What started out as a series of letters, thoughts and sentiments of deep missing of the presence of my dad turned into a lot of pages of a lot of words.. Conversations with my late father has become a long and windy tale of topics I know he would have taken a huge interest in and has helped me really look at who he was, what it is to miss, and the new relationship that we now have.

This picture captures the promise of the best smelling lilac in the greater town of Boulder- and i can tell you with assurance- i’ve smell tested them all!

This hound nose is to a lilac what a sommelier’s tongue is to a glass of Barolo :)

She,

In the dark,

Found light

Brighter than many ever see.

A Love Letter for You~

If I could fold this up the way we used to do in 5th grade, you better believe that I would.

I hope this digital, not nearly as romantic, correspondence will suffice.

I have always been enamored with l’amour. But who hasn’t? On some level and in some way? Even if they didn’t know it? Our whole existence was incumbent upon the magnetism and conjunction of 2 things and creating something else entirely.

Happy almost Valentines, Friends ~

I hope everyone is thriving, learning and loving inside the infancy of the year.

When I was in elementary school, a few friends and I created a club we called the Kingdom of Peace. The kingdom itself was on the backside of a pond at a campsite right on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was magical. We would take canoes out across the pond and sit on our stump thrones and take care of all that needed tending to and during the school week even had a secret newsletter we would

Hello beautiful people~

Over a week ago I had a dream that lingers even still. Every now and then I will have a dream that is so vivid, it feels i’m living inside of it for a while- like a bubble inside my waking life. The first part of the dream was a train ride that seemed to be moving about in the lap of luxury. The conductor arranged it so that I could join the excursion, and off we went- delectable food with a private chef, stopping off at little islands delicately wrapped in mist, and with a group of people with whom I had all sorts of scintillating conversation.

The Beauty that is the Mexican Mural ~

( … Part 2 will tell you why & wherefore the Q of I )

It has been hard for me to begin to formulate thoughts much less coherent sentences these days. Somehow today, things started to come together. I will divide them in half to give you- and me- a little breather.

And now, something I am very excited about.

✨ Nourished to the Bone ✨
A retreat for women to find deep rest, refined replenishment, and soul level restoration through yoga, food, gifts from the earth, sisterhood & meditation.

We often make the distinction in class…

Beautiful People ~

It is with a wildly excited heart that I share this with y’all today. This project has been a total labor of love, and something that I initially thought would be just for my own process. As I shared the stories more and more, however, they spurred something unexpected, and I have been persuaded

I am so aware, these days, that I am standing on the shoulders of giants. That has not always been a cakewalk. It’s given me a lot of shadow to work through and idiosyncrasies to iron out (or embellish :)), but it also makes it possible for me to know the most exquisite moments of life. 

Newton first uttered the giant sentiment when talking about collective learning—our species' unique ability to share, preserve, and build upon knowledge over time. 

Mexico City Master(Heart)Mind(Soul)~

As many of you know I have been reluctant to get back into the groove with retreating. We turned down 5 retreats abroad last year and here is why. During the pandemic the way that the earth bounced back in terms of pollution and animal activity was astounding. If I am really to stand behind the things I have advocated for in the past, it was all a cause for pause. It felt suddenly really difficult to ask a bunch of people to get on an airplane all of a sudden and fly across the globe with a regularity.

She is incomprehensible to mortals. She has that dread radiance of divinity in her face.

~ Hildegard von Bingen

A note to our ladies and gents that want to pass along to your gals - you most definitely with not be sorry.

Hello community,

This is a picture that hangs, to this day, in the dining room of the home I grew up in (notice the wormy chestnut frame- there was a LOT of wormy chestnut in that cabin in the woods). My dad took this shot of a lady slipper that grew in the forest behind our house. A couple weeks ago, I was in class, and the professor asked us to share something that no one in the room knew about us. With exercises like these I love going with the first thing that pops into my brain, and for whatever reason, this beauty came to mind- mind you, this is a memory whose seed was planted some 35 years ago.

Eat sh*# and d**

Sounds pretty harsh right? well, if you came into this world with meconium staining and a cord wrapped around your neck a few times you may have that rattling around the subconscious. 

Meconium staining is when the infant has a bowel movement prematurely, and the child could ingest amniotic fluids filled with excrement. Add a little strangling with the chord that otherwise provides sustenance and your nervous system is cooked. More than that, t’s a matter of life or death. 

On my HeartMind~

It was around this time last year that I was out on a sailboat with my uncle and a buddy of his when we were suddenly surrounded by dancing orcas. It is as fresh as yester-daisies in my mind- the feeling one gets of pure and astonished presence when we get to witness such magnificence as the massively embodied mystery that is nature. It still blow(hole)s me away.
It’s fun how life sometimes unfolds in themes and highlights time with bookmarks and various demarkations. Last week I started listening to the radiolab podcast of the week and it was so good I had to pull over so as not to lose reception en route to my trailhead. The story of how a group of humpback whales, may or may not have been protecting and then ritualizing the loss of a young calf of another type of whale, was so captivating, I found myself quite emotional. As a young girl, I had a poster of a whale right beside my bed and somehow felt these creatures to be not only the sentinels of ocean health, but of mine as well.

Hello friends~

We are about to set sail into the great wide open and I am feeling enlivened at the prospect. It has been some time since I have been in Europe and I am eager to palpate, once again, a certain wisdom that comes only with age. The retreat we are engaging is in a small medieval town south of Paris and is beyond sold-out. We sold out all the rooms and so have stashed someone in the piggeonnier (tower for pigeons), and the last participant to join is shacking up with the retreat coordinator (I think she’s ok with it ;)). Clearly we are all craving some beauty, joy, grounding, and adventure. It has been a true pleasure doing business with you Kate Kilbourne and i’m looking forward to diving in with this dynamic group of exceptional individuals.

: : : the Empress within….

She will pause, she will witness and she will find…
It is the slow drip of a well earned arrival, the sovereign sustenance of one who shakes hands with her shadow and asks for this waltz, the finer attunement that comes from listening with the germinal heartear, the peeling back of layers of shoulds only to find the ache of a heart that knows.

Greetings gentle humans~

Included for you:

a date change, a time adjustment, some words from our friends, EBB enrollment, and a sprinkling of the various and sundry, and sun sun sunny filled

Hi beautiful friends~

I saw this image yesterday and it struck me as the sweetest statement of deep love.

How does it land with you?

I hope you are all finding ways of landing deeper in your hearts (however unexpected those ways may be), that are attuned to both personal power and mystery (a combo you may have heard about in class this morning :)).