I was so uncomfortable, I wanted to flee, to fly my eyelids open, anything to escape the searing.

…perhaps it is from the depths of our despair that we access the depths of our joy, and the power to lead us back to hope and into action.

I believe that when we walk with presence, we become part of the landscape again. At ease in my body, I belong, and the deer recognize that belonging and stay.

At one point I look up and capture this moment. Dory is paying me no attention. She’s lost in her own world—or rather, she’s lost in this world. Lost, and still totally present. Fully immersed.

Today, as I turned, an accumulation of white flowers burst into view: the first flowers of the plum tree!

When we continue to draw on the well without replenishing it, eventually the well runs dry.

Loping down the mountainside to my right, I saw deep, wading tracks, further apart than any dog’s. Just forty yards ahead I saw her below—felt her presence and then saw her—the moose, laying down against a backdrop of willows, facing up at the trail.

Sometimes when things feel darkest I write letters to my self. I can’t explain where the voice comes from, but she always arrives to meet me in that place. This is a letter I wrote myself in early January 2022, on a day when I felt particularly lost.

There are so many joys in a wood stove that I didn’t expect—the smell of first-lit wood, the crackle of kindling beginning to catch. It feels primal, inherited…that spark of knowing that, as the flames catch, warmth will come at least this one more time.

Before he left, Chema hung our bird feeder again…so now I am filled daily with joy, terror, and responsibility. One could argue I don’t need more things to feel vigilant over these days…

It felt like when you wave to someone across the street only to realize you thought they were someone else. Everyone ends up feeling a little awkward…

One of my favorite ways to come into presence in a landscape is to greet the world around me… a ‘noticing practice’ leads to more abundance—the more we notice, the more the earth calls to our attention.

With each inhale, the wave recedes and builds, and with each outbreath, the wave washes forward and cleanses.

The question that I’ve been grappling with is: Is this fear borne of intuition in my body that I should listen to? Or is this conditioned fear?

I think of our marriage like a tree, whose branches grow individually, but whose roots intertwine as they nourish each other… Here are eight lessons I’ve learned in eight years of marriage, plus one to grow on…

I’ve come to realize that I can have two homes, because while home can be a place, home is about more than place. In reality, I have many homes.

I’ve never met a dog with more curiosity than Dory. When we first brought her home, she’d sit by the window and just stare out. On the back porch, I’d see her look up…

My whole body loosened—my shoulders dropped, my stomach unclenched, my breathing slowed. I closed the app and sat still for a minute.

What if our work here on this earth is simply to not abandon her?

…when we focus on how our work looks to the outside world, on whether we are receiving enough credit, we are left with a feeling of lack and scarcity…