Alicia M Rodriguez
Alicia M. Rodriguez is a Latina writer and published author who has lived in six countries and traveled extensively. She is gifted with the sensitivity to explore culture, spirituality, storytelling, and magic themes attributed to her Colombian roots and love of Latin American literature. She writes Between Root and Sky on Substack. Alicia lives in the Algarve of Portugal where she runs bespoke restorative retreats. Her morning cliff walks with her dog Sophie contribute to her creativity and happiness.
A Question I'm Sitting With
Hello Reader, This week, I’m sharing something I noticed, and the question it left. I have walked the same path above the water for years. I know where it narrows, where the dog stops, where you can see the fishing boats coming back if the light is right. On Thursday I found a gate in a wall I pass every time I’m on the cliffs. Stone, old, half swallowed by a fig tree that has been losing its leaves all month. It has certainly been there the entire time I have lived here. I have walked past...
Join Us for a Conversation at The Threshold: Wednesday, October 28, 2026
The Threshold Book & Poetry Circle Series The Threshold is a year-round invitation to pause, listen, and stay with the questions that arise during seasons of change. Through books, poetry, and intimate gatherings—both online and in person—we explore what it means to live honestly inside transition, without rushing toward answers or forcing resolution. This is not a program or a course. It is a living conversation—one you can step into when it feels right, and return to over time. Hello...
The Swim that Fixed Nothing
Hello Reader, I swam this morning. Mid-October, and the water is warmer than it was in early summer, which is the part about this coast that nobody believes until they have lived a year of it. Thirty minutes in the sea. I go in tired or feeling like I need a “cleansing” and return energized and renewed. I came out steadier than I went in. It seems I always do. Almost everybody who comes to me has already made a diagnosis before we speak. They tell me they are tired. The evidence is good. Too...
The Year You Kept Meaning To
Hello Reader, By the first week of October, the village has gone quiet in a way it will stay until spring. The rental cars thin out. You can finally get a reservation or even walk in at your favorite restaurant. The light arrives lower and departs sooner, and the sea, which is warmer now than it was in June, belongs to the few of us who knew to wait for it. This is the month I notice people deciding things. Not out loud. I notice it in the hour the emails arrive, which is later at night than...
January is the worse month to decide anything.
Hello Reader, Don't wait for the new year. Everyone begins in January. That is exactly the problem. January decisions get made inside a crowd. Everyone's resolutions, everyone's new plan, everyone's fresh start arriving at once like weather. Decisions made in a crowd have a way of belonging to the crowd. The autumn here is the opposite of that. The tourists are gone. The almond trees are bare. The ocean is still warm enough if you're brave. The cliff paths are empty for miles. It is the last...
I don't have a framework to sell you.
Hello Reader, What I actually do. People ask what happens in a private advisory, or across a week here. I could give you credentials. I could name a methodology, put it in capital letters, draw it as a diagram with four quadrants. I have none of that for you, and I'm not going to invent it. Here's the honest answer. I pay attention. Closely, for a long time, without any agenda about who you ought to become. I ask questions you will resent for roughly a day. I don't accept your first answer,...
Join Us for A Conversation at The Threshold: September 23, 2026
The Threshold Book & Poetry Circle Series The Threshold is a year-round invitation to pause, listen, and stay with the questions that arise during seasons of change. Through books, poetry, and intimate gatherings—both online and in person—we explore what it means to live honestly inside transition, without rushing toward answers or forcing resolution. This is not a program or a course. It is a living conversation—one you can step into when it feels right, and return to over time. Hello...
You already knew what to do in January.
Hello Reader, Knowing was never your problem. You've done this alone before. With real intelligence and real intention. You made the list. You wrote in the journal at 5am. You had the drive home where everything went suddenly, gloriously clear. And then somewhere around week six it dissolved. Not dramatically. There was no failure to point at. It simply, quietly, stopped being the thing you were doing. You concluded that you lacked discipline. I want to offer you a different explanation. You...
Registration is closing for Write Your Healing Story
Hello Reader, Write Your Healing Story Hello Reader, You've been thinking about writing a book for years. It could be a memoir or novel. You've got some pages written but they're tucked away and only come out when you remember. Maybe you've gone as far as researching how to publish a book. You understand what needs to happen. And you still haven't moved forward with your story. You keep telling yourself you're not ready yet. That there's one more thing you need to learn. That your life is too...
Rest will not fix this.
Hello Reader, You may not actually be tired. You decided it was exhaustion. That was a reasonable conclusion, so you did the reasonable things. Cleared a week. Slept. Took the trip. Said no to two things and felt briefly heroic about it. And then you came back, and within about eleven days the same weight was sitting on your chest again. Here is what I've noticed after years of listening closely to accomplished women (and men): most of them are not depleted. They are misaligned. From the...