Learning to float

This essay isn't a tutorial for floating your body in the water. It's about embracing the season of deepening reflection and connection. Welcoming the cold and darkness. Adjusting our senses, returning to trusting stillness, and being more fully present than we are in the warmer, lighter seasons. About accepting what is as it happens, not just in hindsight. Letting go. Receiving and appreciating loss and help, recharging, and other misunderstood gifts. It's about what I'm doing right now, again: learning to float within the unknown. And what I'm doing far more fully than I ever have before: releasing the need for control, force, and violence.

Here's the thing about deepening both our connections and our reflection as we grow: more often than not, our growth and deepening happen within darkness, in difficulty and uncertainty, within our in-between times, our not-knowing states, when we're confused, when we're bogged down or stalled and spinning in circles, and when we're holding pain, loss, anger, and grief. Yes, our deepening can happen any time, and it definitely happens whenever we decide to just let go, breathe deeper, and play a while together. Playing means learning and learning means deepening. And. It's within our seasons of apparently unshakable darkness that we realize just how much we need each other, depend on each other, and how almost unbelievably connected we truly are across most real and imagined human boundaries. And when we unlearn shallow half-truths that we could believe in the light.

Walk with me here as we step outside into winter's darkness, adjust how we perceive and breathe and move here, now, and then move deeper into the bare, cold, dark, damp, and still-beautiful woods here within this darkest season. Take your time, here. Always take your time...

Step 1: Welcome neighbor

Welcome. I'm so glad you're here. I hope you and yours are safe and well in this cold, dark, and often lonely season. You don't have to answer, but know that I'm always curious... Who do you become– and what do your people do differently– to thrive in this often-harsh season of winter?

Step 2: Here's where I am today. Just today

Across the past 15 years, I've noticed that my ancestral family's traditional greeting of "How are you?" isn't a great greeting anymore. And that the traditional stock answer of "We're fine. How are you?" doesn't cut it anymore either. The question "How are you?" itself can feel overwhelming now. We are so many things! And "We're fine." feels either like a lie these days or too distant, offering far too little information among friends. Don't give me "fine" these days. I just don't buy it. We don't need more lies or distance in our lives– most here in the U.S. are drowning in both. So, I've changed my greeting to "How is this gray Wednesday treating you?" or, when I know someone is really going through a tough time, even something like "Can I give you a hug?" or "How has your morning been?" works. All honest answers to these questions are acceptable to me, including "I can't even fucking talk about it."

So, here's how this Friday is treating me. Today, I'm happy, fluid, changeable, unpredictable, teary, sad, at peace, curious, full of gratitude, and grieving. And my teeth hurt because I had a dental cleaning yesterday and my dental hygienist– who I adore– takes no crap at all from tarter buildup and people who don't floss twice a day like they promised to. I also visited Mom this morning, which always cheers me up. And I'm holding grief, too. I can tell now in many ways but the most obvious way is that when I showed up at Whidbey Coffee at 10:30 a.m., I got a peppermint cookie. When I'm eating a too-sweet afternoon treat in the morning, I'm grieving. No question.

I'm learning to move fluidly between and among joy, playfulness, pain, loss, outrage, community building, community healing, giving help, receiving help, and letting go again– all while holding the reality that Mom has moved into hospice and we'll likely lose her in the coming months.

We decorated Mom's room in memory care for Christmas last Sunday– like we've done every year since she moved in in 2017– only this time we did it while also believing in our hearts and bodies that this is the last time we'll be doing so. Dad was fussy (a word my Mom loved to use with adults, not just kids, back when she could speak) the whole time and stomped back to his cottage to get a different extension cord and extra strong tape for the holiday lights. He then struggled with the extra sticky tape– growing angrier by the minute to the point I feared that the exacto knife he was using was going to miss the tape and get him instead. I cut the tape for him. His anger spread into me briefly, until I remembered lessons from days gone by learning with Alzheimer's disease: anger is an easier emotion than holding sorrow and grief alone. Anger is a gift for those not yet able to share their sorrow, loss, grief, and other difficult emotions. Let people hold that gift while they need it. So, we made the holiday season brighter for Mom this year with a mix of sorrow and anger and being fussy in our hearts.

