It doesn’t seem like much. A random photo of my Dad’s hand holding something, but it drew my attention.

A Man and His Jeep

First, I noticed his pride at getting a flashlight that so perfectly matched the color of his Jeep. His corvette was a very similar blue, by the way.

Dad came from a family of car people. His father worked for Cadillac & Oldsmobile, if I recall, and his brother restored antique cars into hot rods. Cars were a part of who my Dad was and our family was very anti Ford.

Looking back, I can see how this influenced me. One of the first things I did when I got a full time job and had money was to buy a brand new car. My first car was a blue VW Cabriolet convertible and I adored it.

As I was saying, cars were a big part of my Dad’s life. He always wanted a corvette but, with 5 kids, he settled for a Camaro until he was able to get his corvette later in life. The Jeep was my step mother’s influence, but my Dad jumped in with gusto.

Dad joined the jeep forum and as a lover of humor got involved in a humor thread which connected him with Jeepers all over. He built relationships online and met many in person. Many became his support structure as Alzheimer’s took my step-mother and his own body fought cancer. Some were even there for me as my Dad's cancer worsened. They all loved him. My Dad was such an easy person to love.

I was touched by the handful that made their way to Vermont to attend his burial and celebration of life. And by their photo of Jeeps in missing man formation on an off-road trip my Dad had joined them on before.

Hands

The second thing that struck me about this photo is his hand. Can you picture the hands of the people you love? Maybe it’s just me, but there's something about the meaning of hands. I remember how much it bothered me that my Dad’s hands were so swollen in the hospital. They didn’t seem like his. Holding them wasn’t the same. So I love seeing his healthy hand here.

I love seeing my Dad's photos come through in my memories. They are reminders for me of the life he had, the people who mattered to him. It still stings from time to time. I wonder if that will ever go away. I miss him dearly.

It’s been 5 months since my last letter. Over and over again I’ve thought of this space and wondered what to write. In fact, half of this letter I wrote back in January.

I’ve been spending less time reading on Substack. My inbox is full of unread letters. When I look them, I feel a bit paralyzed. It’s too much. Where do I begin? How do I ever catch up? Should I?

I'm tempted to take a cue from Louisa from and set a creative fire. Start all over again. Instead, I did some pruning via unsubscribes. If I’ve unsubscribed from you, I’m sorry. It‘s not that I don’t enjoy your writing, its just too much. I hope someday I will have more capacity to find my way back to you.

Back to the writing, or my lack thereof truly. It’s not that I have nothing to say. In fact, I’m full of words. I’m just not sure how to get them on paper right now. And I haven’t wanted to. And many are a lot different than what I used to want to say. I’ve thought about pushing myself. But should I?

I still think belonging to ourselves is important. Maybe right now what is most important is belonging to each other? I don’t know.

I’ve found myself leaning away from writing and fallen deep into reading. I also notice that what I’m reading has shifted.

I want to stay informed of what’s happening in my country. I want to explore my part in resistance. I want to understand how we got here and what that means for how we mend. I want to deepen the faith that I’m seeing hijacked and sullied. I want to find belonging with others who feel the same. I want to find pockets for escape and joy and connection with those most important to me.

My heart is broken, yet clinging desperately to hope. I watch the spring unfolding on my walks every day and find myself captured by how nature continues its cycles even as fear and uncertainly shower around us.

It still feels important to know our values and stand firm in them. To find others we can stand with. To know who we will stand for. Yet I’m not sure what to write in this space.

Today, I’ll leave you with a musing that occurred to me while listening to an episode of The Gravity Commons Podcast. (I wish I remembered which episode!)

Growth is what happens in a nurturing environment

If you think of a garden, the plants are not striving for growth the way humans do. They are simply following their nature. Whether the tomatoes grow into the best expression of themselves is not so much up to the tomato as it is to the environment. If that environment is tended well, giving the tomato its best conditions, that tomato will thrive.

Are we any different? As a parent I strive to create an environment where my kids are able to grow into their best selves. How do I also create that environment for myself?

How do I push to create that environment for others? How do I stand for creating a nurturing environment in my community? My country? It is feeling like the opposite of the kind of environment the current administration is trying to create.

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That’s all I’ve got today. I can’t promise ill will write again soon. Time will tell whether I can wrangle all the words within me into something I want to share.

Meanwhile, I’d love to hear from you. Where is your heart? What’s keeping hope alive for you? Where are you focusing your energy in these times?

A while back, after reading Alex Dobrenko's piece, Beautiful Disasters, I was reminded of Amy Grant's song "Better Than a Hallelujah". Alex's piece was such a raw and vulnerable peek into addiction and, more generally, the power of our biology. As I read it, I was struck by every moment when past Alex longs for another person to just get it. Many times I've felt the same when given advice about anxiety. I often find myself thinking - if it were that easy, I wouldn't be having this problem. Sometimes, instead of needing "help" we need someone to listen and someone to just get it. Maybe we aren't ready to fix things. Or maybe fixing things feels so big and exhausting and we just need a break. What we want is to simply be loved, accepted, and maybe even understood. As we are. In our mess.

Back to the song. The chorus goes like this:

We pour out our miseries

God just hears a melody

Beautiful the mess we are

The honest cries of breaking hearts

Are better than a Hallelujah

Our honest cries - better than a Hallelujah. I've been learning that love sometimes looks like this - the desire to be trusted with someone's brokenness and/or pain. That it can sometimes mean more to be trusted with someone's pains than with their joys. Having learned somehow that to lean on others is to be a burden, the idea that someone might WANT to hear my struggles is kinda mind-blowing. At the same time, when I think about the people I love and what a gift it is to hold space for them, I can see that it doesn't have to be a burden. Isn't being held in our pain and messiness what all of us long for? I mean, to really be seen. For someone to look at us and be able to truthfully say, I get it. To look at our mess and say - beautiful. Even this is beautiful. Allowing ourselves to be witnessed is a gift to those who truly love us.

