Good Life Project || Inspiration | Motivation | Happiness | Meaning | Success

Cole Arthur Riley grew up in a house full of personalities that she describes as loud and funny, but as a kid, as loved as she felt, she kept her voice from others. In fact, Cole barely spoke until she was 7. Still, her dad kept finding ways to, as she described, bribe her to share her voice and nurture her creative impulse, often in writing, from poems to stories and beyond. As she grew into herself, she developed a dual passion for contemplative spirituality, and also the work of writers, like Audre Lorde, Octavia Butler, James Baldwin, Thomas Merton, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou. Over time, her lens on spirituality yearned for a more expansive expression, one that embodied more of her lived experience as a Black, queer woman, who’d also find herself living with an autoimmune disease that manifested in illness, pain, and uncertainty.Cole was drawn to liturgy and began to write her own blended prayer-meets-poetry, informed by her, unique experience of life, faith, love, creativity, harm, inequity, and justice