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

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

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

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

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

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

A Winter Walk in the Wilds

Wanna go for a walk together? Let’s follow the river a ways, the snow has just begun to fall in our little slice of wilderness, and I must venture out into it. “It is still the morning of creation, the morning stars are singing together…”, said John Muir, and I feel its truth in my bones even as the night comes and I breathe deep in wonder climbing down the.. 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

Forever: A Prayer

How is heaven to come down to earth? Often in the prayers of the early church God is referred to as Eternal One. In some records of the prayer Jesus taught his disciples to pray, it ends with these words: Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. God is the forever One—an idea we both cannot comprehend and that the strangest things bear light upon it… Read More