Beautiful the mess we are

It's been a journey for me to get to a place where I can look at myself this way - a beautiful mess. It's not perfect, but I've gotten better at looking at my struggling parts and loving them. Seeing how they make sense. It's from that place of understanding that I find I'm more able to make shifts. I have to "get it" first. Allowing others to give me this gift is another story. I'm still working on allowing myself to be seen and held by others. Carrying it all myself is hard to unlearn.

The honest cries of breaking hearts

In the book Cassandra Speaks by Elizabeth Lesser (which, btw is exploring with her community right now) is the story of Hagar from the Hebrew Bible. Hagar is the first to name God El-Roi - the God who sees me. I love this title and the affirmation that comes with it. The affirmation that there is someone out there who sees us. Really sees us. Then, as if we refuse to believe that we are seen and that someone gets it, the Christian Bible tell us that God incarnates in Jesus and gets first-hand experience. From the vulnerability of a tiny baby, to a horrible death on a cross. The pain, the suffering, the joy, the oppression, the anger - all of it. And all while walking alongside people from the margins. That's a God who sees me.

Better than a Hallelujah

I don't write much about faith in this newsletter. Like many parts of my human life, mine is messy, and it's deeply vulnerable. But these stories help me feel closer to believing that I am seen. Beautiful the mess I am. That there's always someone that gets it. Everything is easier to carry when you aren't carrying it alone. Feeling loved in my mess helps me hold that love for myself as well as for others.

God just hears a melody

May light find you in the darkness this winter season. May you feel fully seen and loved still.

Merry Christmas if you celebrate and Happy New Year to all.

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Back in 1997 when I graduated college and started my career, I was a software test engineer. It was my job to ensure our product was working to specification and to be the customer advocate when what was specified was less than friendly. It was also a time when customer experience was still king.

What happened?

Many software companies no longer have test teams and honestly, you can tell. You get shrugs and sorry's at retail stores. The customer is no longer king. All that matters are shareholders and the bottom line. And we are all too busy trying to keep up with the rat race to push back.

It's like a slow death. (See Enshittification)

Meanwhile there are politicians that tell us they are going to make our lives easier when in reality they only care about those who are lining their pockets. Worse, they slowly degrade our care for each other, spurning contempt, hate, and then violence.

***

I attended a women's college for undergrad. It was a place where women had power. I did not have to worry about men talking over me in class. I did not worry about being hit on as I wandered campus. Men on campus visiting girlfriends or sisters were decidedly out of place. I was surrounded by intelligent and driven women. I have a lot of nostalgia for those days.

Now I sit here aghast as the violent alpha male is celebrated and women's rights are repealed. I can only hope we are seeing patriarchy's last stand before it falls.

We deserve better. We deserve to have the people who are supposed to be serving us CARE about us. Care about how their decisions affect our lives. Care about our experiences and where we struggling. Care about our access to things that help us thrive.

Whether you give any weight to the Hebrew Bible or the teachings of Jesus, I hope you can agree that love your neighbor is a pretty powerful (and challenging) tenet to center. When we care for each other, we both thrive. When we care for those we serve, we can feel pride in our work. When we see our common humanity with those different than us, we have peace and we may even learn something new.

I find myself wondering how we got here. How can I look around me and be surrounded by so much that seems out of integrity? I am glad that I feel firm in my values. I have no doubt about my ability to determine right from wrong. I am simply flabbergasted by how many people seem to be willing to go along with what to me seems so very wrong.

I'm scared, to be honest. I don't know what the future holds, but I fear it holds more violence. I fear for my kids and especially my daughter. I am honestly grateful that I no longer have a uterus. I fear for my friends and family who are not white cis male heterosexuals. I fear the rise of extremism throughout the world and especially in my own country.

Yet, I am clinging to hope.

Perhaps this is why I have been so drawn into stories lately. I find hope in stories where characters find love in being their full selves. Where family is the community that surrounds and supports you even if they aren't family by blood. Where difference is accepted and, even better, celebrated. If we can imagine worlds where love, kindness, and acceptance matter, we can bring those qualities into our world. This piece from Janisse Ray calls for exactly this.

I recently finished The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna, so I know there are people out there who share my values. Don't forget that we deserve better. And please don't lose hope.

Where are you finding hope these days? I’d love to know.

Hey Friends,

It’s been a while. I’ve started and stopped a number of letters to you, none of which have felt quite right.  Lately when I think about writing on belonging to ourselves, I feel flat. It’s not that I don’t believe in the idea, I do. I’ve just lost the drive to write about it. Things I write are missing the spark I feel when I write poetry and prose.

I’ve also been elsewhere. Life has caught me up in the wash cycle and I can’t seem to step out of the tumbler. Or maybe I haven’t quite learned yet how to sit with it all. How to be in the discomfort.

I wanted to say hello, though, and remind you that I'm still here. I'm grateful that you are still here with me. I thought I'd share some sporadic thoughts that have made it through my pen recently.

New Here?

There are 200 of you now and I’m surprised by how more of you keep steadily showing up even though I haven’t been writing.

Welcome, thank you for being here. I’m grateful to have the space in your inbox. If you came to me via a recommendation from someone else, I encourage you to take a look around to get to know me. I'll include links to my top posts after this. No hard feelings if you find this isn’t the place for you and you decide to unsubscribe. I have to be honest, I think the default auto-subscribe to recommended newsletters when you subscribe on Substack feels a little icky to me. Myself, I always say no thanks.

My Top posts:

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Wind

The wind picked up recently, flinging cones, needles, and vulnerable branches to the ground. As I walk, I inhale deeply, filling my nose with the scent of fir needle. This is one thing I love about the aftermath of windstorms.

