HEART EMOJI

In my best moments, I have no objective.
The heavy present unrolls
as sights and sounds.
Just the evening air on my skin, is enough.
The sound of water, is enough.
Even too much, a mallard flapping home above the city
to some secret pond
above a distant laugh.
Passing cars
setting sun
rising stars—
a strangers wave.
All we have.
Our beating hearts.

Salt Spray

The seabirds make knots of the wind
trace skies and leave no lines behind
I remember when I first realized
the sky is always in a state of change
I would lay on my back and watch the clouds
spend days 
outside
it taught me how different it was
inside
Now I find silence at the seaside
the coves and remote rocky shoals
the salt spray leaves marks on my shoes
The tides unwind all the times, the need to know
or what "this" is, does it
have meaning
The intellect is a knife that severs before knowing why
in order to parse things out in this complicated life
And the ocean is a mind
white capped, cold, and deep
A mystery that allows us to survive

I am sitting on the floor, at a pine coffee table I bought from IKEA a few months back. Simmering on the stove is a blend of herbs I formulated for the challenges of my current stage of life.

In the oven is a piece of salmon caught in a distant ocean.

I am typing on a laptop that is essentially a magic rock, made of elements (Aluminum, Copper, Gold, Selenium, Silicon, rare earth metals) from supernovæ that somehow made their way to earth over inexplicable time.

Its quiet in this room, in this condo in a building in downtown. It feels, in some ways, like a library. As possessions go, I could fit everything I own in here in my van and drive away, with plenty of room for a passenger. But I own more things than I have in ten years. I am living a life I never could have imagined.

And yet, amidst all the change, life always feels about the same. I guess because it is me that is living it. There is a strange thread that continues, day after day after day, and that thread I suppose I call myself. Resilient through changes and losses and gainses (sic), it continues while all else falls away.

Until, I suppose, it doesn’t.

But I don’t know what that feels like, and can only guess at the hereafter.

There is so much talk of big shifts this year. “A new world order” as a world leader said. Large movements of distant planets that are said to impact our emotions. A lunar new year with double fire energy.

Everyone seems to be saying: get ready.

Get ready.

Get ready.

But ready for what?

To me, readiness creates tension. Some kind of bracing for a fast start, or some future that cannot be controlled.

But I don’t know what to get ready for. Maybe others do, maybe they know exactly where they are headed and how to do it all.

I own that I don’t. I have no idea what to be ready for. And to fabricate something seems to be fabricating a form of augury that I don’t have an honest claim on.

And so maybe what I need to be ready for, is to release control. To allow what comes.

In many ways, living alone, I am spending more time on my own, with my own thoughts, than I have in some time. And studying medicine, I’m finding yet again that I am on a somewhat solitary, inward journey.

Having come through the most difficult two years of my life, I am now sitting at a precipice, looking into the future. What will I do with all the supposed potential of my current life? I want to create a healing arts center in the high desert that will allow expressions of creativity as a form of life giving culture. And the opportunity for people to come practice healing modalities of many different kinds there.

But to be honest, I don’t even know what healing is.

And some days, I suck at caring for myself.

I have a hard time eating alone, because it’s boring. I like cooking for people.

Living alone and being single in a city can be hard. There are rules here that I have had to learn, and a lot of unhealthy social dynamics that people accept as status quo.

Though I feel that all of this is on some kind of thread of direction that feels real to me. At least as real as anything I’ve done before, with the added aspect of being recognized after this passage as more than just a random artist with a camera, laptop, microphone, and notebook. I’ll have a license, be an “acupuncturist.”

Is this what becoming yourself looks like?

Because to me it feels messy, imperfect, uncertain, misty, painful, lonely, and strange—and this process has been going on for a LONG time.

Sometimes I don’t know where its leading me.

Two springs ago, when I couldn’t sleep more than a couple hours for weeks on end, was having panic attacks and night terrors when I did sleep, felt haunted by my own psyche, like I was an embarrassment to myself, my family and the world—I went to visit my sister in Boise. It was a blur of a trip. I can’t remember really what happened. My nervous system was so dysregulated, that even with my years of mediation experience, I couldn’t get myself into a calm state. I had to stop consuming any form of caffeine for half a year—I went off sugar completely for over a month. I experienced a complete nervous system collapse. This is what recovery from a long term addiction looks like, in case you were wondering.

But there was a moment in the airport on the way, when I was sitting in the atrium area, and I noticed an old man dressed nicely, accompanied by his wife. They came up to me. I was listening, as I often do, to an album, and had recently been inspired to investigate dance by a person I was dating. The track was called Scythe Master by Four Tet. So I was dancing a little in the chair. I don’t know if he saw me dancing, or was just attracted to whatever vibe I was giving off.

But he sat down at the table with me, after asking permission. He looked to be late 80s or early 90s, and his wife had a beautiful German accent. He told me he was a retired doctor, from WSU Medical Center in Seattle. He asked where I was going, and told me about the train trip he had taken north, long ago, through a tunnel, and how the train back then ran straight through the middle of a town in a canyon.

His eyes were full of joy and satisfaction, of a life well lived, I could only suppose. I told him I was going back to school.

“What for?” he asked.

“Medicine,” I said. A half-truth. Because I knew what that meant to him was “MD.”

He looked at me steadily with glistening eyes, and said:

“I taught at WSU for many years. And you can tell who will succeed, and who won’t.”

Then he paused, and looked at me somehow even more profoundly. And his next words were pronounced with gravity.

“You will succeed,” he said.

He reached over, patted me on the knee, got up with a chuckle, and headed off to a funeral of a dear friend.

I sat there, stunned, crying.

How could I, at the lowest point in my life, be recognized for my goodness? For what I had worked so hard to preserve, despite all the barriers and mistakes I’d made? How had this random man seen something that I felt I had to some degree, for so long, forsaken in myself? Somehow, he saw my essential goodness. And knew, maybe, what I had done to hold onto it. And that it was true.

So maybe this year, for me, is about an inward journey. About accepting limitations. About realizing and reveling in progress that is all but invisible to anyone but myself. And loving myself for that, and believing, that even though I don’t know the way, that I’m headed somewhere. And I may not make the right decisions, or even be in the right place, or meet the right people at the right time. But that every day is all that is meant for me. And to be content, and in love with that fact, as much as I can be.

Thank you for listening.

The Circadian Rhythm as the Regulatory Hub

As I wrote previously, the Circadian Rhythm (CR) is fundamental to homeostasis.

It’s a process of attentiveness and rest, modulated by exposure to light, when and what we eat, activity, and day length.

The activities of most cells in the human body are modulated by this rhythm.

Essentially, the CR is a hub that is slow to change, but when changed, takes time to realign. This is because it is oriented towards how the light changes seasonally throughout the year.

