So much movement in these holy-days, streams and threads of lives lived across the vast plane of this culture and country that somehow get seamed into stanchion lines, queues, the strange close-associations of seats next to strangers, and then a sacred harvest and celebration of thanksgiving...

I feel such grief at the tragedy of the stolen nature of these and so many lands across this earth, the sacrificed birds, industrialized pastures, urbanized and domesticated lives, and the imposter syndrome I feel when naming, noting, feeling such things in 'polite society'...

I sat in meditation this midday, looking across the autumn-colored grasses with only a small blanket covering my feet and lap. What snows have fallen this season have melted except high up in the mountains. Here, I feel the grasses and trees as confused as I about the changing nature of our Earth weather.

I notice in my body, my thoughts, my existence, that I feel at max capacity, all the way up into the high 90's. Once, when I was deep in a healing process, the director of the program shared with me something quite profound: "Whenever I run my life engine above about 75% I get hypomanic. So I have learned to let off the gas when I start to feel the struggle creep." I feel these embers bright, growing, but also near burning.

I notice this need arising, to let go, to be here, to stay in this sacred Yin of presencing...

I can see the words between the lines, the spaces taken on the pages of this journal that becomes a blog, words which aren't meant for publishing. Writing is such a deep practice of revelation, and yet to bare oneself is so edgy in our culture of conformity. Editing becomes a version of self-love, of self-safety, of basic sanity...

and yet the radical in me longs for the conversation

the frayed ends visible

the started fires unsmothered

conflagrations not titrations

wildness that is both still

and moving

and something more...

Consulting on our felt senses, Colleen and I decided to fast, to offer our intentional hunger as an offering prayer to our world. We went outside, the four of us, twelve feet on the trail, and kept following a natural rhythm until, eventually, we were so high that we had reached snowline. We stopped at the Gnome rock, appreciated the hidden altar some local had made in that special hidden place, and kept pace with our balance as we traversed four icy sections of trail. Eventually, halted by the shivers and the brilliant bare white Aspens, we said thank you and headed for home.

In the evening, we made food together, laughed and giggled, hungry but so filled by our prayer and our collective love. In the morning, on a bright and beautiful Friday (anything but Black), we let the warmth of miso fill our vessel selves.

Now, another few days have passed, and the prayer for snow has been answered. The dark clouds are covering our valley as we get our third day of snow. Yesterday, just before I got to work, Dao told me with his eyes that he needed me to spend more time with him and go play outside. So I followed him out, down into the fresh snow, around our largest tree, which overlooks the river, through the grasses now deeply covered and pouring snow into the top of my boots, across the seasonal stream, past where our Gracie is returning to soil and roots, trying to keep up as he made his way. The sun crested the ridge, at once brilliant and mesmerizing on a landscape completely transformed, and Dao looked back in his canine way, smiling.

I cannot even begin to put in words the depth of gratitude I have for this life, for this forest, our loving companions, for Featherz and our profound love and meaning-making, and for the knowledge that she helped me find that (sacred) field, out there, beyond all our rights and wrongs, to enter the mystic, again and again, with humility, gratitude, reverence, and love.

This is not just a story of moving from exhaustion to thriving via fasting. It is the story of remembering, again and again, just how so utterly blessed I am, how entrusted I am and have been by this lifeworld, and how overflowing with love I feel when I stop and just take a single moment to feel and know enough.

May your hearts be full

May you know the depth of your Earth belonging

May you feel peace

in kindness

tbird