Sun

The sun is out today. I notice so many more people than usual when I am out walking my dog. I laugh at the predictability of Seattleites, soaking up the sun. It's a limited resource in fall and winter. Meanwhile, I grumble at the necessity of navigating around more dogs. Me, I'm on my same ol' schedule - twice a day at least. Maybe I take a longer route on a sunny day or stop a moment to feel the sun on my skin.

Aging

I wonder how to accept this aging body. The ways it needs more care and no longer runs like a well-oiled machine. I don't know how to make the most of what it's still capable of when I'm anxious about everything that's not quite right.

Anxiety

I finally admitted to myself that maybe it is going to take more than talk therapy, self-regulation, and accommodations to live with anxiety. I started meds. It's ironic that, in hopes of turning down the anxiety, I have to do something that makes me very anxious - take a new drug. A drug that cannot just be stopped, but must be tapered off.

***

I went to a party hosted by a friend of mine recently. I was anxious the whole drive there. My heart erupted with palpitations that I attempted to settle with deep breaths and slow caresses of my thigh. I kept thinking of turning around. I worried whether I should be driving. I wondered if I'd end up on the side of the road, having a panic attack, and calling my husband to come get me.

I arrived at my friend's house and immediately told her that I almost didn't come. Good friend that she is, she met me in my anxiety, offering support. In time and with some hot chamomile and lavender tea, I settled and had a nice time. I can do hard things and I hate it.

***

Anxiety makes me feel unsafe in my body. It tells me to flee, only I can't flee from myself. It bangs at the walls within me posted no vulnerability beyond this point. No mess is allowed out beyond those walls. Only strong, capable, independent humans allowed. Anxiety says f you and your bootstraps, humans are vulnerable. We need each other. Let me see your mess. But if feels like the scariest thing in the world to take down those walls. I'm getting braver with people I trust. It's hard to see through the self-judgement telling me I need to get beyond this, that it's imperative to get to some future me that feels stronger, more capable, and independent.

The Messy Middle

When I started this newsletter, I called it The Messy Middle. It feels like I’m there again. What was is no longer, but what's next isn't clear yet. I see many women my age writing about this feeling.

For so long I've wanted to write about self-worth and belonging to ourselves. It's what drove my poetry when I first started sharing my writing. It's what drove my posts on Instagram. It's most of what I've written here. Now that it no longer feels right, what's next? I'm not sure. Will you stick around to find out? Will I?

I'm no longer mothering small children. I'm no longer homeschooling. I don’t have a job, so what is my purpose? (It feels fitting that I recently discovered my LLC was inactivated due to a long period of no activity). My new chiropractor today told me how supportive it is for teenagers to have an adult at home and that helped me feel better. I do love being here when they come back home and available for homework help if they need it.

Books

I've been reading a ton. Mostly fiction. Perhaps I'm in a phase of consumption vs production. I'm reading books differently now that I've allowed myself to write fiction. I'm noticing the story arc, the writing I love, the writing I don't. Here are some of the books that really stood out to me this year:

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

The Fault in Our Stars

Boyfriend Material (I laughed so much. Also CW: sex)

Georgie All Along

Red, White & Royal Blue (CW: sex)

I Kissed Shara Wheeler

That's it, friends. My sporadic thoughts for you. I hope this letter finds you well and if not, you are not alone. Either way I am sending hugs. May we all find little sprinkles of hope throughout our days.

I’d love to hear from you

If you've read any books that stand out to you this year, I'd love to hear about them.

Also, please share any favorite gluten free vegetarian recipes you love. I'm burnt out on meal planning.

I also don’t quite feel ready to come out of my summer bubble. After a wonderful dive into writing in Beth Kempton’s River of Words course, summer took me by the hand and pulled me away from the computer, the internet, and my notebooks, and into the world. It was a busy season with friends, family, travel, history, and so much water.

I stood on the coast of Massachusetts, looking out over the Atlantic, then later on the coast of Oregon looking out over the Pacific. I stood over the stone remains of the parsonage where the Salem witch hysteria began, which turned out to be right behind our Airbnb. I stood over graves of men and women who dreamed of liberty and a government for the people. I drove through passes thinking of the engineering required to make it possible and what it must have been like to make the trip by wagon. I fell in love again with the Pacific Northwest like I do every time we travel outside our door. I dropped my kids off at their first sleep away camps and spent a week alone with my husband for the first time since our son was born.

I read so many books.

I wrote a little, but not much. Mostly fiction, which feels so far from being ready to share.  This was much more a summer of consumption than production. Somehow each summer I have to learn over again that it's a season for rest, travel, play, and time away from work. I need to stop being surprised and start planning for the school break to be a break for me as well.

Now the kids have gone back to school and I find myself back to having more time on my hands, but I still feel pulled more to reading than writing. Much of my time and headspace is also dedicated to preparing for a planned surgery and all that needs to be in place before I’m unable to drive or lift things more than 10 pounds and will need to spend much of my time healing.

All this to say that things will likely still be quiet here for another month or so. I have a backlog of newsletters to catch up on when I’m resting and a pile of books to read. Perhaps I’ll write. Perhaps I won’t.

I’ll be back when I’m ready. I hope you will still be here.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear about any adventures you got up to this summer, or about how you are feeling about the changing season. Feel free to reply or share in the comments on Substack.

I'll also leave you with a little theme and invitation for this autumn season. I invited you to Play this summer and now I invite you to Wonder. Bring a curious eye to your life and the culture around you. What are you learning right now? Who are you becoming? What stories are at play in your life and around you? Which are you willing to keep being a part of and which do you want to re-write? Wonder about what those new stories might be. I'd love to hear what comes up for you if you are willing to share.