The CR is set this way: light enters through our eyes, and falls on the retina. The suprachiasmatic nucleus then receives impulses from the retina. From here, impulses pass to the pineal gland, which produces melatonin at night, and stops producing it during the day. Melatonin is the master hormone for sleep.

Relatedly, recent research shows metabolism switches pathways in summer and winter, respondent to light changes.

In summer, our bodies become more efficient at digesting carbohydrates, and we have lower insulin resistance, thus allowing energy to be better utilized by muscles.

In winter, our bodies switch to a higher insulin resistance, allowing fat storage & lipid metabolism.

This echoes physiological explanations in the seminal texts of Chinese Medicine, compiled about 1500 years ago.

The three months of spring

they denote effusion and spreading.

The three months of summer

they denote opulence and blooming.

The three months of winter,

they denote securing and storing.1

Routines Before Bed

I like to leave my phone in a separate room, and use dim, warm lighting during the hours before bed

Turn on Night Shift (Apple) or a blue light filter on all your devices
This allows the pineal gland to start producing melatonin

Lower the temperature in your bedroom, or open a window
In order to fall asleep, core body temperature actually has to drop 1-2°F

Depending on when you struggle to fall asleep, a nervous system regulating tea like ashwaghanda may help
Its recommended to add aswaghanda powder to warm milk just before bed

Somatic Regulating Technique

This will help your body enter the parasympathetic nervous system state

Begin by laying on your back, on the floor, preferably a somewhat hard surface

Place your hands palm down, touching the floor

Starting with your heels, notice the sensation at the points your body is touching the surface

Work upwards from your heels all the way to your head. Just note how each point of contact feels. Spend about 5 minutes doing this, going back and forth

After five minutes has passed, as slowly as you can, bend your knees and slide your feet towards you, into an triangle shape

Note how your body shifts. What parts are now touching the floor? How does this feel? Rest here for another 3 minutes

From there, slowly, and under control of your muscles, begin to sway your legs left and right, so that your knees gently contact the floor on either side. Continue this for 3-5 minutes

Keeping your legs drawn towards you, bring your hands behind your head

Slowly raise your head towards your chest, and then lower it again. Note all the changes in sensation as you do this. Continue this for 2-3 minutes

Let your head rest on the floor again. From here, curl your pelvis toward your head and hold for 30 seconds. Note how all the sensations along your back change here, too

Now do both of these actions, raising your head, and pulling your pelvis towards your chin, essentially a curl type motion, adding the breath in short bursts. Do this for 30 seconds to 1 minute

Release everything, and rest

When you feel ready, slowly come to all fours, and then stand

Notice how your body feels while standing

Leave any comments or questions below.

Thank you for reading.

Do not disturb the yang.
Go to rest early and rise late.
You must wait for the sun to shine.

Let the mind enter a state as if hidden, {as if shut in}
as if you had secret intentions;
as if your intentions were already accomplished

— Comprehensive Discourse on Regulating the Spirit in Accordance with the Qi of the Four Seasons, Chapter 2, The Basic Questions

For the last two years, until about a month ago, I wasn’t getting more than 4-5 hours of sleep a night—sometimes as little as 1-3.

I want to share what I learned over these years, to help others.

Chronic insomnia is hard to remedy, because the longer it goes on, the worse a person’s mental, physical, emotional, and sleep health get.

However, with long nights still ahead, I think now is a great time to focus on sleep.

When I started writing this, I realized that sleep is so fundamental to life it would be better to break it up into a few parts.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting several more times about sleep.

What follows is an overview.

The future writings will be more practical, including minerals, flavors, and resources for sleeping longer and more restfully.

Resting well is about resilience

In examining the world and health, Hildegaard von Bingen coined two latin root terms: Viriditas and Ariditas. Meaning, respectively: green truth, and arid (or dry) truth.

These terms point at fundamental expressions—of ease and difficulty, dark and light, hot and cold—that make up life. But they also add a textural element that I find profound.

Life is complicated and unpredictable.

Therefore, being able to rest at night is partly about how resilient the homeostatic, or self balancing, processes of your body are. In other words, the balance between Yin (sleeping) and Yang (waking), or in Hildegaard’s terms, Dryness and Moisture.

How are you responding to your life?

Consider your body a landscape

The homeostatic balance within each person is, ideally, governed by ourselves.

There are many outside factors, though, that block, modify, and degrade homeostasis.

The broader climate on earth at the moment is a good example of a homeostatic process in a process of disruption. That’s why there are vast movements (catastrophic storms and drought). It’s the process attempting to regulate.

Inside of us, the hub our homeostatic processes cycle around is known as the circadian rhythm.

Rest and activity are inputs that drives the momentum of this cycle.

So that’s why the first question when addressing sleep or other chronic issues, is to look deeply at how you are responding to your own life.

This takes the blame off of external circumstances, and allows one to feel empowered.

After all, who is responsible for regulating us, apart from ourselves?

In the next few articles, I’ll offer ideas about how to better regulate our homeostatic systems.

If you’re not already subscribed, you can do so below.

Thanks for reading.

Pellicle

pellicle — noun: a thin skin or film; a delicate membrane or layer.

Scoring chestnuts, you make an X
on the flat side of the shell
And you can be ok
with the way life goes
It takes practice, and the knife better be sharp
and you can cut into the meat just fine, don’t slip
—while time passes out of mind

Warm feet on the kitchen floors cold boards
dark rain out the back kitchen door
I wouldn’t say it makes any sense
I am tense, restless, hands
occupied with tasks
My feet wandering wet green winter grass

Take the tray from the oven, and
pour them into a bag
peeled curls, pellicles stuck fast
to the golden flesh
Unopened, dried out, not to be gotten
Not even with a knife

Only half edible, in the past, I’d give them to the pigs
The marrow scented spruce wood
The next years oak leaves

Living in a city
Pellicles, pericardial sheaths
Little, or no, belief,
and I reckon
Raven was a thief, because
he knew how to get things done
find joy amidst whats sad, and
how to praise those who bear our grief

Without honesty, life becomes a pantomime. And yet it’s hard to know what’s true.

I’ve found that truth unfolds in concentric rings; like ripples in a still pool of water, or the growth of a tree.

And each ring references, yet also takes space from, the previous.

And so only in cycles of time, and in seasons, is a kind of long term knowing revealed.

It’s easy to forget that there is a kind of glacial energy to the every day, like leaves unnoticed piling in drifts in the gutters in autumn. Each day another leaf, and soon enough, there’s a drift of half noticed moments, forgotten days, and the occasional memory that stays forever. And this is life?

Through the threads of being and days, acting and passivity, choices and impositions, life passes.

