STAY, in the Breath

letters from a writer & photographer's journey

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

Deep Cuts, Part Two

(If you missed it, you can read part one here.) Speaking of light… The daytime hours so stark during the summer often make everything feel awash and lost in its blast of luminance, discernment becomes difficult. The mildness of evening and morning light, I think most of us are drawn to its gentleness. We’re drawn to what we can see by its kind flame. Yet here is all this learning again…gentle.. Read More

Deep Cuts, Part One

Overwhelm and stress and the painful places in life—that is the place of love. The space we get to love comes in the harshest and, even what is most easy to perceive as, the cruelest of ways. Love’s kingdom begins at the water’s edge. Sometimes we find the gradual sloping edge, the gentle entry, only to learn in time to take it as grace when it does come so—because Love’s.. Read More

Love Is Not Irritable…What?! (Love, Part 7)

The morning is pregnant with the rain to come today, and also filled with a feathery lightness that whispers to me the way the sun will be peaking through like a faithful friend. The sky is blue grey filling with a little warmth on the horizon as I walk through the hour of morning twilight. The sun has already crested on the other side of the hills and I keep.. Read More

Woman. Moon. Beauty.

Sometimes I look skyward and want it to be full of lovely things. Sometimes I’m afraid to look, afraid to find loneliness. Twelve times a year I look into the night and find darkness where light once was. It’s called the new moon, but it took time for me to accept darkness as newness. It railed against my common parlance, my standards of acceptance. Then someone said, “Woman. Moon. Beauty.”.. Read More

Dear Lovely Bird Who Doesn’t Know She is Free

Beneath undesired circumstances I was given an opportunity to make a choice. I have chosen to believe that to simply be alive is holy. I choose this, not without a struggle today and maybe again tomorrow. But eventually this will get clearer, I know that because it already has, but not how I thought it would, not the way I expected. A Story A few weeks ago, I asked a.. Read More

Our Stories, Our Needs: Seeing What’s True

Our stories are ours, but when we give them away that’s when they become much more, or maybe better said, that’s when we realize the truth—they are more. The truth is always there. The more we practice this, the more our seeing gets attuned to truth in the first place. Sharing is good, however, it’s scary too, I know. So many places to trip up in this process: comparing, and believing.. Read More

The Truth About Trial

The truth about trials is that, in time, their appearing monumental reality crumbles and whirls away like dust in the wind. The lasting things though? That’s what we are planting consistently in the midst and passing seasons of trials and successes, disasters, distresses, the celebratory and oh most of all, the ordinary, days. It seems to me that, at first, we discover by “accident”, the way things come to us… Read More

The Art He Makes Out of it All — Even Parenthood

Hello friends! It’s been several weeks since I’ve posted here, but not for lack of writing. My journals are brimming but more than anything, my children—the most important books I’ll ever write—and I have embarked on the adventure of our new homeschool year.     These are some of the highlights. What you don’t see in these photos: all the sit-down, practice book work, me running into myself over whether.. Read More

For the Travelers or Anyone Who Needs to Know Their Quiet Life Matters

The past two months my family and I walked a slim line and close shave to some harrowing past circumstances and decisions. It was all the sudden the same and completely different, renewed. It was scary and exciting. I didn’t know how or where to begin to write to you all. “Traveling mercies” can be like the gift of twilight, no other time of day like it, stillness shattering through the.. Read More