my sorrow worse. My time was harder to do when I allowed my thoughts to be sad about things I had no control over. So I began to focus my thoughts to a better place. I thought about how the sand would feel on my toes in Puerto Rico and I thought about how nice it was that even though I was in jail I wasn't living moment to moment walking on eggshells in turmoil because of my husband. I was actually at peace. The more I thought about that and how good the absence of his control and energy felt, the more I thought "oh I like this". Then it dawned on me so clearly. I had been given exactly what I needed exactly what I had asked for. I remember feeling so safe and so loved in this epiphany. To the outside world that knew nothing of my struggle or my life I'm sure this situation seemed so bleak, but to me I had been delivered. I had been saved. I was okay and I knew I was always going to be okay. So I began to focus on my passions and what made me happy. I came up with a lot of things. Writing is a big one for me. Plenty of time for that in jail. Music is another one. Tattoos! Man I love tattoos. I missed getting tattoos. The sound of the tattoo gun. The pain of the needles that let you remember your still alive. The thought and the process that goes into deciding what your gonna get and where. I would say tattoos were a topic that kept me at peace in there. I had this friend that I started to draw on with ink pens that we would get off of commissary (the jail store). I would draw the same designs on her almost everyday unless one of us had to go to court. I drew star gazer lilies amongst the moon and stars and the words "To live would be an awfully big adventure" on one of her arms and on the other I would switch between drawing a compass with the word remember on it and a design of sheet music and other various "Zen" symbols. I told anyone who would listen or that acquired as to what I was doing that I was drawing the tattoos I was going to get when I got out. I believed that I would as though I already had them. I believed I would have them and they would symbolize for me my freedom, my growth, my beautiful children, my clarity and my heritage. 14 hours after I got out I was laying under a tattoo gun getting my ribs tattooed. The tattoo says " we're all mad here" from Alice in Wonderland and the Cheshire cat grin is done in black light ink next to the phrase so it only shows up in the presence of black light. Next I got a Viking infinity triangle with lightening going through it on the back of my neck to symbolize my Viking ancestry, protection, and to say I had weathered the storm. The same artist that had done my neck allowed me to draw and trace my quarter sleeves. This excited me because I knew essentially that the tats would be my own design in my own hand writing. This appealed to me greatly. I had only been out of jail for 6 weeks when I emerged with 4 new tats and both quarter sleeves complete. I was becoming a new person and not just the physical aspect of me but I was transforming into a person I didn't know...but that I liked. Looking back it was as if I had died. That person in that empty shell, void of hope, had died somewhere along the way and I had ascended into...well...into a version of me that made me wildly happy. I removed everything from my life that didn't bring me bliss feeling like if it wasn't making me happy then it no longer served me. My tattoos where just a glorious piece of the puzzle, but they bring me so much joy. They are constant reminders that my inner Goddess and warrior blood runs vibrantly through my veins. I feel like when you hear things like "you are the church" and "your body is a temple" your being urged to love it and care for it and make it beautiful. Some choose to do so by eating right and with exercise. Some choose to cut and color their hair, but for me I choose to be tattooed. I view my body art as the stained glass to the temple of my soul.
By Nevaeh Rhodes (Emily Murff)3 years ago in Motivation
The Blissful Art of Dying
It is true that from the beginning stages of life on Earth society begins to teach and condition you to have a fundamental aversion to anything painful, anything not understood. To fear the unknown. When the toddler has a belly ache and throws up any person that witnesses it says "ugh that's to bad" or "eww that's gross". So we are taught that throwing up is not socially acceptable and we fight to hold it in and resist letting it out for as long as we can. Anyone who has ever had a belly ache knows though that throwing up can give you a great deal of relief and once its happened one begins to feel substantially better. Then later in life a family member passes away and the child observes everyone dress in black and put on long faces and say "Uncle Joe has passed away, oh its so sad". This becomes the conditions and the basis of thought for the accepted normal response to death. Finally when the child grows up and has their own kids the cycle begins again. It doesn't at all have to be this way though. We could have a social understanding of death and what its process is. There is nothing really wrong with being sick or dying. Death is only the other end of birth. See one cannot exist without the other. Without death the Earth would become overpopulated and depleted. When one life ends it creates space for new life to begin. So in a way the man that dies should be honored for allowing room for new experiences to unfold. After all life is just a series of happenings. Its much more satisfying for the universe to experience life through continuous new existences instead of the same ones forever. This way it gets to experience renewed ways of thinking. It evolves this way instead of doing the same thing forever. Living forever in the same human experience is not the way we intended to be. If it were we wouldn't have children. See having children is natures way of allowing us to stop. To give it up. To let it go. We reach a point that we can say to our offspring "okay I have done this long enough I have mastered all their is to master now I give it over to you to continue." Humans have adopted the notion that all life everywhere must be saved. Why? That's not in our control. Life wasn't meant to be saved. It was meant to be lived. It was meant to be experienced. It was meant to be enjoyed beginning to end and all points in between. All life is eternal. Once it has been created it will exist forever. This does not mean it will take the same form. It will evolve and adapt and appear in different forms but it will remain an energy forever. Before the world was a world it existed as different particles and after it has been a world it will exist as something else, but it will still exist. It will still live. Maybe not within the