There’s a phrase in the northern part of Italy, up against the alps: “Tiempo alla passa. Passa il bin.” Which is dialect for: Time passes. Pass it well.

And I came across a phrase, translated from Lao Tze by Lori Dechars, that says:

How do I know the way of things at the beginning?

I feel like I’ve come to a thought about life and love in general recently that feels clear: which is that I should let what loves me do so, and I should love only what I love. And endlessly let go of those things that aren’t this.

In that way, I stop resisting the flow of life, and live out a trajectory that is true. And maybe I’ll gain some energy from no longer resisting the inevitable course that my journey wants to make.

In all this, in writing and in conversation, I try to find the words that are true. And yet its always hard to find the right words. And in that same way, its hard to know when to follow what is easy, or pursue what is hard.

It’s important to remember the rules of life. But I lost my rule book long ago. I do my best to make up whatever makes sense to do, whatever’s true, vital, alive, and real. And to remember that resisting is a form of safety. That it’s good to be safe sometimes, but a life that’s always safe... is maybe one that produces no living.

Thanks for listening ~

Playlist I made walking around the city

Apple Music • Spotify

TRANSCRIPT

A long time ago, I used to have some friends who liked to go around the country by riding freight trains

They'd hitch out of Omaha or Lincoln or usually Kansas City and end up in Pennsylvania or Montana, California, Arizona

I never caught a ride with any of them

I didn't really ever have the chance

But I liked to sit with them on the rails and the bridges and watch the trains go by

And they'd tell me about the different kinds of cars and which ones were good rides, where they were going, what you had to look out for

Maybe that's why when I went for a walk recently and found an old abandoned railroad trestle in the western part of Victoria's downtown in Canada, where I live now. I climbed over a fence and went and sat on it for a while

And I've been going back to it, sitting there and watching cars go by, people, a couple of stories up above the ground

I don't really have anything else to say but that, just a funny memory, I guess

Maybe a reflection about living in an urban place because I've lived out in the countryside for so long now

…

It's been interesting to be in a city and hear all the languages and see all the people from all over the world

There's always a motor running somewhere, and it's so loud

I'm sitting in a stairwell behind a Marriott Hotel right now by a tennis court, and this is about as quiet as it gets in this part of town

But I can hear a hummingbird singing, a seagull or two, and the endless different vehicles going by

It's a pretty nice evening

It's probably about 15 degrees Celsius, which is like 60 something

My life has become measured in Celsius and meters and kilometers and centimeters

It's been interesting to get to know the rules of the city

People mostly stop at crosswalks here, and they don't cross until the light changes

That's new to me

It's interesting to learn the social rules

…

There is a distance that people have between each other, I think, to protect themselves from the amount of relationships

And so I think a lot of people don't share a lot, and they don't expect to be shared with that much

And so you kind of have to keep a lot to yourself in the beginnings

It takes time to build trust and relationships

I think a lot of people probably have a lot of pain because of that, actually, because maybe they never have time to build relationships because it takes so long

I was texting with my friend Martin a couple of days ago, and he sent me this poem called Widows by Louis Gluck

And I wrote back to him a little tiny poem that I kind of threw together in the moment

Actually, I just found it, so I'll read it along with the exchange that we had

It's kind of a cool one

So it's called Widows

…

WIDOWS

My mother's playing cards with my aunt

Spite and malice, the family pastime, the game my grandmother taught all her daughters

Midsummer, too hot to go out

Today, my aunt's ahead

She's getting the good cards

My mother's dragging, having trouble with her concentration

She can't get used to her own bed this summer

She had no trouble last summer getting used to the floor

She learned to sleep there, to be near my father

He was dying

He got a special bed

My aunt doesn't give an inch, doesn't make allowance for my mother's weariness

It's how they were raised

You show respect by fighting, to let up insults, the opponent

Each player has one pile to the left, five cards in the hand

It's good to stay inside on days like this, to stay where it's cool

And this is better than other games, better than solitaire

My grandmother thought ahead

She prepared her daughters

They have cards

They have each other

They don't need any more companionship

All afternoon, the game goes on, but the sun doesn't move

It just keeps beating down, turning the grass yellow

That's how it must seem to my mother

And then suddenly, something is over

My aunt's been at it longer

Maybe that's why she's playing better

Her cards evaporate

That's what you want

That's the object

In the end, the one who has nothing wins

…

“Good one”

I wrote back to my friend Martin

“Wow”

“She's a poet laureate?”

“She's good”

And then I wrote, "Wish I could send this poem to you, but that's how life goes

People leave, and you never see them again

And somehow, that's supposed to be always okay"

"That's good," he said

And I said, "I just wrote it straight from the heart

That's my feeling, not to dwell on it

But someone I know had a really good connection with her grandparents

She loved this poem, and her grandpa just died

So it hit her hard

But that's how life goes

People leave, and you never see them again

And somehow, that's supposed to always be okay"

"So dope," said Martin

"Not too wholesome," I said

He said, "Not for you"

Kind of at a loss for words, though, apart from that

It's becoming evening here

Everybody else is out doing something

The ferry's coming or going, one of the two

Probably going

It's getting darker

There's a cherry tree by the tennis court

People walking by are wondering why I'm talking into my phone

This is one of the quietest spots I've found around here

It's funny getting urbanized

I hope there's some parts of me that survive, and to be honest, some parts that don't

Thanks for listening

(I recommend listening to the audio version)

At the checkout counter, the southeast Asian guy whose country affiliation I can’t quite figure out smiles at me and asks how my day is going. We smile back and forth, subtly catching each others eye, like we are in on the same joke that neither of us know. His haircut is high and tight, he’s got a golden wedding band, he’s always here at apna, the Indian cafeteria and grocery store I come to for cheap chai, dosas, and studying.

Afterwards I leave, watching the South Indians get in and out of their Teslas, one in a beautiful red and gold sari, from another world, a life not mine, one of big birthday parties and the hanuman temple nearby, prasad and arranged marriages and grandparents in Chennai and pujas.

I head down a trail I quickly find is empty towards a highway and come across a bumblebee queen being tended on the ground by three drones, one of which is locked in copulation, the other two wait their turn grooming. Or something. She is almost as long as half my thumb and in a state of ecstasy and surrender. I push her aside off the bike path and continue on—

—to a wooden bench overlooking a beaver pond. Where I now wait in the humid days lacking sun, and begin to speak these words into existence.

…

…

There's a dull buzz in my head, and it's around 9pm.
The late summer light infuses the outdoors with a solemn glow.
This is the season when everything has ripened—
is finding itself pulled inexorably earthward.

And I, too. My birth season. I am pulled towards reflection.

The sun slowly sets as the oak trees leaves across the street deepen into deep blue green shadow.
I choose a track from an album and float along with the melody.