Until next time,

Some past letters that may be of interest for you while I’m gone:

Like a greeter it stood, there in front of 23 East Street. We had come to an open house to what would become our first home. The prickly cactus reached up to my shoulders. Its needles looked large enough to draw blood and its stillness was foreboding.

I paid little attention as I passed by. I should have seen it for the trouble it was.

On move-in day, I tore a hole in my favorite t-shirt on that cactus. The sadness over the loss was drowned by the excitement over this new stage of our lives. I had recently discovered I was pregnant and planned to tell you that evening. I was too focused on the many beautiful memories ahead of us to worry about some old shirt.

The next time the cactus caused trouble, I was not so positive. Junie had begun walking and took a tumble by it, procuring a scratch across her face.

“It’s got to go!” I told you. No place for this dangerous plant in a yard with a toddler, so, you dug it up and hauled it off to the compost service. Two weeks later we had a six-inch cactus in the same spot.

We threw up our hands. Let it be. It mostly kept to itself, after all. There were even a couple years that it flowered.

Those were good years, the flowering years. The year you started your new job and the year Junie graduated with honors. Most years passed with only minor scratches.

It all began to crumble the day you fell into the cactus while mowing the lawn. The day you lost your job. Twelve stitches later, we were determined to be rid of it for good.

A landscape company came out, assured us they would take care of it. We thought they had, until the day I saw a two-inch cactus breaking through the soil. The day I discovered you were cheating.

On the day of closing, divorced and on my way to settle near Junie, the cactus flowered.

“Good riddance,” I said, walking past one last time. I wonder what my life would have been like had I decided I didn’t want a yard with a big prickly cactus.

Hello Friends,

Summer is meandering its way towards me like a soft flowing river. It's slow and quiet now but I can hear the roar of the waterfall head. Everything outside is green and flowering or budding. Somehow it feels too soon to see green fruit on our blueberry bush. I see rabbits everywhere and my daily walks are slower as the dog stalks her prey. School ends next week then our calendar for the next 3 months is already quite full. I had thought to reserve some camping sites this year but I see there's just no space for it. Any space we have I know we will want left open to our momentary whims. I am willing the days to linger a bit because I know once we pack up the car for our first summer trip, we will be pulled into the rapids.

Gathering Guilt

It's already mid-June and I have yet to announce this month's gathering. I haven't felt up to hosting but have felt hesitant to say so. The guilt over holding one gathering and then "dropping" it looms, but I know this summer I won't have the focus to make them happen. So here I am, putting them on hold when I've barely begun. I hope you will check out the audio version I shared that you can experience on your own. I'd love to hear how it goes for you. If you share what you like and don't like, that can inform the gatherings I form in the fall.

Writing Shifts

I am in week 5 of Beth Kempton's River of Words and I can hardly believe it will be over in two weeks. I have been spilling words, most of which are fiction. I had hoped that this course would give me more clarity around the direction of my writing and it seems a shift may be coming. It's clear I will be fiddling with fiction in the background. You can expect to see some short pieces here in the future. To help me structure this space in a way that supports you, would you take this quick poll?

Summer Invitation

As summer rolls in and things likely get quiet around here, I wanted to leave you with an invitation. I had thought to explore the topic of Play in our June gathering, but since I won't be holding one, I'll leave you with some ideas you can play with (pun intended).

Summer has a boisterous, playful energy that is worth exploring in our own lives. As adults we tend to get caught up in life's daily drudgery that we forget to have fun. Kids can help us with this, as they are experts at play, but we can foster play ourselves if we don't have kids around. Here around some ideas:

• Journal around the topic of play and joy. In what areas of your life are you craving more play?

• Pull out some art supplies and just play. Start out with your non-dominant hand to remind yourself that perfection has no place here.

• Take a walk down memory lane. What activities did you enjoy doing as a kid or teenager? Are there any that you can bring back into your life now?

Share in the comments some of the playful things you get up to this summer.

Happy Pride

Last but not least, happy pride month to all of you in the LGBTQIA2S+1 community. If you’ve been here long, you’ll know that any push to celebrate being able to know, trust, love, and express our true selves is fabulous in my book.

To those of my family and friends in the community, I am so proud to know you and love you. I see your courage and I celebrate you! You bring me hope in a world where equality and the right to exist is resisted. You teach me about possibility, courageous self-expression, and chosen family. Thank you!

Much Love,

You will need:

• A quiet space free of interruptions

• Room to lie down and/or move your body gently

• Something to journal with

• Paper and pen/pencil/crayons/markers to doodle with

I do hope you enjoy the journey and if you'd like to share in the comments what came up for you or the blessing/prayer/intention you crafted for yourself, I'd love to hear from you.

The following tracks are used for the sound journey:

Beyond Solaces by Didacte, Holloway

Eidólon (Dante's Song) by Kumea Sound

More about Lise:

Lise is a trauma-informed somatic practitioner and an embodiment mentor. She supports heart-led women in connecting deeper with their body and its wisdom, to heal old inner wounds and create safety in the body and inner world. Through gentle embodiment practices she guides her clients to start a gentle conversation with their body and tune into the guidance and the answers it is holding, so they can shift out of survival mode and stuckness and into embodied self-support and a felt sense of empowerment.

Lise lives in Aarhus, Denmark, and supports her clients through online somatic sessions, online women’s circles, and her online embodiment community Rooted.

Find out more about Lise and her embodiment work on Instagram and her website or sign up for her Substack.

Embodiment as a radical act

I often speak to women who say that they don’t know how they feel or what they need. That they feel disconnected from their body and their emotions because they are always so busy tending to the needs of others that they have forgotten to tend to themselves.

In a world where we are all conditioned to push through, to disconnect, to not listen to ourselves, to fight through, to battle ourselves and each other, to win, it is no wonder that so many of us feel burned out and/or don’t know how to connect with or tend to ourselves on a deeper level; an emotional level, an inner world level, an embodied level, a felt level.

