Of Salt and Stones The old men’s book reprimands me - don’t look backwards, you will turn into a pillar of salt. Oh, but what the old men don’t realize is that I am the salt. I am all the tears cried for the dead children who should have lived, for the brokenhearted who trudge onward still, for the lost legacies that should have been mine ( and should have been yours .) I am the past all folded ( crushed ) into the now. Every shame-filled memory, every leadened expectation,

I’m in my third/third as it has been referred to and I’m not at all certain how I landed here? No familial generation ahead of me and only those existing behind me. Wild, crazy, unbelievable, believable, time speeds up, time slows down, are just a few of the bodily sensations that arrive. Listening to the author/ poet, Maggie Smith read her latest book, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, her description of our lives as Nesting Dolls feels as if she’s onto something meaning

Envy and loss are something that I discovered go hand in hand, are experienced, felt deeply, yet are an often neglected, forgotten and unexpressed aspect of grief for many. A tsunami of feelings can wash over me when I least expect it watching a mother with her son. I am transported into wishing it were Douglas and me with our arms around one another, laughing together or even engaging in some nonsensical banter as we often did. I remember vividly how unprepared I was when my

AN INDIGENOUS FOUR WINDS PRAYER To the winds of the SOUTH- Great Serpent, wrap your coils of light around us, teach us to shed the past the way you shed your skin, to walk softly on the Earth. Teach us the Beauty Way. To the winds of the WEST- Mother Jaguar, protect our medicine space. Teach us the way of peace, to live impeccably. Show us the way beyond death. To the winds of the NORTH- Hummingbird, Grandmothers and Grandfathers and Ancient Ones, come and warm your hands by

Douglas, our mover and shaker Each time someone we value and love leaves their earth suits a little of us hitchhikes with them to wherever it is they are traveling to. I have been experiencing this firsthand once again and it is a surreal and tender time to say the least. One’s mind tries to contain such a loss and there is no container vast enough I’m discovering. It’s not being able to hear his voice, “Hey cuz, it’s just me, checking in to see what’s new?” Our shared childh

Come as you are. What lands within you when you read those four words? It might behoove each of us to become quiet, curious and notice what bubbles up. What a blessing it is to occupy spaces where one can feel, be and come just as we are. With this new moon in Aries and the Spring Equinox, Mother Nature is providing us with a potent download and once again an invitation for new beginnings. One does not have to become an astrologer to glean some basic knowledge about the anci