So I sit and reflect, alone in this quiet house after everyone has gone to bed. I think of the ashes around the firepits in the longhouses where young men and women would go for solace, eating cinders, no one meeting their eyes, their tasks forgotten, in the underworld, washing in the ashes, bathing in the cinders, taking time to be within themselves.

I think of my sets of years in the ashes, how time passes, the long slow developing of a seed to birth and fruition, then the gravity, the decay.

This gravity is composed and linked with levity, a feeling of floating I draw on and come across from time to time,
a bend in the creek of the mind,
where light flickers on the waters surface.

Is this when, I ask myself again and again—

Is this when....?

Is this when it all makes sense?
When I stop and look back and it all has been and become?

Is this when time begins to rhyme and life feels sublime, like an unwinding spool, a golden thread, wound round a notched birch branch,
stored in the corner of a loft,
for others to come across and find?

I have nothing and everything to say.
I greet each day, and yet the feeling never quite leaves
of something being incomplete
day after day after day.

This seems to be the way that life goes on?
There are so many songs I have sung, at the top of my lungs
in the mountains, on the plains, and tears I've cried to dripping down my face,
pulled over to wait
to hear the sound of the water, the result of ten years of struggle, born fruit.

I believe
we are born for truth
and what is true.
For love and care, not fear. I hold this small piece of metal in my hand
a gift from the desert where I was born
which feels like a lightning bolt, comes from the story of two brothers
who felt the evil in the world, and set out to find their father and its source.
The one I am
was named Born to Water, and he was darker than the other,
learned silence and to be quiet and slow.

Across the plains I heard a sound amidst all the silence
I try and look to see what it was, but as I turn there is no one there.
The heat flickers, the grasshoppers leap, my feet keep moving,
the thin silver ingot stretched to form
some semblance of a tool to heal people and land.

Can I really become
what I know I already am?

I'll dip into the myth that created me and where I belong,
for one hundred thousand years
the place my bones grew up and turned back over into the ground. Be patient,
says the land,
the badgers,
the porcupines
the reindeer necklace around my grandmothers neck in my dream
the lights of the carnival party and the water flowing by in a stream
and the wind finally rises somewhere in the distance and finds me alone yet whole
free and on my own and so sad and broken and renewed and solely within myself
like a dark yet glowing coal—
and the wind reaches me and it says with a warm patient certainty,
a love and care that speaks only to me
in the sound of the pine, in the long and lasting line—

“It takes a long time.”
“It takes a long time.”
“It takes
a long
time.”

Mind of mine it is making me, brains of mine they are taking me,
Down the path to start my singing, to the lyrics they are bringing,
Family glories should be winging, lays of legend should be ringing,
In my mouth the words melt away, sounds of speech break up and decay,
Trip to tongue-tip tales of telling, but they break on teeth, untelling.

Brother dearest, friend of childhood, golden playmate of our pinewood!
Let’s go down the path to singing, as the lyrics us are bringing,
Joined as one by song word’s tether, we’ll the rocky wood trails weather.
Rarely do we get together, rarely flock as birds of feather
In these miserable borderlands, in these wretched, poor Northern lands.

Let us put hand in hand again, fingers resting in grip again,
So we can sing out well and true, well and true songs oh we can sing,
Listen to the golden dances, track the paths of wondrous fancies,
In the rising generation, in the just-awak’ning nation:
Words to receive from worded ones, verses to take from versed ones
From the belt of Väinämöinen, from the forge of Ilmarinen,
From the sword of Kaukomieli, Joukahainen’s bowstring steely,
From the fields of the Pohja land, Kalevala’s forested band.

- Kalevala

I went to a small mall in Beaverton recently and there was a cholo up in the parking garage tuning his honda and taking pics. It was one of those summer evenings where the nostalgia is so thick and soft you could cut it with a dull knife and spread it over a croissant sold at Tous Les Jours.

I stood at the edge of the lot and looked out over an abandoned field that surely will be filled with another parking lot and buildings someday. I realized in that moment as the dry summer heat penetrated my bones that the ice cream I’d bought at Salt & Straw was dripping down my hand, so I licked off the caramel salt ribbon that had already ventured nearly to my wrist—and continued to people watch.

I love summer and it’s the season of my birth (2 August). But I have rarely had moments of silent reflection over recent summers. It was an unforgettable moment to stand there and watch the femme security guard chatting up the cholo about his rig, as I finished the rest of my ice cream and wandered off to nowhere in particular.

I created these playlists over this summer, carefully adding tracks I came across through friends (thanks DJ Oceanspray), Yoyaku, other internet wanderings, serendipity.

Writing out these descriptions made me think of sensual pleasure after I got done, but I never really meant them that way.

There’s a lot of dimensions to life, and a lot of dimensions to experience. It’s cool to be in and with them.

Here’s a bonus: a music video I made for one of the last tracks on SEGO LILY

Without further ado (and the show must go on)…

JASMINE - Early Summer

Early summer, sweet, nostalgic, cool

Spotify • Apple Music

FORSYTHIA - Midsummer

Fast(er) paced, explosive, dynamic

Spotify • Apple Music

SEGO LILY - Late Summer

Vibrant, sunlit, expansive, bangers

Spotify • Apple Music

Lake

You are a young girl
playing on a log with your brother and dog
The water in the lake clear and cold and deep, 
the rocks
warm on the bank, little
cottonwoods grow on the edge, in the
distance: Mountains
near enough to cast their shape on the waters 
surface.
The water blue and green
some rocks white, moved there
in glacial time.

One day you will be a woman
Living in a city apartment
And you will go down to a corner bar
And you will meet a man, with curling dark hair
And apricot eyes
And you will tell him
About the pink bathing suit you wore that day
About how you called your dog giggles, 
but his name was Oliver
How you tried to get him to float on the log
About how warm the sun, and cold the water was
About the moment your uncle and giggles fell off the log and shrieked
About how your brother died that summer
And you'd run down a winding road
With the wind blowing in one ear,
The grass cicadas drone in the other

You’ll be shocked to feel so young
Yet so far from something long ago
Be alarmed and excited at the warm hand of this once stranger
Holding your arm as your memories surge
And you cry, and are held

Recording Transcript

I'm sitting under a stand of aspens

You can hear the leaves and the wind, at the bottom of a mountain range, in a canyon

It's getting into late summer, and everything is slowing down

Sometimes I come here, and I walk and check out every corner of this canyon for hours

But today I walked straight to these aspens and sat down, and I read this poem that I wrote yesterday at the lake

And a question that just came to me:

Is this where I stop and reflect?
Is this where I sit and look back at everything that's happened since last summer?
Is this when I decide the value of my decisions?
Is this when I understand everything that's happened?
I want to, but I know I never will
But I can still love the life that I have, and try to understand it as best I can