We have forgotten how to sit with ourselves and with each other, in deep, rooted, embodied presence and witness our own experience. We don’t know how to stay with. Stay with the discomfort of what moves through us so often in this human life, stay with the unknown or the unanswered, stay with ourselves, stay with each other.

We spring into action mode, into doing, into fixing. Because it is all we know, all that we have learned.

We have been taught to forget how to sit with our felt experience. How to stay present with what our body is holding; our hopes and dreams, what is unsaid or unfelt, what our heart is holding, what we wish for, but have let go of in order to navigate this complex life, our longings, our felt knowing, our deepest truths.

We have to remember ourselves back to that practice, of sitting with, of witnessing our own felt experience, in order to stay true to who we truly are. To not show up with masks, pretending to be what others want or need us to be. To show up speaking our truth, knowing who we are and what we need and how we can contribute; in our relationships, in our community, in the world.

We need spaces for that remembering, for that practice of reconnecting. Spaces that hold us gently, as we practice that embodied self-connection, that leaning into ourselves, that remembering ourselves back to who we are at our deepest roots, deep within ourselves, beyond words and language, beyond understanding and analyzing. Deep within us, where a soft whisper calls us back to ourselves, whispers us awake to what is true for us.

We need soft spaces of connection and tending.

Spaces where we can practice embodied presence.

Spaces that we know are there to witness us.

So we can practice that remembering, that connection to ourselves, that rooting deeper, while being held.

I want us all to have spaces like that.

Spaces where we can cultivate a deep connection with ourselves and our felt experience. With our sensations, the way we experience our needs and emotions, with how present we feel in our body (or not). Spaces that support us in tending to ourselves and where tending to body connection is held as sacred.

Practicing embodiment and self-connection is a radical act in a world that asks us to disconnect from ourselves. Choosing to connect deeper with our felt experience, with our sense of self-connection, with our own humanity is an act of rebellion in a world that conditions us to dehumanize ourselves and each other.

The chaos of the world is inviting us all to take a closer look at how we are showing up in the world. How we are relating, how we are co-creating, and how we are contributing. It is painful and complex to untangle from our conditioning because it has seeped into all parts of us, so the untangling is slow and exhausting.

If you are also untangling, I just want to say that I see you, and I witness you.

This is the work 🔥

Keep going 🔥

Rooted: An online community for heart-led women longing to reconnect with their body’s wisdom

Rooted is a monthly online membership for women looking for a gentle and supportive space to gather and explore deepening self-connection and reconnecting with their body’s wisdom through embodiment practices and awareness. It is an intentional space of connection and resourcing, where you can take a break from everyday life and let yourself be held. 

Find out more by clicking this button:

Explore Rooted

I hope you all appreciate this share from Lise. I’ll be back next week with my own writing.

Words have always been there, I think. From the treasured stories read to me as a child to the ones that spill out of me as I try to make sense of the world. The page has been there to capture what is inside me or to help me escape it or a time.

My own words were born of a need to express emotions I didn't know how to speak. I learned early that there was no place for my feelings, so I tucked them into the pages of my diaries.

As a teenager all of my big feelings about love and society and the environment poured out into poetry. I didn’t know how to say these things out loud, so I wrote them instead. The page still feels like the place I’m best able to express myself.

Words also sailed across the sea, calling to me. Voices of my ancestors saying you will know us by our words and our customs. Välkommen! Kom och danse. Somehow their words sound like home, so I keep learning. Tack så mycket - one of the phew phrases I ever heard my grandmother say. My tongue learns to dance around words like smultronställe.

Words have a way of cracking me open and taking me beyond myself. A powerful poem, a great book, a desperate plea. Perhaps this is evidence that sometimes their source lies outside of us.

When I think about the source of my words, an image of a pool deep within a cave comes to mind. It has shown up many times in my imagination as a place of self-discovery, a place of healing, a place of wisdom, and a place where purpose is revealed.  It is the place where I've met my inner wisdom in the shape of a black cat. It feels like a sacred place.

In the Hebrew Bible God speaks creation into being. Words spoken bring forth sky, waters, land, etc. This is evidence enough for me of the power and sacredness that words can hold. It also says that everything God created was called "good"1. May my words also speak good into the world. I think when I can tap into my source in that cave I'm on the right track. My words feel sacred. They are captured in their rawest form before they are tossed out into the world and weathered by the storms of humanity.

Some days it feels like I can’t reach the cave, I’m outside trying to scoop words out of a tumultuous rapids. Over and over again I place words on the page and they say a thing, but they are lackluster. I seek the magic of the cave. I hear from writers more talented than me that this comes of the practice, so here I am, practicing.

What role do words play in your life? If you are a writer, where is your source and how do you tap in? I’d love to know.

This piece was inspired by one of the exercises in Beth Kempton's River of Words course.

Friends, I wanted to send a quick and final reminder that May's Garden Gathering will be taking place this Friday. I hope you will join me. It's a wonderful chance to dive into the topic of trust. Click the button down below to sign up and get the Zoom link.

I love gatherings like this. When I join with a group of people and untangle bits of myself alongside them, I'm often surprised by the experiences we share in common. And in the places where we differ I often learn something about myself. I get a new lens through which to view myself. Granted, I have done my share of exploring my inner world on my own and have learned a lot that way, but I always feel better when there's someone else there saying "me too" or "that makes sense." It's affirming and reminds me that maybe I'm not the odd duck I think I am.

There is no requirement to share in these gatherings, only the invitation. You are welcome to show up and simply witness others and take your own inner journey.

As a reminder we will be exploring this question:

Where in my life am I struggling to trust and what is getting in the way of doing so?

We will do this through journaling, meditation, journey with sound & breath, and doodling. You will walk away with an intention/blessing/prayer and, I hope, the feeling of being less alone in your struggles.