laws boundaries and parameters as we understand as humans but it was created just as blades of grass, the stars in the sky, and dinosaurs were created. Its all connected. Its all life. We are all part of it all. Lets go back to pain and our reaction to it. We think of it in a way of pain and the one that suffers from it. Pain is experienced more intensely by those that put a great deal of energy into the resistance of it. Those that fear it or those that worry about it tend to suffer more. The cancer patient that knows she is dying often finds a peace in understanding there is nothing she can do about a situation and nothing she cant do about a situation. Somewhere in the surrender to that, in the giving up to the circumstance she suddenly realizes that she is free. Free from worry and confusion. She is then able to live out her days quite content and as comfortable and happy as she wants to be. On the other hand you have the grandfather that has lived a good life to the best of his knowledge but finds himself in the hospital but no ones giving him answers. He suspects he's dying but everyone insists he isn't. This causes concern and frustrations...resistance. Road blocks in the form of deceptions that prevent him from acceptance and peace. As a society we put our sick and dying away and out of sight in the facilities to spend their end of days out of view so that we are not to be bothered and disturbed by it. See because the big problem we have with people that are sick or dying or in pain is with the noise they make. The remembrance it brings to us that we too will one day die. So we put them away free from our vision and easier on our minds. We return then once they have departed and the only ones burdened by their cries were the others also dying, to burry them and discuss how much they will be missed. Though we dismissed the time we had with them out of convenience for ourselves. Most times they were lied to and told to hold on to hope. That they would soon feel better and be back to playing bridge with Mary Ann around the corner in no time. They spend their last days with strangers instead of loved ones and doped up in a way that death hardly happens. We really do need to evolve different procedures for the sick and dying. Create a different kind of experience in which this happens. If one can go into death with eyes open and have someone help you if necessary to give up before you die. To submit to the release and resistance. To free yourself from the fear of dying then this extraordinary thing can happen to you. You can experience life and death as an adventure without fear and uncertainty. You can detach from the view of life in terms of survival and profit and enjoy it for the process it can be. New life begins and completed life evolves onto the next thing but it does not end instead it gracefully transforms into a blissful new experience for the universe to explore.
By Nevaeh Rhodes (Emily Murff)3 years ago in Longevity
How To Heal
He had a power over me that kept me paralyzed at his side. 18 years I had put in with this man. The man I so thought would be my forever. He was mentally ill. Narcissistic Bipolar with Schitso-effective tendencies. I couldn't imagine life without him. I couldn't imagine not loving him with every fiber of my being regardless of how much he hurt me and broke my heart. No matter what, I took him back and accepted his lies. I didn't know then that I had trained him to know that I would accept his behaviors but I had by allowing it EVERY SINGLE TIME! Until the day I met the man that would later give me the most priceless life altering gift. He taught me how to heal and led me to the most beautiful relationship with my creator. It's funny now looking back because I thought of my self as a spiritual being and I thought I had a good relationship with God. In some sense I was right. I was spiritual and I did have a relationship with God I guess the way most aspiring good humans did. I remember praying one day that I would be the one to wake this already admirable new human in my life up. See he was the son of the preacher man and he lived by the power of prayer but was starting to question things in his faith. He came into my life at a very painful time for me. I couldn't remember the last time I felt the sensation of being happy or even hell, content. The connection was raw and very very real. We both felt it. It was undeniable. Like our soul's had known each other since the creation of time. We wouldn't stay together long at this time though. I went away for awhile. I was states away. We didn't talk for some time. I started having these visions of him. Visions he wasn't okay, visions of his light burning out. I had to get back to him. I had to see his face again. I called him and made arrangements to see him. I made my way to his state and we met face to face. It was the most amazing familiar energy. Right there in his presence was the only place I cared to be. We picked up like we had never been apart. I told him of my visions and asked him if he knew what was taking his light. He told me he did though he offered no explanation. It would be several more weeks before I would see him again. We made this crazy plan to go to Puerto Rico for a few weeks and things were aligning for this to actually take place. This man. This magnificent man and I have been on a beautiful journey since January, when we did actually go to Puerto Rico for two weeks to meditate. Since then we have traveled to Chicago and Atlanta among other places. This man and I have taught each other so much and continue to teach and grow with each other. The most beautiful thing is that he taught me how to heal. He taught me how to love myself unconditionally and he asked me questions that no one ever had. He asked me things like "What makes me happy, what inspires me, what am I passionate about." I didn't know the answers to these questions. No one had ever cared to ask me. These questions prompted me to look within and find the answers. The more I dug the more I was able to let go of my traumas and grow. I came to terms with the fact that the girl I thought I was I had never actually known. I peeled away at the layers of pain and decided who ever that girl was had passed away. I was okay with that because now I had the tools to become the person I was always meant to be. I was finally free to heal and become....well me. I want you to know that it doesn't have to be this way. You can heal. You can be happy. You don't have to hold on to the hurt. Your traumas don't have to define you. YOU CAN BE FREE! So I ask you now, on your side with meaning and emotion, What are you passionate about? What is it that truly makes your heart sing?
By Nevaeh Rhodes (Emily Murff)4 years ago in Motivation