Other realities I'm holding today are regularly witnessing and feeling several people, families, regions, and countries that I love facing horrific attacks and violence, apparently coming apart at the seams, and slowly sewing themselves/ourselves back together while leaning more strongly on neighbors than we have in a very long time.

Peace for us– this year– will absolutely require new community. To be me, I'm going to need both the energy of the young and the deep letting-go expertise of true elders (aka, groups of old people who regularly laugh, create, or sing together).

Lori tip: If you want a friend who always responds with a simple, "I'm fine," to the question "How are you?" then I am not the friend for you. ;-)

How are you on this chilly Friday?

Step 3: Let your ways of knowing in the light go. Embrace different ways of knowing

For example, here in the dark, we don't have to see ahead to what's coming way down the road– we actually can't. And we don't have to look for or lead with sunny attitudes, boundless gratitude, and unshakable confidence within darkness either. Here, those are lies. Holding on to lies in the darkness is a terrible idea. Here we have to let go, accept what is, receive help, and connect more deeply. We have to be braver, walking within the unknown alone. And then even braver, finding others to walk with within the unknown.

As scary and cold as darkness can be, here we've noticed, over time, in hindsight, that we often learn to more deeply trust and connect with others within our own unshakeable dark seasons. For me, this year that's a huge pile of things. Its witnessing what's continuing to happen to our friends in Gaza and the West Bank. It's witnessing ICE is doing to all families of color, especially Hispanic families, in the U.S. and witnessing almost all families now being intentionally wounded and belittled or abused by the current cowardly and abusive regime. And, it's experiencing the impacts of the Younger Onset Alzheimer's disease in our family that comes for far too many of us in our 50s, including Mom's 24-years-and-counting journey with Alzheimer's and the 8-years-and-counting of her living in her memory care home. Grief is as unshakeable as love is here. We must befriend her here: we have no choice.

Here in the darkness, the point isn't to look for or expect gratitude or forgiveness or even rely on our own vision to overcome darkness. Here, the whole point is to slow down, lean on other senses and emotions and earthlings, deepen faith (or trust, if you prefer that word), and to reach out your hands in new directions toward warmth when you can't see where you're going, or who you're with, or even know which way is up, let alone forward. This season also offers building new energy within. Only then, later, can we slowly, gently reach out to new others– and welcome new selves. That's the opportunity that darkness brings us, eventually. A tentative first step in growing, learning, unlearning, changing, and moving together in new ways.

I picture a seed buried in the dark earth. What do I expect of that seed? What do I do for a seed I planted? Would I try starting with arrogant demands of gratitude and forgiveness and happiness or all-knowing-ness or complete tree-hood of those seeds within the darkness? As strange as it sounds, I've tried that before: with myself, with others. Had friends and family try it with me too. It never works. You mostly just hurt others when they're at their lowest and you're offering advice from what you see and do in the light. In the darkness, don't do what you do in the light. You'll hurt yourself. Hurt others. And hurting others hurts you in the process too. About the kindest thing someone in the light can say to someone navigating a difficult emotional time, isn't words. It's to say, "I'm here," just with your presence. The kindest thing a group can do is to encircle the person and sing.

I mostly try to simply stay with unshakable darknesses now. A little bit like I stay with wonder and joy: willingly. Wonder and joy can usually be felt from within and seen within others and faced head on, mouths dropped open in awe or laughter or smiles together. I know a lot about being in and holding the light: which I call Unshaken Wonder. Unshakable darkness is different. Unshakable Darkness has no face at all. No fists to fight. I can usually feel it from within now, too, now that I've had ample practice with it. But I come from a culture that teaches us to ignore it, or shun it, or stamp it out entirely. Learning to feel and stay with and hold unshakable darkness takes considerable practice. And bravery. And community. Some people say you need hope. I'm not one of them. We've loved Mom for decades now with no hope that she'd return to who she was before Alzheimer's. No hope that she'll be better next year. And our love has only deepened, because we're fully present with her exactly where she's at.

