STAY, in the Breath

letters from a writer & photographer's journey

In the Wind, In the Fire

I saw fire fall from the sky this week. Then I realized it was a leaf. A burnt orange leaf was spiraling rapidly downward as I rounded a curve in the canyon. The wind there whirls in that vortex much differently than in the open field where sometimes it can seem as though the leaves are falling in slow motion, meandering like a mountain stream around a pathway of rocks… Read More

I Will Sing

The first fresh days of the new year are unfolding into deeper ones and I want to be here within them, but I feel enclosed in almost a continual house of mourning so far this year. I feel grateful to be alive in this glowing and abundant world, everyday I really do feel that thrill, but it also has been tempered by loss. It has made it difficult to write, yet.. 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

Looking for Purpose, Finding the Ground

Dear Tired Heart, You were brave and opened the cabinet of your self looking for purpose, calling, but found pain there where it seemed purpose was supposed to live. You are right. So, maybe linger a little longer? Please, don’t turn in disappointment because what is supposed to look shiny on the shelf is lying there in the soil while night falls ’round. Watch a minute? You thought it would be tidy.. Read More