STAY, in the Breath

Diary of a Woman Healing in our Slice of Wilds (excerpt edition):

It is May 15, 2025: two years since May 15, 2023, the day we moved away from our river house. But May 15 was not the day that marked the end of living in a state of near-constant-crisis, that hadn’t ended yet. We were moving then, at the speed of crisis. That lasted for a while.

During this time I managed to give myself three concussions: the first by walking distractedly into a considerable hanging flower pot that stopped me like a wall, the second by the blow of a bike rack, newly attached to the back of my vehicle, to the top of my head (twice, 2 days in a row) and finally (please, God) by jumping up excitedly on the playground with my youngest and literally knocking myself unconscious.

Yep. All self-inflicted, all avoidable with some bit more of awareness and less hurry—less moving at the speed of crisis.

So, here now, scanning the lay of the land behind me I understand how this has become a goal for my current journeying. I ardently want to move at the speed of peace, woven through with a calm (nervous system) awareness and bright movement.

It’s been four years since my once-husband of 24 years left. I haven’t hit my head again in over a year. There is a lightness dawning in my days I haven’t felt for a time even as I sort out the continued harvests of the years and roll away the barbed wire that often surrounded those lands in my mind and heart and body. Those who have moved at the speed of crisis understand of what I speak, so I will write this journal entry as a song for us all.

A song that understands a death even while we are still on our feet keeping up, keeping together, keeping care over young ones and how for all the blood of those deadly days something else begins becoming, a new life borne and born all new, all at once.

A song like one sang on a birthday, that sings our true names over us, around us, through us. The names that all the crisis and storm and rain brought clear. At the speed of crisis we slipped and fell on the mud clearing through those sweeping days. After we fall we are invited to be like children in the rain—happy, playful.

A song that has a rhythm of unity with our soul, that calms the loud voices of shame and blame. A quiet song that paints clear pictures of perspective in the beautiful skies of our imagination and creativity—pilgrim songs of where we’ve been and where we are and where we’re going, with gentle-kindness.

Sing a little with me today? Sing through the rain, through the crisis, to the peaceful days woven with bright movement.

I’d like that a lot.

Love,

Raynna

A favorite poet & poem for you: David Whyte, Everything is Waiting for You

A song for you too:  Call it Dreaming, Iron & Wine

Hello friends, old and new. This is me, Raynna, with a couple of my younger boys (I have 5 ! And 1 girl too whom I’ve been give the  immense gift of being called mama by).  I’ve been writing here as we all grow up over the last 10 years. In that time, they’ve all but one surpassed me in height and other ways as well. Writing and taking pictures is how I process many of these changes, share what I am learning and the beauty I gather along the way. Thanks for being here with me.

If you wanna note in your inbox letting you know when I post a new letter you can subscribe here.