Like navigating a rural winter night in the woods when it's cloudy and no stars appear to guide you, orientation isn't done by sight within unshakable darkness. It's done by stopping, breathing, feeling, allowing your other senses and emotions to emerge fully to guide/help, and by listening, moving slowly, staying fully present. Making new friends that you couldn't see or didn't entirely notice before– like the moss that grows only on some trees, and only on some sides of some trees, and only in the shade of certain trees. Do you know which moss you're walking on by the feel of it under your feet? Know that moss by more than one name? People in the dark often do. Darkness is for leaning on anything and everything and everyone who physically shows up to help. Only those in the light are happy, confident, and arrogant enough to be picky about who does and does not get to help them. Who does and doesn't matter. Who deserves to be known by name and who never will be.

Living only in warmth and light and giving only warmth and light to others– as it turns out– isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Step 4: Tell stories and share moments of unlearning and powerful transformation

The darkness and cold of winter increase our internally felt need for warmth, rest, and community, and they stretch us to accept and receive help from new places. Here's my own story/example.

Ten years ago, I was disinclined to trust any Trump supporters, for any reason, ever. People who support serial sexual abusers, proud racists, proud con artists and liars, wealthy people who mock and exploit the poor and disabled, and known perpetrators of fraud, cruelty, and violence are never to be trusted, right? Right?! Of course I was right. I was so certain. But then. Mom got worse, and Dad decided it was time to move her into her memory care home. A very dark month for us. That first day in her new home, in her presence, I exuded joy and comfort for her. And, the moment I left the building for the first time without her, I was sobbing. And I was alone. They'd asked us to stay away for a few days so she could make friends with her new family of caregivers, nurses, activities directors, fellow residents, and others. We had to trust a vulnerable loved one with complete strangers. I was feeling like she was now without her rock (Dad) and I was without mine (her).

As I sobbed alone, a very old Trump-supporting neighbor of my Dad's saw me crying, walked over to me, hugged me, and told me that Mom would be very well taken care of in her new home. He knew that she'd be happy and that the dozens of wonderful people inside had a better shot of making her even more comfortable than what my Dad and I could do for her on our own at this later stage of the disease. He was certain of her being loved and supported. He knew people who worked there and people whose family members had been there before us.

A Trump supporter showed up for me, in person, when my own family couldn't. Offered me comfort and help. And I received that help with a stunned, new, far humbler and more aware gratitude than the gratitude I'd experienced before then. On one of the worst days of my life, in the blink of an eye, I was changed for the better. Forever. By a Trump supporter. I can't make cruel assumptions about neighbors from a distance anymore. Even about people who support a clearly cruel, abusive, and deeply deluded politician. Doing so feels arrogant, foolish, and like a pointless half-truth. Wow does it save me time not doing that anymore. Weeks and weeks of time each year.

Hello darkness, my new friend.

A warming gratitude can be found almost everywhere you look for her in the light: for those who feel well supported, loved, well fed, and healthy enough to look for her. And. Within unshakeable darkness, you forget to look for gratitude or you try hard and fail repeatedly to find gratitude easily. Or you don't fucking WANT gratitude right now. You want to sob or scream or roll up into a ball. In darkness you often don't have time or energy or patience or even the will to look for gratitude. Looking isn't a particularly valuable skill within the darkness. Listening, touching, breathing, accepting, leaning on your other senses and emotions, and receiving more of the heart-felt help that the world offers us, are. New help. New hands. Help and hands that aren't even noticed in the light.

Now I know (most days) that a fierce, stubborn, swears-like-a-sailor gratitude stands directly beside me within unshakable darkness. I don't have to look. I just have breathe, wait, and do what my body needs to do– including doing nothing. Until my mind can accept what is, and, eventually, when not rushed, open to receiving the help we need. Often, I have to let go of expectations, and often, plans, too. Plans made entirely in the light don't work well in the dark. When I do this, true gratitude is actually easiest to reach during and just after moments and seasons of darkness. Moments and seasons when we're stretched so thin or so down and alone that we can't even look for gratitude and don't even want her, and somehow, she shows up for us anyway– in the sky, the trees, the breeze, the birds, the moss under our feet, the book we're reading, the kind stranger at the grocery store, the silly TV show that makes us laugh, in a song, a meal made by a friend, an ancestor who appears in our dream to comfort us, and in the cup of warm tea. And yes, even occasionally in a Trump supporter.

