Can I Send you a Book?

This time last year I was nervously waiting for my book to come out.  I couldn’t seem to sit still.  I walked up and down to the creek. I braided and unbraided my hair. I carried my five-month old in circles around the garden, picking peppermint leaves with every turn.  Then, it came out…and it was one of the…

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This One Word Heals Everything

Sometimes life can feel like a slog.  It’s ok, we’ve all been there.  Lately my daughter and I have been sick with a deep, long cold that’s been going around. All projects or adventures were put on hold while we simply got through the day. Wake up, breakfast, play time, lunch, nap, repeat.  I was going…

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I want to Talk About Motherhood

Sometimes I feel like I lead two lives. There’s the part of my life where I meditate in quietude beside the creek. Where I have the space to think about the big picture of existence, hold deep conversations, and pen beautiful pieces of writing. And then there’s the rest of my life, the bulk of…

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Reaching the Next Era in your Life

When I was a teenager with chronic pain and felt like I would never see the other side… When I decided to leave my whole life behind in NYC and move down to Appalachia to study herbalism… When I first started teaching and wasn’t sure anyone would show up for my classes… When I decided to live alone…

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How to Work with Plants in a City

I snuck into the office and closed the door.  Maybe “snuck” isn’t the right word, since my job as a plant waterer gave me access to every room in the building. But I still felt like I was doing something illict. The office building was in the middle of Manhattan. To get there I had…

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Your Destiny as a Human

I walked up to the gap, the wind nudging me from behind. In the space between the budding tulip poplars I could see out to the mountains beyond. They were blue and beckoning, full of promise, hope and homecoming.  I could feel the Earth beneath me. And I could feel my place on her lengths. And…

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Nature as Divination Deck

Omens are everywhere in nature. Before tarot cards or runes, we knew how to read the oracle of the natural world. The pattern of the clouds. The bird you heard when you first woke up. The flower growing by your doorstep. The answers you need are already in the world around you. They’re simply waiting for you to…

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Contemplation as an Ancestral Skill

Years ago someone asked me a question that I’ve never forgotten. “In your ideal world, if you could get paid to do anything….what would you do?” I was still young when I was asked this, but my immediate answer was: “I’d get paid to walk outside in nature, to think, daydream and ponder.” To me, that sounded like…

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