Published Essays
BookTrib Interview
You often describe the natural world—trees, wind, birds—as emotional teachers. How has that lifelong dialogue with nature informed your sense of spirituality?
Like many people, I’m happiest in beautiful natural environments with people I love. As a beneficiary of historically rooted white privilege in the U.S. I had many such experiences as a child. Hours of daily play in a grassy treelined neighborhood and hiking, swimming, sledding, skating and camping with my family whenever we were free meant that nature, in all its wondrous variety, was front and center in my deepest experiences of love and joy.
On Being and Becoming
First published in the March 2023 issue #9 of
Hare’s Paw Literary Journal – Monarch Butterflies danced in a continuous stream across our yard between June and September 2021. We saw nearly a monarch a day and sometimes several, more than I’d ever seen in one summer. Long hours of gardening in this time of COVID brought the amazing migratory journey of these delicate creatures into sharp focus.
Turning Back
First published in the 6th and final issue of
Hags on Fire, December 2022 – While I drive through thick darkness, relief, discouragement, and frustration collide. A brief sense of hope, like a sliver of new moon on a cloud drifted night, accompanies an odd jumble of feelings reminiscent of a six-month old child with unfathomable new capacities, lashing out without the faintest idea why. Something big is happening. My bones know. A familiar voice mutters, “You’re giving up.” Something wiser is not listening.
Quarterly Newsletters
A Tsunami of Change
Winter Solstice – If you’ve read my first three newsletters of 2025, you may have noticed a continuous search woven through them, reflecting on what might be the most effective ways to relate to the flood of challenging emotions sparked by this time of turmoil we all feel on some level.
Freedom and Active Hope
Autumnal Equinox 2025 – At the Autumnal equinox I continue to contemplate the importance of working creatively with the energy of difficult emotions, particularly grief, anger and fear in these increasingly stressful times. As that daily focus continues it has proven essential to the ability to respond freely and creatively to life’s challenges, to renew the sense of active hope that makes joy possible.
Living Our Stories
Summer Solstice 2025 – My curiosity these days is wrapped up in exploring how the stories we tell ourselves about living, particular those running constantly in our subconscious minds, shape our perceptions of what it means to be alive, and how each choice we make about where and how to pay attention feeds one of those stories. Learning to notice how our reservoir of physical energy is fed by the quality of attention we pay to whatever we choose to focus on can help uncover those stories.
Nourishing Gratitude
Vernal Equinox 2025 – Discerning what life is asking of me is always challenging, especially at significant turning points. I know there’s something I’m not “hearing” when there’s a sense of restlessness and discombobulation, with either so many ideas crowding in or with such strong procrastination that it’s hard to focus on tasks that really must be done to keep this little boat of being afloat on life’s ocean. Here at the vernal equinox, new life is beginning to push restlessness into every living thing, apparently adding to the speed of violent disruption in the human world this year, and sadly moving at breakneck speed. You must feel it too.