STAY, in the Breath

letters from a writer & photographer's journey

For those in pain…

The change of the seasons is the same as the boundary between sand and sea, blurred. This week it has nearly seemed Winter, Spring, and Autumn all at once in our slice of wilds. Then to top off this conflux of seasons in these parts we saw something most unique out of any of our years living in a forest by a rushing river so far. We don’t know for.. Read More

The Friendship of God

Hello Friends, Welcome to 2021, a year of promise. In our corner of the wilds, it’s been a *chilly* start to the new year—in a few ways. As I look up into the sound of the wind blowing through the pines my heart feels full to bursting as I know I can truly say, “I would have lost heart, unless I believed that I would see the goodness of the.. Read More

Cries From the Nest (Love, Part 8)

Our little homeschool sat outside in and around the flower and herb gardens for an observation lesson recently, the entire time we sat there a nearby chickadee nest was all astir with tiny and continuous baby-bird chirping. I can still hear it even now as I write you, it’s like a river of a different kind, a river of little cries, rolling on and on. And I wonder if that’s.. Read More

Forever: A Prayer

How is heaven to come down to earth? Often in the prayers of the early church God is referred to as Eternal One. In some records of the prayer Jesus taught his disciples to pray, it ends with these words: Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. God is the forever One—an idea we both cannot comprehend and that the strangest things bear light upon it… Read More

Such a Thing as Glory

In the Pacific Northwestern United States there are four distinct seasons, two with incredible contrasting “glory”, that is, presence—summer and winter. It strikes me as something to behold because it is new to me that the marked difference is not hot and cold as I have been accustomed to in the Midwest, but rather dry and wet. This year from the late Spring and throughout Summer to early Fall we.. Read More

For When We Lose Our Way

Contemplating “our daily bread” lately, in my world, makes more sense imagined like this image — but it feels good and satisfying and I want to capture that. That’s where this photo came from, a place in my soul that says, “take joy”…even if that is more instructive than felt presently. I’m on my way. Yeah, today — this first fresh day of the Biblical year 5779 — I have sought.. Read More

Walking in Health, Listening to The River: Simple Helps to Detox From Stress

The intensity of the river can be heard from our front road, an entire acre away. Its continual word, shh. It’s shushing us. Even as we turn to leave the drive, we’re being reminded. Shush. Maybe we’re learning. We’ve been practicing putting our hands over our eyes while we pray. We’re taking our sense of sight away briefly in hopes to notice it better when it is returned. Maybe, with.. Read More

For When Your World is on Fire

There are wounds that wind our souls so tight we quit breathing from our bellies. That’s how babies breathe. Until the pain comes, we breathe from our bellies. Then we swallow the pain down to our guts and kill ourselves—but we simply think we’re trying to survive. And, in reality, we are. What’s so horrible about that? Why should surviving make us sick? It’s this question I have to capture;.. Read More

How Love & Pain Mingle. How Clay Get’s Formed.

Living by a river this past month has been an experience to savor. At any part of the day we can hear it’s crashing. This has been true since we moved here but even more now that the rainy season has begun. It seems on the conservative side to say that the more stream-like river that we’ve been playing in rose by ten feet in a few days time. There is.. Read More