Looking isn't a particularly valuable skill within the darkness. Listening, touching, breathing, accepting, leaning on your other senses and emotions, and receiving more of the help that the world offers us, are.

Step 5: Say, out loud, what is true for you, right now

Wintertime is our collective season of darkness here in the northern hemisphere.

And here in the U.S., so many things are a complete mess. Prices keep rising. Social safety nets are being destroyed. People already can barely afford health insurance and that's about to get a lot worse. There are both elected and hidden-behind-the-scenes people running the federal government now who are actively destroying both the government and taxpayers. Attacking everyone from veterans to government employees from women to scientists from all voters to progressives in general and conservatives who dare to speak up. They're also terrifying, disappearing, jailing, and killing neighbors of color and visitors to the country, intentionally harming vulnerable people here and around the world, they're happy to kill human beings with little to no information, and they have a ridiculously well-funded and well-armed white supremacist fascist brute squad roaming our streets and harming our friends and neighbors while many of the rest of us can barely believe it and also still barely afford healthcare, housing, and food.

In this country, we hold an additional season of darkness on top of Mother Nature's season of cold, dark, rest, and replenishment. We hold a season of government-sponsored-and-tax-payer-funded terror now, too.

Deep humility, the need for change, and the fierce, un-looked-for gratitude of darkness is knocking on almost all our doorsteps. Rest is hard to find for many.

This is all on top of whatever darkness you're holding with local friends and family and within yourself. This the very last year in time that I would choose for the world to lose my full-of-love-and-light Mom. And we're all going to lose her soon, too.

Step 6: Float

Welcome darkness, our old friend! It took us a while to get here, but we're here now: welcoming what is, as it happens, and learning within darkness in the here and now, together, not just alone or in hindsight, anymore.

This week it feels like winter has officially announced herself here. My fingers are cold as I type this, and it feels like I can't quite get them warm today. Mom's hospice nurses are giving her a little morphine each day now to keep suspected pain at bay. Dad's visiting Mom a lot more, which is lovely to see. And he's clearly in emotional pain as he faces losing the love of his life in the coming months. His neighbors are taking him to a holiday concert tonight– to fill him with community love again. We wonder if she'll make it to her St. Patrick's Day birthday or their wedding anniversary in April. At the moment we just pray she makes it to say goodbye to my sister, niece, and aunt who are all visiting in the coming month. Well, I pray. Dad's done with just about everything church related except for holiday music and food. ;-)

Welcome winter. Welcome cold. Welcome darkness.

Welcome bare branches.

Welcome growth deep below the surface while so much of the visible natural world seems to slumber and sleep.

Welcome loss.

I'm doing my best to welcome letting go of this deeply beloved being again. Mom. This time, not into a memory care home that she loved instantly, despite my month of fear and worrying ahead of time, but back into the mystery and unknown of what comes next after this life. Part of me can welcome her passing, because we're so close that I know wherever else she happens to go that she will also choose to be with me. I know I'll hear her voice and feel her presence. That happens already when she's in her home 45 minutes away from mine. As long as I live, she'll still be with me. Like my grandparents are. And my uncle, who visited me Wednesday night in a dream to offer comfort to us. If my religious friends and family are right, she'll be with me after that too. Or, I'll be with her again eventually. With all of them. Such a lovely thought. I'm happy to be fully present with her now and with my uncle and others we've lost– in my awareness of their presence and their faces and advice in my dreams.

There's a reason why so many cultures talk about this being the season within which the veil to the spirit world is thin. Why so many people honor their ancestors now. Why so many people hear from people they've lost during these long, dark nights. Why so many others still love gathering around fires and telling stories in the cold. Deep things aren't meant to be known only with the mind. Some beings communicate only with wide open, floating, listening hearts. Some insights can only be felt, only be found, in the dark. We pay much closer attention in the dark.

