I remember a phone call from a friend of mine who lives along the MacKenzie River. She said, “This is the first year in twenty that the chinook salmon have not returned.” This woman knows the names of things. This woman is committed to a place. And she sounded the alarm.
What I fear and desire most in this world is passion. I fear it because it promises to be spontaneous, out of my control, unnamed, beyond my reasonable self. I desire it because passion has color, like the landscape before me. It is not pale. It is not neutral. It reveals the backside of the heart.
Buddha says there are two kinds of suffering: the kind that leads to more suffering and the kind that brings an end to suffering.
We are aching to come together and I think it has little to do with liberal or conservative discourse. I think it has to do with increasing disconnection with what is real and soul-serving.
Having lived in Utah all of my life, I can tell that in many ways I know of no place more lonely, no place more unfamiliar. When I talk about how it is both a blessing and a burden to have those kinds of roots, it can be terribly isolating, because when you are so familiar, you know the shadow.
I wonder about silence. Also about darkness. I love the idea that city lights are a “conspiracy” against higher thoughts.
When I look in the mirror, I see a woman with secrets. When we don’t listen to our intuition, we abandon our souls. And we abandon our souls because we are afraid if we don’t, others will abandon us.
I think I must be worried all the time – maybe that is the other side of joy, you know, holding that line of the full range of emotions.
A shadow is never created in darkness. It is born of light. We can be blind to it and blinded by it. Our shadow asks us to look at what we don’t want to see.
An individual doesn’t get cancer, a family does.
I write from the place of inquiry. The first draft is a discovery period to see what I know and what I don’t know. My task is simply to follow the words. There are surprises along the way. I just have to get it down. Call it the sculptor’s clay.
Grief dares us to love once more.
When you are with a landscape or a human being where there is no need to speak, but simply to listen, to perceive, to feel.
I think that water is a tremendous organizing principle.
I think wherever we are, we can create an atmosphere of openness and trust, where women and those who feel marginalized feel safe to speak the truth of their lives.
Abundance is an expansion of energy. Abundance is a form of gratitude, a generosity, a modesty, a bow toward others – what we can give, what we can share, rather than what we can take.
Story is a relationship between the teller and the listener, a responsibility. After the listening you become accountable for the sacred knowledge that has been shared.
I love the interrelatedness of things.
We are wearing coats of trust. When one tells a story this is what happens.
Landscape shapes culture.