Category: Awareness

What would happen…

November 13th, 2025

…and at this time of the year, when we see the trees that are either bare or on their way there and the leaves on the ground, it’s easy to reflect on those things that have fallen away from our own lives. Some we’ve given up willingly – others have been taken away from us by the strong winds of change: friends who’ve passed through our lives who are no longer there, family members we no longer see or maybe who have died, places we’ve gone, things we believed, ways we’ve acted.

All these things that have come and gone.

Another metaphor that’s reflected upon this time of the year is that of the harvest – the things that we collect, the things that we bring in and fill our cupboards with that nourish us through the long, cold winter.

And while it’s easy to look at that side of it, there is another side to the idea of the harvest, and that’s the things that get left behind. Not only the obvious – the seeds that’ve fallen from the plants, but also the stems and the dying leaves and decaying roots. All those things that once supported the fruits and the vegetables that we’ve harvested, but now get left behind to die and to rot – to get mixed in with the soil to begin to support those seeds that have fallen…
Making a meal out of a crumb – Part 2…

November 10th, 2025

When we grow up in difficult households, sometimes we feel like there’s nobody else in the world that understands us. We spend a lot of time feeling alone. So, when we find another person or people that seem to get us, we tend to cling to that – we put a lot of value in it. Sometimes, we can jump into those relationships full-bore. We can move in, spread out – take up more space than the other party is really willing to allot to us.

We tell ourselves stories about the relationship, about the depth of it. And we build on that, just as we have in the past. And then we operate not from the perspective of the relationship as it really is, but from the relationship as we wish it were – as we perceive it to be because of our need for it to be something else. And that’s a lot to ask of another party.

Sometimes this can be worked out if the person that we’re dealing with is pretty solid. But if not, sometimes these relationships can blow apart because the person – or people – can’t live up to the expectations that we have of them.

Nor should they…
Killing frost…

November 9th, 2025

Well, the killing frost has finally taken the Basil.

The tomato leaves are turning black, so I was outside in the garden today doing my best to rescue whatever I could. Our plants were extremely generous this year, so there’s still a lot of unripened fruit on the vines.

I pruned the ornamental apple tree, and cut back the Russian Sage and the gigantic mum in the raised bed in front of the house.

It’s a necessary process, this killing frost; an offering up of what came before to open and sanctify space for what will come.

I’m thinking, as I write this, about a particular dear friend, Elder, and teacher, who, when his time came to step away from ceremony, relinquished his role with humility and grace – one final lesson for those of us ferocious enough to receive it…
Take it and leave it…

November 3rd, 2025

There was always something that kept me just on the edge of it. I always felt like I never quite fit in…because the truth of the matter was, I didn’t. But I didn’t know that was because Something much larger than myself was looking out for me. In my own despair, I saw myself as always being just a little out of touch…
Brick by brick…

October 31st, 2025

Sometimes in this work, we’re not aware of just how strong we really are; nor will we ever be aware of that strength unless we’re called upon to use it.

Other times, we claim strength – we claim power – that isn’t really there. And it’s brittle. And it’s arrogant. And it shatters at the first sign of difficulty.

Whichever the case, we’ll have a clearer perspective based upon how we react in moments of being tested…
Passing it on…

October 27th, 2025

I got a request from someone I know to carve some spoons as Christmas gifts for his wife and her sister. He said it would be nice for them to have something to pass down from generation to generation.

And so, it occurred to me that I’ve finally reached the age where someone actually came to me to ask me to create something specifically intended to reach the hands of people I’ll never meet – people who will only know me through my work.

This got me thinking about some of the things that were handed down to me: my father’s anger, my mother’s codependence. My wife and I don’t have any children of our own, so it falls to me to make sure they don’t go any further.

The work’s been long and difficult – a lot more difficult than setting knife to Butternut. It’s a strange thing to find myself in the process of creating new potential heirlooms, while doing my best to remove all traces of a few of the old ones…
Being human…

October 26th, 2025

Yes, there is a spiritual part in all of this, but we’re here in a physical world. And there are certain aspects of moving through this world that we simply can’t afford to ignore.