And part of me is already mourning Mom's passing. Already slightly more prone to tears. I can feel her leaving this plane of existence. Within the circle of our relationship, I walk with her always now. But I can't stay with her where she's going next. Can't decorate her room or comb her hair. This time, I find that I trust– have faith– that support and kindness will find me at my darkest hour and will come from many unexpected, unknown, and unimagined-by-me places. And I have faith that she'll be at peace. She is so very good at embodying and spreading peace already. So good at just floating in the unknown. At just letting go of what can't be fixed or tweaked or changed.

She's not the only person I'll be letting go of this year. I'll be letting go of Whoops-I'm-Being-a-Bit-Too-Independent me this winter. This year, instead of fight it, I can't wait to let go of my old self. Welcome new me/us! Letting go feels a little easier here. Maybe because I'm aware of some of what I'll be receiving when I let go of what no longer serves me. Maybe because I know so many soft/strong women who've had my back every time I let go of an old self before. There are people who have my back no matter what. And maybe it's easier this time because I know now that letting go of old versions of myself means releasing old expectations and stale behaviors and beliefs and not actually giving up anything at all that is core to my being. I even know that old versions of me will show up as guides and warnings, when I need them. We let go of old selves for now. Not forever. Or maybe forever this time, who knows?

We have it within us to step into the unknown, the dark, the cold, the rage, the pain, the frustration, the unfairness, the injustice, the misunderstandings– all of it– and just float.

So, some days, we float.

Step 7: Embrace darkness together

Knowing that big, painful loss approach our family and our country, I joined two new circles of women in the past month: one circle sits together to write and heal and the other circle sings together for healing. Both of these groups are at Healing Circles Langley. Yay elders who've been there! Yay gentle beings! Here I can just be. Just exist in a gentle space. I don't even need to speak my loss. To be surrounded by generous, grieving, and joyful women who've all lost their mothers already is quite a gift for where I am now. Thanks to them, this week, I remembered this...

Wow do we know how to embrace the darkness together. We know. We just have to remember. And connect to others.

Like most people we know, to properly welcome the darkness of wintertime, we add candles, heart-warming holiday lights, and cozier blankets. We add warming winter and holiday foods and drinks, holiday gatherings with friends and family, both quiet and joyful music, local makers' markets, and holiday service and donations of food, belongings, and money. We add gloves, scarves, and hats knit by friends and neighbors. We move lamps so we can occasionally sit in warm pools of light. We share and receive more stories of beloved ancestors. We also add more quiet evenings reading books: going silently deeper with other humans who love to go deep too. And we rest more. Not as much as the cats– who appear to be perfectly fine with sleeping most of the winter away– but we do rest more.

For me personally, wondering, dreaming, imagining, researching, and documenting are all rest activities, so this is my introvert-self's joyous season of wondering and dreaming and research, with minimal interruption, too– what do our neighbors need, what does the community need, what do I love to do, what should we grow, what might we offer, what classes should I teach next year, what sounds so meaningful and fun that we can't help but show up fully together next year? This is my version of what my Grandma Kane did with seed catalogs in the brutal cold and isolation of South Dakota winters on her farm: dream wider/wilder/bigger in the darkness holding all imagined possibilities in her hands! With my grandmothers and uncle who've passed now always present with me, I mix wandering and whimsy and rest with the remarkably practical silence and dreaming necessary for simply staying alive and maybe even imagining being a little better at life and loving next year than we were this year.

This time of year– outside of the holidays and occasional intentionally heart-warming friend gatherings– life often looks and feels quieter from the outside. It can feel lonely, too, which isn't a problem at all until the very moment you feel that being lonely is a problem. Then it's a problem. Until then, I've noticed, here in the dark of winter– when we've allowed ourselves to be both rested and receiving not just giving and giving and running and running– inside we're curious and glowing and abundant and, eventually, when not rushed, more creative, alive with possibility, and generous than we were before. You can't be generous without enough rest and receiving– that's not how any living beings work. Doing nothing at all productive, sometimes, is life blood for the living. The rest we receive tempers the pain and loss and frustration and misunderstandings and outrages of life by re-centering stillness and play and wandering and joy and deepening in directions we actually want to be moving. Rest makes it possible to imagine doing just a bit more sharing, connecting, giving, receiving, community exchange gatherings (everywhere where giving and receiving are one and the same), and helping.