I may not make all the right decisions, I may not have the wisdom I wish I did, I know my path is imperfect, but I also know what feels true, and I try and remember that

But it's strange, because as life goes on, people change

As Heraclitus said, you can never step in the same stream twice because the water has flown by, and we have too

I've been reflecting a lot on control, and pain, and suffering, and beauty, and freedom

I've been trying to do these reflections through a lens of gentleness, gentleness for myself and for others, acceptance, and flexibility, pliancy, dynamism

I've been trying to really understand what I'm truly afraid of in life, and why I feel a need to try and control that

My friend Matao recently told me that when he switched from being a pessimist to an optimist, he realized that everything he'd been trying to control in life because he thought it was going to be bad, ended up being good

So really, that kind of thinking comes from a place of fear, that in some ways is somewhat destructive

And I'm looking at the next three years of my life, moving to a foreign country for school in the next couple weeks, and I know that all of my idiosyncrasies and downsides will be tested

But I think I'm ready, and I know I believe in myself

I've been digging into Ram Dass recently, of course I read his book, heard about him twenty years ago, but a couple of my friends have turned me on to him again recently

And he's got a simple way of putting all this—be in truth and follow your heart

Be in truth and follow your heart

Thank you for listening to the wind and the bees and the leaves of the aspen trees.

Be in truth and follow your heart

I just wanted to share one more thing

I was washing out a mason jar in the sink a couple days ago

It was a jar that my friend gave me

It was full of rose petals

I dropped it as I was washing it and it shattered in the bottom of the sink before I could catch it

But as I was reaching down, I touched it at the moment it broke, and it cut my finger right on the well point where the heart is

Heart point number nine

The tip of the pinky finger on the inside corner

So I was sitting there thinking, this feels like an omen

This feels strange

And I was thinking of how the person who gave it to me is pregnant

And I was thinking about how it was a vessel that they had offered me and that it was broken

And I thought to myself, there's a quality to this omen that feels negative

And I don't know where it came from, but I had this thought that came from somewhere and it said, “not if you do something about it”

And it wasn't really my voice or my thought

Maybe it's this thing I've been working on about being more optimistic and hopeful

Feeling like I have agency in the world

Which is something people who are abused often feel like they don't have on a very deep and difficult to address level

“Not if I do something about it”

And I sat there with that thought and that experience

And I asked somehow to go deeper into whatever that was

And I had almost like a psychedelic experience, though I've never done those substances

And my vision changed and stuff started moving and I was brought to tears

I felt broken open

And like I'd been given a gift

Because I've been thinking a lot about faith

And what that means to have faith in other people and in life

And how difficult that is for someone who is stuck in pessimistic, negative attitudes that is always looking out for how things are going to fail

And how deeply and completely I don't want to live that way anymore

And I think that that thought was just a gift

And I was sitting here under the aspens and this man was walking by with his three dogs just now

And you hear him in the recording calling one of them

And the two dogs that were with him were staying really close

And the third was a hunting dog running around out of sight

And I thought often recently about how faith is like loving something to a degree that that person or animal or thing feels so fully understood and cared for

There's no need to control

That they'll always be coming back to you

Even when they're not

Even when they go out into the world and make their mistakes

And disassociate and damage themselves and others

And get in fixes and hurt themselves

And make bad decisions

If you have enough faith and care for them enough

That kind of belief and understanding of someone will see everything through

And there won't be any need to try and control the way that they're learning or the way that they're living

Because the most important thing about someone that you care about is the bond that you share

And a true bond can never be maintained through control

Be in truth

Follow your heart

Thank you for listening.

Transcript

Hello...

I am on the hillside listening to two coveys of quail call back and forth

They've been slowly getting closer over the last 15 minutes, and I think they're going to link up

I saw one group

They had a bunch of fluffy little hatchlings running around

I don't know how big the other group is though

I'm below a range of mountains with snow and avalanche gullies, forests up the sides, larch and fir, ponderosa pine

Ah, wow, a western tanager just landed in a pine tree

I haven't seen one yet this year

That was cool

They're bright, bright orange, bright red, yellow, golden, crazy looking birds

Probably the most brilliant bird in the west maybe

I guess there's lazuli buntings out here too

Or is it indigo buntings?

....that quail is trying to get the other quails to come over

There's boulders on this hillside, and one of my favorite tea plants which is wild tarragon

I gathered about eight stems of it just now

It's a good spot for it

There's a bunch of plants

It's nice to be here

I feel like my mind is already clearing out from the dampness of the coastal, humid, cold Salish Sea

Up here in the high mountains, a divergent part of the Rockies above a big lake

On a glacial moraine

I guess I wanted to offer this today as just kind of way of saying of thanks to people

Everybody that's supported me over the years

Everyone who listens to this podcast

I guess these quail are listening to it right now

I just feel really grateful

I'm kind of a recovering pessimist, you know, so a lot of that has to do with gratitude

Pessimism is kind of this idea that there's no safety. Or that things are never going to really be what you want

And the opposite of that, obviously, is gratitude for what you have

Which is actually simple, but for a pessimistic mind, it's harder than it might seem

And there's a lot to say about pessimism

It definitely comes from damage

Definitely comes from pain

It's definitely a protective mechanism

But I feel like I'm growing less and less pessimistic as time goes on, which kind of relieves a huge burden on a person

I heard a meadowlark this morning as I was running

Discovered some physiological linkages between my lumbar and knee that have to do with nerves

Researched this type of technique called prickly...prickling nerve stimulation technique, which is developed by a Japanese neurosurgeon

And it's a technique that's used to stimulate the nerves in the lumbar spine

Which is developed by a Japanese neurosurgeon

Neurologist named Dr

Nagata, I think

Basically, it's the idea that our skin is a direct door of access to our nervous system

Which means that we wear our nervous system on our sleeves

Which is something to remember, as sensitive humans

I think we're all very sensitive, actually

Unless we've been damaged to the point where we've been able to turn it off, or we've learned how to turn it off, or have been in a mode of having it shut off

And it's really fascinating to note that there can be healing in the skin and in the tissues, just by stimulating the nerves around areas of trauma

And it's interesting to note that, more or less, that's what acupuncture functions on, to access the meridians and the internal organs as well

Kind of working with the nervous system in a lot of ways

I kind of see these quail as part of the Earth's nervous system

As showing what the weather's doing, and where the good grass seeds and the insects are right now

It's quiet here, I like it

It's easy to get away, just be in a quiet space that feels really big

I like that

I like to be able to wander

It feels like it clears my mind

It's starting to rain a little bit

And I've run out of things to say

I'm gonna walk down this draw and back to the van and head into town, get some groceries and finish settling in to my friend's house where I'll be for the summer doing rangeland surveys out here until I go to school in the fall

Got a condo in Victoria

Everything's lining up it seems

I feel really lucky

Thank you for your support, and thank you for listening.

