<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[Flowers & Cigarettes ]]></title><description><![CDATA[Flowers]]></description><link>https://www.flowersandcigarettes.com/blog</link><generator>RSS for Node</generator><lastBuildDate>Mon, 28 Sep 2026 00:15:48 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://www.flowersandcigarettes.com/blog-feed.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><item><title><![CDATA[I Would Rather You Break My Heart Than Break My Own Again]]></title><description><![CDATA[On choosing yourself, tipping the first domino, and refusing to inherit self-abandonment. There is a particular kind of grief that comes with choosing yourself. We talk about self-love as though it is always soft. As though choosing yourself means bubble baths and boundaries and finally learning how to say no without feeling guilty. Sometimes it does. But sometimes choosing yourself looks like standing in the wreckage of a life you could have kept if you had just been willing to become...]]></description><link>https://www.flowersandcigarettes.com/post/i-would-rather-you-break-my-heart-than-break-my-own-again</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a9d81cf931dea863d234419</guid><pubDate>Sun, 06 Sep 2026 15:12:22 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Maiah De La Rosa</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Choosing the Garden]]></title><description><![CDATA[There is an image from The Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. At the end of the story, after the unicorn has been hunted, pursued, wounded, killed, and somehow returned to life, we find it sitting quietly inside a garden. There is a fence around it. There is a collar around its neck and a chain connecting it to a pomegranate tree. At first glance, the image is called captivity. Except the unicorn can leave. The fence is low enough to escape. The...]]></description><link>https://www.flowersandcigarettes.com/post/choosing-the-garden</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a99a988450c4ccc95c9a6a7</guid><pubDate>Thu, 03 Sep 2026 17:11:39 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Maiah De La Rosa</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[I’m Not Sure I’m a Psychic, I Think I’m an Interpreter]]></title><description><![CDATA[I make this joke sometimes that I’m a little bit psychic. And I am. There are things I know before I have a logical reason to know them. Things I feel before they happen. Information that arrives without taking the normal route. I’m not interested in arguing with that anymore. But I’ve also never fully resonated with the word psychic. It has always felt slightly inaccurate. Like putting the right experience inside the wrong container. Because when I really pay attention to what I’m doing, I...]]></description><link>https://www.flowersandcigarettes.com/post/i-m-not-sure-i-m-a-psychic-i-think-i-m-an-interpreter</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a9893139f761736b473fe94</guid><pubDate>Wed, 02 Sep 2026 21:24:40 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Maiah De La Rosa</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Answer Is Usually in the Thread]]></title><description><![CDATA[On intuition, synchronicity, and learning to tell the difference between signal and noise I was explaining discernment to someone recently, and I realized the simplest way I know how to describe it is this: You have Point A. You have Point B. And somewhere between them is Point C. Point C is the thread. The answer is usually in the thread. I think we sometimes make intuition much more complicated than it needs to be. We assume being intuitive means knowing what something means the second it...]]></description><link>https://www.flowersandcigarettes.com/post/the-answer-is-usually-in-the-thread</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a92e89a9a9d52caa73fe224</guid><pubDate>Sat, 29 Aug 2026 14:16:41 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Maiah De La Rosa</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Mind That sees the forest and the trees]]></title><description><![CDATA[Synoptic thinking, systems theory, intuition, astrology, and the minds that somehow see the pieces and the whole at the same time Some minds don’t experience information as a straight line. They experience it as a constellation. A detail catches your attention. That detail connects to a memory. The memory illuminates a social pattern. The pattern reminds you of something you encountered years ago in an entirely different field. Then a contradiction appears, and suddenly the contradiction...]]></description><link>https://www.flowersandcigarettes.com/post/the-mind-that-sees-the-forest-and-the-trees</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a8cb27f91ea1d0846e29591</guid><pubDate>Mon, 24 Aug 2026 21:16:47 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>jennayerose8</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[When There Was No Elder In The Room]]></title><description><![CDATA[On spiritual isolation, discernment, self-teaching, and the internal council I didn’t realize I was building. For a long time, I thought I had gone through my spiritual journey alone. There was no teacher waiting for me. No elder sitting across from me explaining what was happening. I didn’t have an established lineage I could point to and say, This is where I learned how to do this. I didn’t even have one spiritual system that made sense of everything I was experiencing. So I did what I have...]]