Join the Gathering

I will be back in your inbox later this week with an essay about origins. I won't typically send letters more than once per week but I wanted to be sure you saw this reminder.

I've been trying to figure out what to write to you this week. When I think about my seasonal theme of trust, I feel deflated and uninspired to write more about it. It's really hard to trust right now. Personally, my body has things to say in response to which my mind goes with the worst case scenario. Collectively, there is war. There is genocide. There is a rise in authoritarianism. Where is the goodness that I can trust?

I've spent a lot of my life leaning in to the idea that the adults are in charge. There are people who know more than me, who are more responsible than me, making sure the right things happen. I know now that some of my ability to believe that was due to my own privilege, I hold a lot of the desired traits of the dominant culture, but it's become pretty clear to me lately that there are no adults like this. Nobody has all the right answers and the perfect amount of responsibility. We are all trying to figure things out.

Last fall, as I walked onto the high school campus for curriculum night, the feeling was visceral. I think in my head I'm still 15, trying to figure everything out, but when I stepped on campus it was like being smacked on the head and told wake up, you’re in charge now. I am the adult now. I'm the one who is supposed to have it figured out. I'm the responsible one. I have a teenager!!

Except, I don't have it all figured out. Life still feels like a confusing, though sometimes awe-inspiring, mystery. I'm just here doing the best with what I've got. Does everyone feel this way? Are those people in power, who I thought were making sure the right things happen, any different than me? Are we all just winging it a little bit?

The more I get to know myself and trust myself, the more I can see the faults in the world. Instead of accepting the status quo thinking well, they must know more than me, I can look and say no, that's not right. The difference between me at 15 and me at 48 is the strength of my convictions and my willingness to act on them.

I'm so tired of watching so-called adults make a mess of things. I’m tired of all the old systems of maintaining power and control and perpetuating oppression and suppression. What’s my responsibility? What’s my part?

Some days I think perhaps I'm naïve to think that things could be different. Humans have a rather extensive history of battling for this kind of power and control. Yet, on my good days, still I hope. I trust there’s an innate goodness out there. I bury myself in stories of beauty and love and compassion and the wisdom that comes from the margins. I look for the people who hope like me so that I know that I'm not alone, that I'm not crazy to hope for more. They remind me that I can trust my moral compass.

Friends tell me sometimes that I'm good at connecting them with resources, so I'll share here some resources that are filling me up right now; that are adding scaffolding to my hope.

Stories of good people and/or positive messages:

Ted Lasso (AppleTV)

This Is Us (Netflix)

Just for the Summer

Heartstopper (Netflix, Graphic Novels) - Anything by Alice Oseman, really

Talebones by S.E. Reid

On Faith:

Gravity Commons Podcast

Answers WitHeld Podcast

The Corners with Nadia Bolz-Weber

Wildroot Parables by S.E. Reid

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg

For a smile and/or laugh:

Resident Alien (Netflix)

Voices that move me, challenge me, or encourage me:

John Lovie

Noha Beshir

Antonia Malchik

Beth Kempton

Freya Rohn

Abigail Rose Clarke

As a reminder, our Garden Gathering is coming up next week and I hope you will join me. We will be exploring trust and it’s free!

Gather with Me

As I mentioned in my last letter, this spring I’m exploring the idea of trust. Trusting myself being an important step along the journey to belonging to myself.

One of the things can get in the way of my self-trust is my body. Chronic illness, aging, and perhaps a little bit of bad luck means I sometimes have to deal with a body that's unreliable. Granted, I am generally very able bodied and not limited in my everyday activities, but some days are hard.

This has been on my mind a lot recently as I deal with an acute health issue. There are moments I feel like my body has let me down. Why, I ask, isn't it doing what it's supposed to be doing? Why is it letting things run amok? It is painful to feel that I can't trust it. At the same time, I know that these bodies are fragile and I should be grateful for the time and health that I do have.

So, yes, gratitude helps. Remembering what I can do softens the challenges for sure. What also helps is leaning into my resilience. I was reminded of this while re-listening to my conversation with Sheila Delaney in my series on self-trust. It's episode 20 of The Garden of Belonging Podcast if you prefer to listen in your fav podcast app. Sheila shared about an autoimmune flare which necessitated stepping down from some of her responsibilities. She then shared about her trust in herself to weather the fallout from that.

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My ability to weather the storm is what I'm leaning on. I work to remember my resilience. I remind myself of the other hard things I have made it through. I remind myself of the people I have around me that will be with me through it.

I also lean hard into acceptance. Accepting my experience, knowing this is my path to walk even though it doesn't look like the path of others. Giving myself space to be angry or to grieve if I need it, I believe, is also part of acceptance.

What supports you in situations where your body is unreliable?

If you'd like to explore the topic of self-trust and craft an intention for how you might better lean into it, join me in the next Garden Gathering. More details are below.

Join Me

Join me to explore self-trust in community. This is a brave space for us to take baby steps towards belonging to ourselves and fully expressing ourselves.

We will listen to:

• Our minds through journaling

• Our hearts through gentle meditation

• Our bodies through breath, music, and optional movement

We will bring it all together with some doodling, optional sharing, and crafting an intention/prayer/blessing to walk away with.

Question of the month:

Where in my life am I struggling to trust and what is getting in the way of doing so?

We will meet on Zoom May 24th at 9:30 am Pacific for 60-75 minutes.

There is no charge for this gathering, it is my gift to us. 

To honor the container and confidentiality, this event will NOT be recorded. You must attend live and arrive on the call within 5 minutes of the start time.

Gather With Me

I created The Garden of Belonging newsletter because I wanted a space to share my musings and creations as part of my practice of valuing my own voice. I also created it because I believe the work of belonging to ourselves is a journey that is more pleasant when it's shared. In a shared space we see ourselves reflected in others and my hope is that my words enable this, that they help others feel seen and feel less alone as they draw us into community.