These days, many people live in a world that is the opposite of wilderness—and yet feel a pull toward quiet places. Thus, describing somewhere as “vast, untouched, and silent,” make it become anything but that. There are many challenges that face free and open space, because land and resources have value—and not just monetarily.

The sentiment of “blank spaces on the map,” places free from human intervention, is no longer true. It may never have been. Along with many moments of disconnection that have occurred over the centuries, the idea that landscapes exist separate from our lives is false.

What we now consider wild places used to be called “home,” and to many, these spaces still are a kind of home. In the last decade of my own life, traveling, working and living in wild, open country has taught me more about myself than anything else, and held me in ways nothing else could. Wild spaces ask nothing in return except to respect and support our interdependency.

Wild places have been part of humanity for our entire history, and remain so today in elegant ways. Sitting on a canyon rim looking out, it might be hard to connect such a place and a cityscape. But in the arid west, most large rivers end up passing through reservoirs, used for drinking water and irrigation. Less direct connections exist to our history, cultural legacy. These are the places many come to regain a sense of humanity. They are the vestiges of wildness, which still provide the basics of what we need: water, clean air, and food.

We all live downstream.

The Owhyees are the largest unprotected wild area in the lower 48. Because they offer solitude and silence that are becoming ever more rare, I hesitate to say their name.

And yet, people have been living in the Owhyees for 14,000 years. Every canyon, mountain top, and sage brush basin has seen hunting, gathering, fires, stories, births, deaths and culture. The Shoshone-Bannock people and the Numu (Northern Paiute) are still here—and many peoples from time immemorial have called the Owhyee country home.

Today, there is a problem with sharing less known places: they go viral. Etiquette, it turns out, isn’t rewarding in the short term. And yet, I’m optimistic about the trajectory of land use, and part of my optimism has to do with the preservation of and access to public land, and places like the Owhyees. These places bring us modern, complex people back to ourselves in simple, humbling ways.

“The canyon bottoms always change, but the canyon walls stay the same,” were the parting words Tim Davis left me with after we drove a loop south of where he grew up in Eastern Oregon. As executive director of Friends of the Owhyee (FOTO), a nonprofit based in Ontario, Idaho, he’s dedicated to education and awareness around the massive, 7 million acre area that is the Owhyee watershed. He grew up fishing and wandering the area, and considers it his backyard.

Tim made it clear to me, that he has no problem with people visiting the Owhyee. What's less clear is how the BLM, already understaffed, is going to handle unmanaged recreation, fire seasons, and infrastructure that is already on the brink. Simple things like toilets, waysides, and signs—not to mention range quality management, wildlife surveys, and rules enforcement.

The Owhyee Country is a unique place. From the highway, like many special spots, it doesn't look like much. And yet due to social media parts of it are now blowing up.

What people are in pursuit of these days is becoming harder to find. Dark skies. Vast vistas. Few people. Silence. In the the Owhyees, part of which touches the Northern Great Basin, I experienced a type of silence the like of which I've known few other places.

Somedays, the wind stills. Maybe it’s late in the fall, and warm by midday, maybe after the birds have headed south—when the first frost has killed the insects. When the skies are bright blue and clear. Sometimes, on days like that, a complete, ear-ringing silence descends on the landscape, in a way like nowhere else.

Imagine standing on a hilltop, and as far as you can see in any direction is nothing but sun and sagebrush—and at the same time, it’s dead silent.

The simplicity of this kind of experience, the feel of the wind and the sun, the scents of sage, juniper and dust, are remedies for the complicated, overstimulating, and busy lives we all live. It’s an experience that is almost absent in the modern world today.

How do we allow access to a place like this, while keeping its essential character, and characters? Allowing the stakeholders to have their needs met, while also opening the door for increasing visitation?

I have been thinking about this for conundrum for years, and you're gonna have to find someone a lot wiser than me to know what to do about it. Tim, and his staff and board members at FOTO are some of those people. One solution, they think, is to create a million acre wilderness in the Owhyee Canyon. They want this done with respect to the traditional use of the Paiute, Shoshone, and other tribes who've been there for 14,000 years, and also the ranchers who have been grazing cows for the last few hundred. The good news is, the bill to create the wilderness has passed the Senate. To become a law, the bill must now pass the House.

For decades, the Owhyees have been known as a unique place in terms of ecology and cultural significance, with conservation efforts going back to 1928. This land use ethic is a double edged sword, with locals opposing the idea of other people telling them how to live on the land they have worked for generations. However, Tim is hopeful agreements canbe reached where everyone has their needs met—with the particular desires of preservation and use. I'm personally in favor of the roads and facilities being maintained as they are, unpaved, so that the Owhyee can retain its special character of hard-edged remoteness, that not anyone wants to, or can access. I think, in other words, that limitations remain important.

There is a part of ourselves revealed only by going certain places. There’s a relationship with vast, empty space, and the Jungian or esoteric idea of the unconscious. Places like the Owhyees, the ocean, and the deep backcountry are some of the last vestiges where a person can come to feel more like themselves. And maybe even more than themselves.

In my wanderings in the Owhyees, I saw hundreds of chukar, willets, sand hill cranes standing in ponds reflecting the sky, scaups, swifts passing with a whoosh abovehead, peregrine falcons playing on the breeze in between massive canyon walls, sage grouse nearing the hundreds, coyote, pronghorn, badger, ranchers in diesel rigs dragging cattle trailers, redband trout over 24”, kildeer, sunsets, violet green swallows. I saw reflected in the landscape a complexity that has been in process for millions of years, and in that I saw reflected myself. My idiosyncrasies, my darkness and light, ease and struggle, and my own developmental trajectory, my own blind spots and mysteries.

It’s space and silence that give me a place to expand into a vast sense of self—one that leaves smallness behind and gives room to breathe. Vast spaces give room to be without priority, trajectory or reason. I feel that connecting with them is connecting with the most generous, and at the same time indifferent, force or process that exists. Accessing this process, living within it, learning from it, is our birthright as humans, and part of what helps me stay sane.

In the mornings in the Owhyees, I would wake and wander up a little hill nearby. There I would sit for I couldn't say how long, feeling the sun slowly rise at my back, watching the play of shadow and light across the deep green river, on the distant canyon walls. Swifts and swallows came and went. A mated pair of geese awkwardly landed on rock pillars, a hundred feet above the river surface, seemingly to just look around. A canyon wren called from sheer cliffs.

On the fourth morning, with rain threatening high water crossings, I decided it was time to labor back up the steep grade in my minivan. I felt reluctant to leave, but also that the time I'd spent had been enough. I felt more like myself than I had in years. Washed clean.

