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

Slowing Down (Faithfulness)

I needed these words tonight and as usual I figured I’m not the only one. Also, here’s some pics from a recent morning ramble around the property… I woke up the other night and even though I was right there in bed I had the sensation of being in a car, and the car was slowing down. It was a simultaneous sensation of both observing the tires, watching their rotation.. Read More

Walking Down to the Water Now (Humility)

Last I wrote you here we pondered our wildernesses together, our woods and shadowed places. Let’s venture into our waters now. I want to write to you of your streams and rivers, your seas. What a world you are, what glory. In ancient medicinal ways the energetic pathways that run from the crowns of our heads to the soles of our feet are as living streams of water flowing to.. Read More

A Letter: From my Wilds to Yours

Hello Old Friends! I have missed writing to you here. Welcome to a new year, and what a threshold it is! Good morning to you from the baby-bluest, mistiest, chilliest, coziest dawn I’ve experienced this side of the Cascades. It reminds me of the early mornings by the sea, except it is not sand at my feet today but rather crunchy, frozen-twice-over, snow. I do not love the cold, but.. Read More

the moment that breathes eternity

Hey you, yeah you, the one whose essence was born in the image of the Eternal One. Before you were ever born here, you were perfect, and that you still exists. Would you breathe that in gently today? Would you nurture the life/soul within you that is precious and wanted and needed here? Because, that’s the truth, and if we come home to that together, all of our grief has a chance at.. Read More

may you hear the question, “where are you?”

It’s a strange but common way we comfort one another on days of sacred memorial like today, we ask, “Where were you?” On September 11, 2001 unlike some mommas I knew who were actually in labor when the terrible news began to arrive, my first labor and delivery had recently passed. I was home and already beginning to figure out the ropes of what it meant to be a parent.. Read More

may you be nurtured in your grief

Are you grieving? If you are, I want to tell you, me too. I want to breathe deep, but when I do send all that wonderful life to my heart and core—oof, the pain it enlivens—there are times of late that it groans out of me like a woman too tired from labor. I howl and feel more animal at times in my anguish. I must breathe gently now, a.. Read More

days of awe: may you know flight

It’s the 2nd of 10 “days of awe” counting up to what is considered the most sacred day of the biblical calendar, Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. One reason I like this space in the year is for how it gives an opportunity to count days in their original rhythm… “…there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” Genesis 1:5 And so forth, there was evening and.. Read More

days of awe: may you know you are held

A movement caught in the corner of my eye this morning, I looked over and there they were, four fawns leaping swift through our field and then a doe and then another, mothers in the wings watching over the children as they played. And, my heart leaped too. In the leaping it felt like breaking. It had all gone too far, the joy-grief undid me there. Awe seems to be.. Read More

For When Everything Breaks

The washing machine, the refrigerator, the internet, and…more—they all broke last week. Also last week, one of my younger children (whom I’ll call Rain) and I took hands as we headed out to the field. We collected deep orange salmon berries like they were jewels hanging from limbs awaiting our delight. We observed marble-sized-still-green cherries even while in our mind’s eye we could already imagine them ripened and ready. “Not.. Read More