I like to think of it as an electrical circuit; more specifically, as a circuit powered by a battery. If you connect both ends of the wire to one terminal on the battery, in this case the spiritual or the physical, the circuit doesn’t work; the energy doesn’t flow.

When you stand rooted in both worlds, and you connect one end of the wire to each of the terminals of the battery, then the energy can flow. The energy of the spiritual can enter the world through us and flow out into the world for the service of all.

So, in essence, we become the wire…
Speaking of Nebraska…

October 22nd, 2025

How many times in our lives are we handed something that’s perfect as it is – where all we have to do is simply step back and let it be?

I think of my own experiences in carving. Sometimes, I’ll have a spoon that I really love which I’ve worked out of Cherry, or Mulberry, or whatever. And as I stand there looking at it, I think, “Ah, man, I just need to make this one more cut.” And then I do… and it ends up being the one cut too many. Suddenly, I’m left holding something completely different than what it was intended to be.

The same thing happens with my writing. Often times I’ll edit the shit out of something, and what I’m really doing is stomping the life out of it. So, I end up going back to what I originally had, and that thing lives and breathes on its own.

I’ve talked to a lot of people about this process of spiritual healing – of deep emotional recovery work. So often we get bogged down in the fucking weeds with this, and we feel like it’s never going to end. We feel like we’re getting buried.

We have these arbitrary goals that we set for ourselves: the way things should be; the way things need to be. When they don’t line up, we start to blame ourselves. We start to feel as if something is wrong – as if we’re not doing something right.

And that’s really what this whole thing is about. It’s the idea that there’s a process unfolding, and all we can do is show up for it, do the work we’re called to do, not worry about the results, and just let the thing live and breathe on its own…
The heavy lifting…

October 19th, 2025

It’s no lie that we’re living in difficult times right now. Regardless of what side of the political fence you fall on or where your own personal beliefs put you, it’s turbulent. And if you buy into the whole “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality that so much of the Mass Media seems to hold with these days, it’s hard – and it can be a little frightening. Especially if you’re empathic on any level or if you’re in the middle of your own recovery or healing work.

The last couple of weeks have been a real shit show for me. The healing work’s been hard. I’ve been dealing with a lot of old trauma – a lot of old fear, shame, guilt – coming up. Having grown up the way I did, that stuff runs pretty deep. And to be honest, I’ve been exhausted quite a bit.

In the midst of it though, I’ve been thinking a lot about this guy I used to work with, probably thirty years ago. He was one of those guys who was constantly at the gym, and he always had to talk about his progress. I started asking him about lifting one day. I was thinking about working out because I was a trainer and my job was pretty sedentary. I started asking him about what he was benching and so on, and he said to me, “Y’know, man, it doesn’t matter what I can lift. What matters is what you can lift.”

And I’ve hung onto that.

You take your wisdom where you can get it. And so much of that applies to that whole path of spiritual healing and spiritual recovery work.

It’s important to remember that if this work were easy, it would already be done…
Pouring through the cracks…

October 11th, 2025

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about healing, about manifestation, and about clarity.

One of the things that my wife and I often talk about as being a highlight in our lives is the opportunity that we have to gather with our community once a month for ceremony.

We did that this past weekend. And as things usually go, I got out there about an hour before hand and took some time to walk the yard and pray a little bit, to meditate, and to get things ready. While I was out there, I was greeted by absolutely piercing sunlight, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. And with the pristine quality of the light and the openness of the sky, I knew that the intention for our ceremony would be clarity.

Those of us who’ve had a challenging upbringing because we were raised in emotionally turbulent households – maybe with alcoholism or some other form of dysfunctionality, often pray for sanity. But the truth of the matter is, we don’t really know what sanity is. We’ve never really had a good example of it; or perhaps the few examples we have had of it have been fleeting at best.

But we do know what clarity is. It occurs every once in a while. We get to see our wound. Get to see the motivations behind our triggers. Get some insight as to why we act the way we do…