I know that experiences like this fade, turn into memories that are idealized. It happens basically right away. And yet I knew, with a solidness that has felt rare in my wandering life, that this place had left me changed, forevermore.

As I drove up the switchbacks, I stopped to move a rock so I could get through. Two pickups rolled by, the second stopped. “You’re the first person we’ve seen. Been on the river nine days.” To my eyes, the characters in the rig looked like they had been on the river slightly more than one whole life. “One of the most peaceful places I’ve ever been,” was my reply. They had bright gold and red New Mexico plates, were tanned and sun weathered. The passenger glanced up the grade and was silent for a beat. “Owhyee country, I guess.” He shrugged, and bumped onwards—back towards some other kind of life.

Friends of the Owhyee is a nonprofit organization in Ontario, OR. They promote conservation advocacy, stewardship, and responsible recreation in the Owyhee region. Working collaboratively with conservation and recreation groups, landowners, ranchers, tribes, sportsmen, and government agencies, they help ensure the Owyhee’s unique ecological, cultural, and recreational resources are protected for future generations to experience and enjoy. https://friendsoftheowyhee.org

Public lands are in the process of being sold. Call your reps!

(202) 224-3121
https://www.backcountryhunters.org/take_action#/

More about the Owhyees

Owyhee Canyonlands: Road to 30 Postcards
More on Northern Paiute Tribal Member Wilson Wewa

Corrections 2025.05.30
An earlier version of this article claimed Wilson Wewa was on the FOTO board. He is on the board of The Oregon Desert Land Trust, who also work in the Owhyees.

I have spent a lot of time alone lately.

I've traced the veins in the backs of my hands. I've followed them with my eyes and fingertips.

I've watched the light change, sitting in one place for hours. I've sat on the porch behind the big house I cook and wash in, staring at the field, the swallows, at the mountains, at the forests.

It has felt different, this alone time. It has felt in some ways more like being together. Together with myself.

If I could give everyone a gift, it would be this feeling I have been experiencing, of being absolutely, and completely comfortable with myself, on my own, together and alone.

It feels safe, and also a little boring. It can be lonely at times. But I want to be respondent toward this, rather than reactive. I don't want to fill a space because its empty. I want to explore that space. Why is it there? What does it really feel like? What shape is it?

Maybe a lot of activity is just to keep from having to sit with myself, and my thoughts.

I've had this feeling before, and it has been years since I lost track of it. That makes me feel a little sad.

I'm sure this feeling will pass. My life will change again, soon actually. I'll be moving, and have a whole other set of things to occupy my time with.

For now I want to remember this feeling. The feeling of not needing to do anything. Of being home again with myself.

I hope everyone can feel this way.

Globemallow

Year after year after year

Smooth rocks smoothened

By water and even sand in wind and even wind

Juniper scrub grew to a tree                split and died

Remains as snag             mostly still alive

Rodent holes take refuge in sandy soil

Beneath the globe mallow crop waiting for the seven year piñon to drop

Seeds. Many young even

Oaks in little gullies of green grass meadows hidden pond and aspen stands big 

Mesatops catch the rain as if

Some rock giant has been slowly gardening

These clefts for a billion years

But groves of bright orange mallow and yellow and blue penstemon

Against the rain fingers touching the horizon, blurring the distance

And us journeying along an imperfect

Family group forged and beaten still smoking from the birth

Without a place to call home together so we wander, create traditions and stories, move onward to places never heard of

A group of young souls just born into the still smoking mud of which we feel the heat of what we were also molded from

And a rag of trash wound up in an ancient sagebrush bush that I take three stems from and show them to Todd for a sniff, stuff my

Mouth full of globemallow flowers and gain sustenance from the land and I’ll tell you 

I’ve given up on meaning and instead work with how I find feelings out in places both empty and full such

Moments of presence to convey a kind of resonance that doesn’t need these words for you to come close to it

But it’s like a fire stoked by attention only and it

Goes out and everything is dark in that realm that you don’t know or see into become like

The old ones who rest in the hills gardening their patch near the piñons and living with the

Least chipmunks and the mule deer and the visitor who comes for cota from the house over

Puts his feet up by the door and stares out at the rain fingers and the mallows and the piñons and junipers and rodents and distant cities and collapse and reforming and smallnesses and bignesses and the Colorado river and the lack of water in the lakes and he sits with his friend staring out and and says only for hours: after all these years…..

Transcript

Hey there

So I am walking the backside of this little meadow, forested area where my mom lives

It's on the edges of old farmland and I'm about to hop over a split rail fence, which is a little awkward, it's a little tall

There's some, a lot of native plants around here, and also some volunteers from elsewhere

Oregon ash and cottonwood, willow, aspen

There's a grove of hawthorn in full flower

This is a place where deer hang out

Floods in the winter

It's marshy where I am right now

I could probably set up a tent back here

It's quiet

I've just come back from the far east side of the state

I was off grid, down in a canyon for four days, in some pretty crazy country, working on a project and just existing really

I think it was probably the least I've interacted with screens and media in maybe a decade

I didn't really have cell phone signal for about a week and a half, pretty intentionally

I basically just didn't turn my phone on unless I needed navigation

And then there were three nights and four days when I was down in the bottom of this canyon where I really didn't do anything at all

I just kind of existed down there

Ate food and had a little fire now and then

Watched the light change

And it was beautiful and hard, easy, lonely, quiet, all the things

And I've been thinking a lot about why I do what I do, my work as an artist and person

I don't want to think about it too much, but doing something like that made me really consider a lot about why I make things, share things, live the way I do

There's just a lot there

There's a lot of assumptions, a lot of reasons I've been doing stuff for years

A lot of time passed, a lot of habits, that kind of thing

Now I'm in the Grove of Cottonwoods

It's kind of a flood grove

Some reeds back in here

Maybe there's sedges

So I don't have a lot of answers about why, but I think I discovered a new language of some kind down in that canyon

Definitely a new relationship with myself

There wasn't much to hide down there

Turns out being alone for long periods of time is pretty tough

I mean, I've done it before, but this was different somehow

It's really good to do, but it's not easy sometimes

Parts of it aren't easy

Parts of it are really incredible

It's always funny to be alone in a place like that and run into a person once in a while and realize that pretty much everybody else is out there with other people

It really got me thinking about the reasons why people do things and why I do things

For me, a lot of it is to get away from loneliness, actually

From being alone with my own thoughts

Partially because they can be boring

Partially because it's really not maybe the healthiest long term to always just be alone with one's own thoughts

But I think that there's something really deep there

And I don't consume much media

I mean, maybe a podcast every two or three days

Sometimes I don't listen to one for a week or so

But something I thought was really strange down there is I had songs that I hadn't listened to for many days just repeatedly looping in my head

And it was almost like my mind was just spinning in neutral, trying to find something stimulating to remember or to latch on to

Or maybe it was just digesting everything

My friend Martin said metabolizing, which I really like

Actually metabolizing the experiences that I've had

And I think it takes a really silent, open, empty space without any direction, honestly

No structure

No one else around

No information

Just the sun rising and setting

And sitting in places like that really makes me reconsider kind of my whole life.

