STAY, in the Breath

letters from a writer & photographer's journey

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

Changes in the Air…Stay, in the Breath

If there is a thing or two I’ve hoped to become re-enchanted with over my blogging years it is the way truth rises and returns like the tide. When the rhythm of truth has risen within my world there are times I have lost sight of wonder and rather been at odds, other times I’ve tried to be numb. It can seem a thing to savor to learn how to.. Read More

What Your Body (Life) is Asking of You

Perhaps one of the most fascinating and helpful unfolding truths in my own life has been seeing the way creation speaks. I see the way the rivers emulate and echo the way of our bodies, our blood’s circulation to our organs, our need for flow and our danger in stagnation—of being stuck. I am impressed with the need for clean waterways to our oceans for our earth’s good as much.. Read More

Facing the Danger of Letting Go

We went kite flying this past week as we celebrated two birthdays in our family, an eighteenth and a twelfth! My mama heart is all wowowowowow. In all the fullness I’ve been watching a strand of meaning I’m grateful to get to share with you all today… There’s a risk in letting go. If you release you realize. If you extinguish lies you have to face truth. If you talk to.. Read More

Letting Go & Grasping Freedom

My three little boy’s sweaty, salty, sandy heads tucked beneath my chin and arms holding me tight in sheer happiness over an adventure we were on together. They would run ahead of me in the sand dunes and then run back just to give me another hug and kiss. How do I contain these gifts? How can I be sure I’ll remember that sweaty, sandy scent of joy? I wonder.. Read More

Freedom

I’ve woken up in the middle of the night with a song in my heart about the worthiness of God and then it hit me; if loving another is loving God, then rejecting another is like idolatry. If idolatry is worship of anything other than God then when I fail to see the image of God in another, see their worthiness, that is idolatry too. To super over-simplify one of.. Read More

Feeling Numb, and He Called

Some of us, in relationships, have been asked (to say it numbly) to be numb in order to help numb another’s pain. Some of us have chosen to be numb. Some of us aren’t paying close enough attention to know whether any or what of that is true about ourselves. Anyways, if we did, wouldn’t that be painful? So, back to normalcy because ya know normalcy numbs… But then I.. Read More

Wanna know where new life is coming for you?

Hello my traveling companions, tonight’s post is gonna read a little bit like a travel journal, entries of exploration, discovery, and remembrance from me to you & me. If we’re connected on Insta or FB then you’ll have seen the first few entries, though revised (more below) but for those of you who don’t I wanted to share here as well. Tuesday, March 16, 2021: Snapshots of a little bit.. Read More

On the Mountains of God

There are mountains we will traverse in life, places, where one thought becomes seven prayers—a provision and help from the Lord that takes us beyond our own abilities. It’s what I imagine at Pentecost, a single tongue of fire, a flame splitting into many. When I am weak, then I am strong. -2 Corinthians 12:10 These simple words compete for the wonder of first light trembling on the horizon in.. Read More