Last week when I held my circle I was reminded of how lovely exploring topics around belonging can be when done in community. I also enjoyed getting to put faces to the names of people subscribed to this newsletter.  So, I've decided to offer gathering as a regular thing. My hope is to plan something monthly but, knowing myself, I will need to hold that structure loosely.

I've decided to call them Garden Gatherings because the word circle holds a particular meaning to me that I feel isn't quite lined up with what I want to do with these calls. I also enjoy myself a little alliteration, so Garden Gatherings we shall have. Let's dive in to what these gatherings will be like.

What’s a Garden Gathering?

In our Garden Gatherings we will meet together over zoom for 60-75 minutes to explore a specific topic through multiple modalities. These gatherings will be based on a circle method and script I learned from in the Magic of Circle membership.

When I say multiple modalities I mean that we will listen to:

• Our minds through journaling

• Our hearts through gentle meditation

• Our bodies through breath, music, and optional movement

Then, we will bring it all together with some doodling, optional sharing, and crafting an intention/prayer/blessing to walk away with.

For now these gatherings will be my gift to you as members of my newsletter and I hope to keep them going as long as there is interest and attendance. 

How do I Join?

The next gathering will be on Friday May 24th at 9:30am PST.

Join the Gathering

I hope you will join me and that these gatherings will feel supportive to you. If you have topics you’d like to dive into, reply and let me know (or share in the comments if you are reading on Substack).

Can’t join this one? That’s ok. Make sure you are subscribed to this newsletter to hear about the next one.

I held a lovely circle for 2 of my subscribers this week exploring the topic of inner wisdom. I am awash in gratitude. It’s been awhile since I held space in that way and I had forgotten how lovely it can feel to witness others on their journey and to be reminded that we are not alone.

During the call, I noticed over and over how I kept reminding participants to trust whatever was arising. After I was reflecting on how it felt to facilitate the call and realized that while I had a script I was reading off of this time, next time I could trust myself to hold the space without one.

That recurring theme - trust.

I spoke of trust before in my series on the cycle of belonging to ourselves, but it feels appropriate to revisit the topic. Spring, I think, feels a good time to walk with trust. As the world outside awakes from the depth of winter, it is a reminder that we can trust the cycle. Death and darkness do not have the last word. Light returns, life renews and so can we.

There is a softness required at this time of year. If we hold too fast to the sun and warmth we will feel more deeply the loss when the cold inevitably returns. It is a season of transition that requires us to allow whatever comes as we await the full return of light and warmth that summer brings. Trust, too, is a kind of softness. When we trust, we soften the grip we have on what “should” be and relax into what is. We must soften our boundaries in order to put our trust in others.

In meditation I've learned to trust the feelings and ideas that come up for me. Often meditations are led with visualization which is something that I've struggled with. I don’t see pictures in my mind's eye like many others do. Sometimes I see flashes of image, but more often I merely sense. I’ve learned to lean into my experience, to trust that while I don’t visualize, whatever I notice can be valuable and supportive to me.

In writing I’ve learned to trust the stories that pour through me, the scenes that unfold, and the meaning that they make in me or in others.

In life I’m learning to trust that my ideas and opinions matter. That there is authority within me not just outside of me. I'm learning to trust others with my vulnerability, leaning on them for support.

In all of this I’m learning that trust is a practice I need to remind myself to lean into, over and over.

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May you lean into trust this spring knowing that, with each practice, the leaning gets easier.

's Spring Light writing experience is happening this week so I've been leaning more into poetry and prose. I need the practice of putting pen to paper (or fingertips to keyboard) and letting flow take over. I need the reminder that sometimes magic comes through.

Here's a poem related to trust that I wrote from one of Tuesday's exercises.

Spring came softly that year
A gentle growing of light at both ends of the day
Light kisses of rain after the slaps of winter deluge
The birds began to flit about, chattering in the trees, speaking of rebirth

We shaved the dog's coarse hair exposing the softness underneath
Heavy flannel sheets and weighty comforters were traded for soft cotton and lighter layers

I came softly as well
Testing my limbs after a winter of grief
Unsure of my ability.

Every step was soft and gentle
Wary of inciting another deluge of tears

I went just the same.
Stretching
Testing

Trusting

Spring returns and so will my joy

And here's a Note I shared with a poem from the warm up exercises to Spring Light.

Hello Everyone,

I haven't been able to find many words the past couple weeks. I've been deep in consumption mode - reading, reading, reading, but not much is coming out of me. Some journaling, some writing for myself or maybe for later.

I simply wanted to drop in today to say hello and send a final reminder about my free call next Monday exploring our inner wisdom. Won't you join me?

Where & When

Zoom April 22nd (Earth Day!) at 9am Pacific.

Join the Call

What

We will journal.

We will doodle.

We will turn inward with a little meditation.

We will craft ourselves a blessing/intention.

There will be opportunities to share if you feel comfortable doing so.

We will be sitting with this question:

How do I disconnect from my inner wisdom and how has this been a coping mechanism?

To honor the container and confidentiality, this event will NOT be recorded. You must attend live and arrive on the call within 5 minutes of the start time.

Are you in? Sign up here. There is no charge for this gathering. If you know someone for whom this might be right up there alley, would you help me out and share this with them?

Much Gratitude,

While I’m on holiday with family, hopefully catching a glimpse of the total solar eclipse, a poem for you.

Refiner’s Fire

Fire burns That which was built A box of expectations Should do or don't do All I thought was important Wrapping me up Tied with a perfect bow A gift to the culture not built for me Burning Unraveling Falling to ash around my feet Leaving me standing Naked Vulnerable Unsure Like I'm 16 again Wondering how to navigate this life Looking for someone to give me directions Looking for someone to save me Except this time I know There is no one to save me Only those who walk beside me as I save myself And the only working compass dwells within me Deep Where it's always been Even then

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Join me in Circle

As a reminder, I'm hosting a circle later this month on the 22nd.