Why do I do what I do? Why do I want to share writing and recordings with people? What's really at the base of all that? What need of mine is being met? Am I doing it as a means to an end? Or am I doing it as an end in and of itself? And I've decided pretty conclusively that I want to do things in my life that are an end in and of themselves

I don't want to be chasing different activities for a lot of my life because they're giving me something that's not inside of the activity itself

And I think I do want to share what I make, but it's difficult to know whether that's worthwhile or not for others

And so I decided that I'll do it for my own joy and my own insights

And if others want to come along for the ride and see what's there

I mean, I've been doing it this way all along, but I think that there's always these shadow sides, like hidden unconscious sides of any activity or anything a person does that aren't fully available to them unless they sit and really delve into the why

And an activity I've been doing recently is asking myself why seven or eight times about something really gets down to the root of what's going on

It's hard

I feel like my mind wants to squirm away from those kinds of inquiries

But I think it's pretty necessary and helpful in the long run

I'm leaning on a tree and there's moss on it

It's young

What happened is it fell over

Probably got blown over

That happened a while ago

The original shoot has since been pruned off by the tree itself

It's broken off and healed off

And right above it, the tree is totally horizontal from where it fell

And right above that crook, there's another strong, young stem coming out at a 90 degree angle

And there is one back further, too, before this one was the main apical meristem, I think is what it's called, which I learned about in my pruning work over the last couple of months

And that one's now 20 feet tall and the roots are still somehow connected

And in fact, the trees put down more roots to stabilize and this tree is probably going to be here a long time now

It's nice to see that when things get knocked over, they can get up again

That's kind of how I felt this last year

Lots of knocking over, getting up again

I think I can hear seven different birds singing right now

Thanks for listening.

Dear readers,

I keep this newsletter free, in order to offer something that seems valuable to me, for everyone.

I really don’t like paywalls or ads. And yet I put a lot of time into this work, particularly with podcasting.

Something kind of amazing to think about: If everyone who subscribed to this newsletter donated $5 a month, I would no longer need a day job. That’s how much $5 can do.

I am currently in the midst of a self-funded project. So donations on Buy Me A Coffee, PayPal, or Venmo are much appreciated!

Pruning With Kestrel

In the cold morning, from the end of the row, I can look across an empty field
The valley feels small, despite any kind of distance

We clip branches off, years in the drifts of sticks
The willow wand whip of first year growth
And yieldless branches of those older in age
The sound of the wind

A kestrel high on a post, comes and goes
Watching, looks away
As we make sense of the ways trees grow
And what it is we want
To feel, and to know

DONATIONS

I am currently at a residency, in the midst of a self-funded project. Donations on Buy Me A Coffee, PayPal, or Venmo are all seriously appreciated right now—Thank you!

I scribbled the poem below, laying on my back in the dewy early morning, in the rockies last July. But only last week did I rediscover it in a section of my notebook I’ve passed over many times.

This poem is about how someone can be here, but also somewhere else at the same time. Maybe in a dream world, or maybe in the underworld—as I have been over many hard months in the last year.

Atlant(is)

Yellow-colored rocks
color the clear water-shimmers.

Pine-scent morning, evenings
dust on the small roads.

Open flowered meadows
between pine-fir groves.

Spruce on edges
pink sticky geranium amidst marble boulders.

Can you see how
the small warm creeks meander through little green clefts?
And aspens grow after a burn.
In the clear air
the stars are bright.

These scenes for where you are
Here still, and there too
All one place within, or a place
outside of you.

Atlantis is an archetype, in many ways, for an ideal that once was. The town in Idaho where I wrote the poem has a similar feeling, of a beautiful place lost in time, a place that “could have been.”

I had an idea last month, to witness and document the sage grouse courtship ritual in the Great Basin this spring. A month or so later, I happened to come across a camas meadow I’ve been searching for. And in the last few weeks, at an artist residency at Centrum, I’ve sat with these ideas, to see where they all come together.

Through my intuitive process, along the theme of remnants, I have drawn lines between these disparate places and creatures—to understand that they have a unique relationship with grief and joy, death and life.

I have often been drawn to remnants. Old traditions and skills, abandoned towns, fallen down rock walls, overgrown apple orchards. I can’t quite say why, only that there is a silent, wild feeling in such places I find compelling. I like these places that the world hasn’t even found useful enough to destroy, that are left behind. These empty, quiet spaces are, for some reason, my kind of place.

Camas meadows and orchards need people to thrive. They can be good teachers in reciprocity and timeliness. And I think the places we interact with as humans are unique receptacles for the wealth of human experience, winter and summer, dearth and abundance, grief and joy. The seasons, and how they impact the cycles around, us teach us about the multifaceted nature of life itself, within, and without. Living in this flow, respondent to it, is what I envision as health.

Thanks for listening.

If you think about it, what draws people toward something these days is often about reclaiming our humanity.

What's healthful, and thus has gravity, are positive expressions about who we are, resiliency, and beauty, especially amidst hardship and grief. Dance, song, creating—expressions of our hands and bodies, and what we can do as humans. The modern craft movement is reweaving the tapestry of our culture—towards something that is functional and healthy, through our own hands and bodies.

Mo Hohmann first learned to grow and weave willow in the mountains of Oregon from Peg Matthewson. A craft older than pottery, weaving comes from our ancestral past. Nowadays it's being brought into the light of the present by courageous and inspired makers like Mo and Peg.

"It's an innate human experience to be drawn by beauty. And beauty is pretty subjective. But it's my experience with the baskets that there is this gravitational pull towards what is beautiful. Because it feeds this deep need as human beings. It's a soul food right? It's something that brings a sense of belonging."

Listen to the full interview here, or on any podcast app.

How I Hold You, How I Would Have Held You

During our interview, Mo read aloud a book she wrote about the process of making a soul boat, and her three grandmothers. She is planning to reprint the book soon.

Check out Mo’s work on her Instagram and website: https://woventhresholds.com

Also, Mo offers online classes through Coyote Willow Schoolhouse, and plans to offer in person classes soon.

https://linktr.ee/woventhresholds

2025.03.08 Update: In the podcast, Mo discusses watertight baskets and her teacher Peg. However, Peg did not teach her about them, which may have been unclear in the original episode