I am reminded as I’m typing this, that at the world endings and world beginnings that we find ourselves in, many frameworks and expectations fall apart and many repetitive “failures” commence. The breath, I think, is key to continuing to show up to the call of the Spirit of Life amid the vulnerability the unknown and the learning of new ways requires.

…I became exasperated searching for plants who were not as intertwined with other plants and who I’d captured with clean enough edges to isolate it and allow it to jut into the white border like that one green leaf. And most of all, I didn’t have the patience for it not to be ordered.

I am often challenging myself to see abundant life and wildness in places where there first appears to be none. If it is difficult to notice the layers of life in a small tree, it is often even more difficult to notice the life in the ground itself, much less to capture it. Maybe that is one of its strengths. It is difficult to contain or anticipate its movements.

I wrote the first poem in this series, in March 2022. By the end of April, I'd quit my 9-5 and left Chicago where I was living at the time. The past few years had seen countless doctor's visits, 3 minor surgeries, 2 emergency room visits, months of severe insomnia, digestive issues, and hair loss. Even though I am a mystic and a Spiritual Director, it took a year and many different places to “get” what my body and spirit were telling me.