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May You Experience this Fully
The other day I found an alley lit by roses. Cream, pink, heart peach, orange— the whole hem of the cobblestone was alive with their lanterns. Swaying from white trellises, they looked like women, scarved heads bowing in prayer. With each wind dip they washed the street with their petals, nodding to me as…
Finding your Solar Power
Summertime is like a linen sheet left out on the line— highlighted, outlined and defined by the omnipresence of sunshine. It sets the poppies aglow and warms the strawberries to ripeness. It pops open the peonies and lights the bowl of our days like porcelain. Enlivening and inciting, the sun is the very definition…
The Season of Pleasure
In the wheel of the year each season has its distinctive gifts, its own character and flavor. There is a time for hermitage and planting, harvesting, seeking, risking, budgeting and even dying. But it’s only in summer that pleasure takes center stage. Here in the mountains, we are just now tipping into the true…
When Nettles Smoke
I saw the smoke out of the corner of my eye, like a cigarette, pitched low to the ground and still smoldering. I was out alone, sunning myself at my favorite swimming hole, luxuriating in the richness of a hot day in early May. But in a flash I was up, eyes scanning the…
A Flower Portal
Every spring is a kind of portal. An opening where absolutely everything has the possibility to change. When what was dormant can become activated in an entirely new way. Every winter I forget something of what it means to be alive, and every spring, in the softness of the mud and rain, I remember….
When Violets Speak
I first moved to these mountains in spring. Early spring, when things are still raw with beginning. It felt fitting. I had left behind my entire life in New York City— my relationship, my community and career— to start anew in Appalachia. I brought only what would fit into my car, leaving space for…
Opening Earth Intuition
At some point growing up I adopted the belief that to be spiritual was to be un-intellectual. That intuition, even though it sounded lovely, wasn’t grounded or practical. And even though I was always a sensitive and dreamy kid, at a young age I was set to prove that I too could be smart,…
Awakenings Can Be Gentle
a·wak·en·ing Coming into awareness, a shift in consciousness, appreciating previously unseen aspects of reality, enlightenment. In our culture we have an enduring belief that awakenings, in order to be profound, must be hard won. That awakenings always tangle with struggle. That they will be dramatic, epiphanic, and arrive like a bolt of lightning….
