for some reason, i was remembering the early days of practicing a new belief – one that said i had worth + value.

one of the ideas i used was that of a baby. of course a baby had worth + value. it seemed inherent. it seemed obvious. it was impossible for me to think of anything that could happen in that baby’s life that would take away their inherent worth + value.

i have a very logical + analytical mind, so it was impossible to deny that the same would also apply to me. my mind could see that it was true, even if i couldn’t feel, didn’t know, the truth of it in my body just yet.

while our bodies + minds may change, i do think we carry all the versions of us that ever were somewhere deep inside, even if it’s only as a long-forgotten memory. i think of how mothers see their babies in their grown-up children; i think of how i see my little puppy in my giant 11 year old atlas; and i wonder how we ever forget that we are still that tiny wondrous perfectly whole + complete human who wants to be – and is worthy of being – loved. especially (even) by our very own self.

may we always + ever come back to this, no matter how many times we forget.

if you want to sink into the part of you that is wild, maybe this will help. i captured a tiny audio of the call of the sandhill crane for you.

to me, their call sounds ancient, almost prehistoric, as it echoes far and wide.

(i was wondering if they were mating when i captured this; their call was near-constant for a day and a night and a day. every time i went outside, or opened a window, there it was.)

through a series of synchronicities, i found myself telling stories at an adult foster care home on monday evening.

it was a success!

they loved my stories, and were inspired to share some of their own stories (a brave pup who was found frozen in a trap and beat the odds to bring joy to her new family, a brave grandpa who was attacked by a bear while logging and brought home both his load of wood and the bear).

i loved doing it, and felt like an official storyteller.

for the remainder of that evening, my heart was tender.

it always is when i share work that comes from my heart & soul.

but my heart was tender for another reason: i realized that i have not been valuing my stories.

i love my stories, unreasonably & exceedingly.

often, they make me giggle. sometimes, they make me cry. i think they are worth telling.

they aren’t all fantastic, to be sure. some of them are even quite terrible. and since no one thing is right for everyone, i don’t expect everyone to love them.

at the same time, on some level, i have discounted my stories – because it is me that is telling them.

telling stories comes so naturally & effortlessly to me that i think it must be like that for everyone.

but maybe, just maybe, telling stories feels natural & effortless to me because i have spent hours .. years .. decades.. telling them or preparing to tell them.

and even if i didn’t, why does it matter? why do i discount myself, or discount my stories, just because there is ease in the telling.

so here’s to the things that we do with ease.

may they ever-increase our capacity for joy + ease + pleasure.

{an irregular series of postcards from our wild friends. this one is from a deer named sam. previous postcards: fred, constance.}

i shed my other antler today. (i shed the first one last week.) i bumped a tree branch on my way through the forest and it fell right off.

i will confess that the falling antler startled me at first. i leaped away out of instinct. but when i came back and sniffed it cautiously, it smelled like me, so i knew it was all right.

my head feels so light now!

(have you ever had antlers? i don’t know if i would recommend them. they really do stick out to the side.)

your friend, sam

two sundays ago, while (not) waiting for me to take a photo, atlas managed to hobble a back paw while wrapping the leash around and around a front paw and felled himself like a tree on some very prickly grasses. he cried. i had to quickly climb up the ledge and rescue him (from himself).

this past sunday, atlas flung himself down on every single patch of green grass in the yard and wriggled around on it with glee.

on monday night, atlas saw ten deer in the three mile drive home from the lake. he has been running in his dreams ever since.

may the birds sing to you.
may the wind walk with you.
may the earth support you.
may the sun, moon & stars shine upon you.

the light in me honors the light in you.

good morning, good morning, good morning.

this past winter, for the first time in decades, lake superior completely (or nearly) froze over.

i live on a peninsula. when the wind arrives, in almost every direction, it has traveled over an icy cold lake to reach us. needless to say, spring comes slowly this year.

on sunday, my sister and i (and pup) set out to find breaking ice.