></description><link>https://www.flowersandcigarettes.com/post/when-there-was-no-elder-in-the-room</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a8cb18691ea1d0846e2938b</guid><pubDate>Mon, 24 Aug 2026 21:04:24 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>jennayerose8</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Ayla]]></title><description><![CDATA[As a child, my best friend was the moon. She was my only confidant—the only relationship in my short life that never abandoned me. She never judged. She was my first teacher. Through her, I learned the cycles of the world: pain, grief, loss, and death. But as a child, I never felt lonely, because my best friend was the moon. As time passed, I began to grow older, as we all do, and slowly, I began to abandon my old friend. In doing so, I unknowingly hurt the little girl who needed her most. I...]]></description><link>https://www.flowersandcigarettes.com/post/ayla</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a84f7d76f644c8dfb499e01</guid><pubDate>Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:24:56 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>jennayerose8</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Human Kintsugi Master]]></title><description><![CDATA[I've always believed that nothing is truly broken. Not my heart, nor a shattered plate. Every part—whether whole or fractured—holds value, regardless of its immediate utility. We're often taught to discard what's broken and start anew. But this mindset lacks vision. It’s entitled. It speaks to a lack of resiliency. And for what? Because it’s easier? If we can’t even put effort into fixing the small things, what happens when those small things evolve into something larger, more fragile?...]]></description><link>https://www.flowersandcigarettes.com/post/human-kintsugi-master</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a84f7843a73f167659f53c3</guid><pubDate>Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:23:34 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>jennayerose8</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[An Ode to Soulmates]]></title><description><![CDATA[We are meant to meet many soulmates throughout our time on this mortal coil. Some arrive as fleeting lessons, leaving behind imprints that linger long after they’ve gone. Others entwine themselves in our roots, offering unwavering stability and rekindling our faith in something greater than ourselves. But in our fixation on time as a linear force, we often let loss consume us, forgetting that every departure carries its own lesson. The universe, however, always seeks balance. Each lesson lays...]]></description><link>https://www.flowersandcigarettes.com/post/an-ode-to-soulmates</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a84f76408752169b9aae695</guid><pubDate>Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:23:02 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>jennayerose8</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Paradigms]]></title><description><![CDATA[I’ve always appreciated the simplicity of chaos theory. No matter how tumultuous situations appear, there is always a return to baseline in some way… some balancing of the scales. Despite the perceived pandemonium, the seemingly random occurrences, a pattern emerges. It’s at this moment of clarity where the paradigm shift can occur. It begs the question however, if this chaos is governed by deterministic laws, the very deterministic laws that govern the natural world, do we have free will or...]]></description><link>https://www.flowersandcigarettes.com/post/paradigms</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a84f7046e0912670a095f6f</guid><pubDate>Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:22:30 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>jennayerose8</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Hands]]></title><description><![CDATA[It was that deep— the way you held me in the palms of your hands. The kindness in your eyes completely disarmed me. Your smile lit up my core— but it wasn’t a forest fire. It was a slow, warm burn that put me at ease. It was that deep when I drew my sword— every wound triggered by a single message. It was that deep when the truth hit, and weeks later, my heart cracked wide open and crumbled. When I swallowed my ego, my pride, to give you the flowers you so deeply deserved— and maybe didn’t....]]></description><link>https://www.flowersandcigarettes.com/post/hands</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a84f6b68cfa01baa5a1d3e7</guid><pubDate>Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:20:44 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>jennayerose8</dc:creator></item></channel></rss>