Where & When

Zoom April 22nd (Earth Day!) at 9am Pacific.

What

We will journal.
We will doodle.
We will turn inward with a little meditation.
We will craft ourselves a blessing/intention.
There will be opportunities to share if you feel comfortable doing so.

We will be sitting with this question:

How do I disconnect from my inner wisdom and how has this been a coping mechanism?

To honor the container and confidentiality, this event will NOT be recorded. You must attend live and arrive on the call within 5 minutes of the start time.

Are you in? Sign up here. There is no charge for this gathering. If you know someone who might like to join us, please feel free to share.

The equinox has passed and we have tipped into the lighter half of the year. Just before the equinox, here in most of the US, we turned our clocks forward one hour. Now the light that I could finally enjoy while walking my dog first thing in the morning has been stolen from me. I am forced to wait again as the light seeps slowly back into my mornings.

I have mixed feelings about this seasonal shift. While I enjoy walking my dog after dawn and I appreciate drier weather and increased sun, I am not much of a spring and summer person. A spring catalog arrived recently in my mailbox. As I thumbed through it, I was reminded how much the styles and colors of this season are not appealing to me. In contrast, when that fall catalog arrives, I eat it up, drawn in by the rich browns, rusty oranges, and dark purples. Yes please to long jeans, cozy sweaters, and boots.

There's an energy to spring and summer that feels less aligned with mine. The bright outward blooming, the burning heat, so full of life and expansive. I have my moments, but mostly I'm quietly inward focused and deep. The winter invitation to draw inside and turn inward feels comforting to this introverted heart. I love being curled up on the couch thinking, writing, reading, or chatting with someone close to me.

I live often deep within my thoughts. I am fascinated by the human experience. Our motivations, our quirks, are curious to me. I am  surprised sometimes by the worlds within my head. Left to my own devices, I much prefer human be-ing to human do-ing. This is in some ways good and in others bad. In a culture of productivity and hustle, simply being is a sort of protest. At the same time, I can easily fall into a sort of hermit who is cut off from others.

I like depth over breadth and I feel that in the dark half of the year. The way the plants draw down deep into their roots to rest through the cold season. The depth of the colors hanging on sales racks. The way my tongue unfurls in the dark, allowing the depth of me to be shared.

As winter pushes me out of the depths and into the breadth of the light half of the year, I am attempting to bring my attention to the things I do enjoy about this time of year. Perhaps by doing so I can find more joy in this light half of the year.

I enjoy the way my skin laps up the gentle heat of the sun after months of cold and clouds

I enjoy the desire to walk for hours when the sky is blue and the birds are singing

I enjoy the scents of flowers I can’t identify tickling my nose

I enjoy the vibrant colors bursting out of the brown earth

I enjoy outdoor dinner parties with friends

I enjoy being out on water

I enjoy my feet free of socks and, even better, free of shoes

I enjoy a good book read outside in a gentle breeze

Are you a dark half or light half of the year person? Whichever you are, what do you enjoy about the light half of the year?

To the light that reminds us darkness does not have the last word,

Join me in Circle

As a reminder, I'm hosting a circle later this month on the 22nd.

Where & When

Zoom April 22nd (Earth Day!) at 9am Pacific.

What

We will journal.

We will doodle.

We will turn inward with a little meditation.

We will craft ourselves a blessing/intention.

There will be opportunities to share if you feel comfortable doing so.

We will be sitting with this question:

How do I disconnect from my inner wisdom and how has this been a coping mechanism?

To honor the container and confidentiality, this event will NOT be recorded. You must attend live and arrive on the call within 5 minutes of the start time.

Are you in? Sign up here. There is no charge for this gathering. If you know someone who might like to join us, please feel free to share.

I mentioned in my letter a couple of weeks ago that I had a Garden council that personify my inner wisdom, my inner good girl, and my authentic self. I also mentioned that my inner wisdom was a black panther I’ve named Reija.  Reija has appeared, unnamed, in a couple of my written explorations. She has an energy about her of groundedness, wisdom, patience, and compassion.

She first showed up in this poem:

She has shown up twice in caves, appearing to women in need of a guide. Women with a path ahead of them they cannot walk alone. In one of those stories, she shifts between a large black panther and an all-black house cat so that she can be present in all situations.

Other times my inner wisdom has appeared as an old woman found deep in the woods. She’s always expecting me, has endless patience, and, annoyingly, likes to answer my questions with her own, or simply point me back to myself. Given that she is a personification of parts of myself, I suppose her responses are valid.

It feels helpful to create characters to represent my inner wisdom. Doing so allows me to separate that wisdom a bit from all of the other less wise parts of myself. I can better see it on its own merits without being all jumbled up in the mess. I also wonder if tapping into creativity in this way is part of it too, like it’s a part of my brain that my ego can’t reach.

How do you envision your inner wisdom?

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An Invitation

As I mentioned last week, I have a little experiment in store for us. I invite you to join me in circle to explore inner wisdom.

The Details

We will meet on Zoom April 22nd (Earth Day!) at 9am Pacific

We will journal.
We will doodle.
We will turn inward with a little meditation.
We will craft ourselves a blessing/intention.
There will be opportunities to share if you feel comfortable doing so.

We will be sitting with this question:

How do I disconnect from my inner wisdom and how has this been a coping mechanism?

To honor the container and confidentiality, this event will NOT be recorded. You must attend live and arrive on the call within 5 minutes of the start time.

Are you in? Sign up here. There is no charge for this gathering. If you know someone who might like to join us, please feel free to share.

Join the Circle

To the wisdom inside you,