Stitched Soul Excerpts
About Stitched Soul
Stitched Soul is my ongoing publication of essays, reflections, and spiritual writing. It’s where I explore the threads of ritual, identity, and transformation — weaving together the personal and the universal.
I publish Stitched Soul on Substack, where readers can subscribe to receive new essays directly in their inbox. Here on my site, you’ll find a few pieces that give a sense of the journey.
Recent Reflections
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Letting Him In – A Story of Forgiveness and Healing
There are moments when the past doesn’t stay buried. It shows up in the silence, in the stillness, in the places we thought we had already closed the door. We spend years telling ourselves we’ve moved on, only to discover that what we’ve avoided is still waiting, patient and insistent. Forgiveness, when it comes, is rarely clean. It isn’t about erasing what happened or…
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The Bridge Will Hold
Summarized from Stitched Soul by Ryan Polly Division feels overwhelming right now. We see it in headlines, hear it in conversations, feel it in the space between people who once stood together. Fear and hurt have settled into the cracks, and the pull to retreat into our own circles is strong. But I believe there’s another way. The space between us doesn’t start as…
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What If We Let Go of the Rope
Summarized from Stitched Soul by Ryan Polly When I was eight years old, I was locked in what felt like the most important battle of my life: tug-of-war against a wall of older, stronger kids. The rope left blisters on my palms as I leaned back and pulled, staring at my opponents like they were enemies. Then something extraordinary happened. One kid stopped pulling…
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When the Bowl Breaks
Summarized from Stitched Soul by Ryan Polly The white ceramic bowl slipped through my hands and slammed onto the granite counter. Shards flew everywhere: in the pot, in the already prepared dinner bowls, across the kitchen floor. I felt it immediately, that familiar pressure rise in my chest. Like a shaken can of soda, waiting to explode. Twenty years ago, hell, even ten years…
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Sacred Ordinary Mornings
Summarized from Stitched Soul by Ryan Polly I have no memory of that Tuesday morning. I was two years old when my father kissed my mother goodbye and walked out our front door for the last time. I can’t tell you what he smelled like, the sound of his voice, or how his hands felt. Those memories don’t exist for me. But I remember…
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Six and a Half Hours
Summarized from Stitched Soul by Ryan Polly A 6 AM phone call from my son. “I got into a car accident.” The words hit before I could process them. My pulse drowned out everything else. He lived four hours away, and I was two and a half hours in the wrong direction. Six and a half hours from my son who just survived what…