we found the tobacco river, straining at its banks as it careened around a corner and crashed into lake superior.

we found fishermen, in both the wild mouth of the tobacco and in the calm lake next to it.

we also found ice along the shore in lac la belle. there was no wind that day, so the sheets of ice were quiet and still.

the next day, i packed a picnic supper and we set out again.

this time, we made our way to big traverse bay. the week prior, a strong wind had blown ice floes ashore.

most of the ice shelving was on private property, but the ice that we saw was glorious.

and oh, the absolute stillness of the bay and the colors of sky & water.

perfectly simply completely wondrous.

as philip pullman said, “it’s worth being cold for that.”

sometimes i think i am a totally wrong person to tell you about life near the wild, because i am not at home in the wild.

i like my creature comforts and have gone on exactly one backpacking trip. i once spent an interminably long night in a tent absolutely convinced that a raccoon was outside, about to claw its way into the tent and kill atlas, only to discover in the morning that it was a bird. i have no sense of direction; i can be trusted to go exactly the wrong way when following a map; and compasses confuse me. my dad has a degree in forestry and i have a phenomenal memory and yet i can never remember any of his wisdom about plants + trees. i know very little about animals. i am not quiet on my feet in the woods; i can probably be heard for miles. i tried my hand at wildcrafting last fall, gathering clover to make a steeped tea, only to discover that if i had made + drunk it, i probably would have gotten sick because apparently you can’t use wet clover. i do not like to pee in the woods. i have no interest in hunting. i caught one tiny fish in my life and it wriggled so much that it freaked me out and i had to run upstream, dipping the fish in the water every few steps, to find my brother so he could take the poor fish off the hook for me.

and yet, here i am, where the wild things are.

i love it here. i always have.

last week, i watched fox cubs pounce on one another like puppies.
the week before, i heard wolves howling in the early evening.
today, i watched the white tail of a deer as it bounded away from us.

i want to tell you about the wild because it is full of wisdom and full of wonder. when you’re surrounded by traffic & buildings & busyness & noise, sometimes it’s easy to forget this.

but the wild is our ancestral home, and we all have a wildness within us.

wishing you a moment of magic in which you can see that this is so.

when i was inspired with the idea to offer my stories in the form of a story club – a regular delivery of lighthearted + delightful stories – i was thinking about parents.

children – at least the children i know – have their favorite stories.

they read those stories over & over & over.

but sometimes, you just can’t read dr. seuss again, for what feels like the millionth time.

in those moments, you really want a new bedtime story.

but it takes time to go to the library or to the bookstore, and life can get in the way.

i wanted to create a way for stories to fly into your life, no time or effort required, for just those moments.

while my stories are not children’s stories in the usual sense – i do not write them specifically for children – i tell them to the children i know and they are always appropriate for children.

but do you know who else needs a regular delivery of wonder + magic?

we all do.

in a world where we are inundated with stories of fear + negativity, we need even more stories of beauty + wonder + magic.

there is so much goodness in the world, and it is rarely a focus. instead, we hear stories of fear, of doom + gloom, of us vs them.

it’s everywhere.

it’s almost inescapable.

our spirits are nourished by beauty + love + joy + kindness + wonder.

there are examples of this everywhere, but they are rarely delivered to us. sometimes they are easy to find. sometimes it takes time + determination + focus.

in our busy, rushed, chaotic lives, it’s easy to forget that this is important.

meanwhile, examples of the opposite are delivered, basically on a silver platter – causing our bodies to contract, our hearts to close, our minds to fill with anxiety, our hands to hold things tighter.

one of the things i feel strongly about is this: we need to find ways to bring beauty + wonder + magic into our daily lives.

we need to find ways to focus on hope + possibility + gratitude. when we don’t, we suffer.

maybe the story club is one of those ways for you. maybe it isn’t.

but my deepest wish is that you find your own ways: the people + places + things that nourish your spirit, that open your heart, that remind you of all that is good + right + true in the world.

hafiz said, “stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive.”

this. yes. exactly.