STAY, in the Breath

letters from a writer & photographer's journey

Practicing Hope.

How does destruction happen among those born with the instinct not to be destroyed? No one is born wanting to die, wanting loss, wanting pain, and yet we are surrounded by all of these things. To take it even further and maybe even more personal? Have you ever known someone who once helped you see yourself and then their vision left, they left? It’s as frightening as it is devastating… Read More

Hope Heals, After it Burns

I’m at the threshold of a thing that on the other side of which I will likely want another 10 hours of talking late into the night and the early morning sitting somewhere waiting for the sun to rise. So, it seems right that at this threshold there is a pause, a moment in time to consider the path that has come before and all that lies beyond. I have.. Read More

Dirt Paths (Part 1)

“Of all the paths in life you take, make sure a few of them are dirt.” -John Muir It’s easiest to feel compelled by these words when we’re out adventuring. Dusty dirt seems just right when summiting a mountain peak on a misty morning or even meandering on a sandy shoreline in the dark of night waiting for the excitement of a new moon to appear. Our souls sigh contentedly.. Read More

The Quiet & the Thunder in the Confluence

“…standing between the earth and sky, we are silenced by the sight…” -Abraham Joshua Heschel, I Asked for Wonder Hello my friends, What a confluence in time we are within! It’s had me in a quiet place considering the many river-like convergences in our lives that at once bring a loss of self and a greater intimacy. I find as I get older not a lack of meaning or nothingness in.. Read More

Hope Abides and Rivers Flow

Sometimes the thoughts come so fast, so I walk on and on like maybe if I bring my body up to speed I can catch all the thoughts, and then I stop. Depending on where I am at on the property, I am often surrounded by the sound of the rushing river.  Sometimes I’m surrounded by memories. I can see nineteen-year-old-me needing help to walk around the block and how.. Read More

The Deepening Gaze of Faithfulness

In the early morning, of this fairyland I live in, the air is brimming with sound. The roosters remind me I live in rural America but the other bird songs are still so newborn to me that it persists to feel as my first morning here, like the stuff of dreams. In a reverie it feels like I’m enclosed by tropical forest and its reverberations. The bright blue wing of.. Read More

An Open Love Letter

Hello my fellow travelers, how are you? I mean that question truly and welcome you to write to me if you’d like. I have often shared with you things that I have been privileged to learn from my teacher, Keren Hannah Pryor, she is a messianic Jew who is a teacher and author who writes and shares beauty and truth from Jerusalem. She is a gift who offers rich treasures.. Read More

Faithful Fight

Rumi once wrote, “The way the night knows itself with the moon, be that with me.” Or, alternately translated, “Union is a raging river running toward the sea. Tonight the moon kisses the stars. O beloved, be like that to me.” I am afraid of many things. I fear not knowing union like Rumi wrote, or of not protecting it, or fighting for it with my life. The last seven.. 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

To See Hope, To Find Contentment

It occurred to me this week the way the river can have a similar illusion as an airplane does when you look at it from the opposing direction. If we didn’t know better it could seem as though both were moving in slow motion. How similar this is to family, to life. Sometimes from certain angles, we can look at our lives and buy into an illusion that it’s going.. Read More