Those who need our help the most also need our rest the most. As someone who ran herself into the ground with worry and work in 2023 and 2024– until chronic isolation and depression showed up– believe me when I say this: eventually you're not helping anyone at all if you're not resting, connecting, and recharging far more than you think you should. Thank you, darkness.

Here within stillness and darkness and waiting and wondering, we expand. We expand our senses. We expand what we notice and feel and hear. We expand our need for and love of community. We open to sensing deeper needs and receiving more help. Within the rest of winter, we deepen and strengthen connections and understanding. With practice, we learn to drop all the expectations and "shoulds" that we necessarily gathered and held during the spring, summer, and fall. We trade them for silence. For not knowing. For remembering that we're not God and not responsible for everything and everyone. Peace. Wonder. Humility. Friendship. We let go into what is. And we learn that we're ok here, too, as long as we can imagine returning to still feel loved and still be together in person or in spirit.

Those who need our help the most also need our rest the most.

We do all of this, in part, simply to help keep the cold and darkness of the winter season at bay, much like our ancestors did. The world may be cold and dark and even more dangerous right now. But we– lucky us– don't have to be. Thanks community. Thanks empathy. Thanks earth. Thanks ancestors. Thanks moss beneath our feet.

Thank you, darkness.

Step 8: Turn toward the warmth within

As with all steps taken in the dark, don't rush this. Stay in the peace of the dark and unknowing for a long time, until you begin to feel really ready for something different. Then, subtly turn toward warmth within you. It may be just a spark. Just a flash at this point. Reorient yourself toward what's still glowing within you.

You definitely don't need to be college educated, or a genius, or even wise to do this. You just need to be alive. An earthling. Maybe have a brain. Or maybe not. I can't speak for the brainless. Humans know so little. I recently read that scientists have figured out that it's not that sea anemones don't have brains, it's that they are ALL brain. So cool. Just don't ask who wrote that article. It fell entirely out of my curiosity-not-credit-centric brain. But I digress...

Turn toward something glowing and interesting or curious or loving or exciting or energy-giving or not yet fully explored within you. Something that makes you feel warmer. Turn toward that. Blow on that ember within gently, like an ember of a fire that you don't want to go out. Coax it out, into growing.

If you struggle with over-gathering of ideas (me!) or overthinking or over worrying, and it's difficult to know which ember within you matters most, you can literally just sit with that ember and do you best to do very little else for a while. I've described this before as making your mind an open field where the alien (new to you) idea can land. If that doesn't work, sometimes it helps to think back across the calendar year or the past season of your life. What changed in 2025? Or in the past few years? With the intention of being messy and present and kind– not super smart or all knowing– write or paint or sing or cook or craft/make/create, in some way, about it. Here are a few other questions. Choose 1 and go deeper: How are you different from you last year? What do you sense and feel now that you didn't back then? What have you witnessed and learned this year alone and with others? How have we changed? Who do we want to be next year? What do we feel called to do next? What help do we need? What help can we offer? What do we need to let go of now to make room for what's next? As communities, friendship circles, support groups, organizations, and fields? Maybe even as a region or nation? You do you. Sort through what doesn't serve you/anyone anymore. Find the gem within that does.

Here's an example. Something I wrote just for myself:

2025 is a major turning point. Mom entering hospice this fall and awareness that her time in this body is nearing its end, sucks. Hurts. And every week, I'm stunned at how beautiful she still is. She's so soft now. Her arms and legs feel like frothy liquid butter. "Why did we ever buy in to the idea that our skin and our bodies– exactly as they currently are– are our enemies?" her so-soft warm body asks mine. "What complete nonsense that was," she says, smiling, without words. I smile back. She makes me love my own body more. Love all bodies more. It's like she's releasing all her love and beauty out into the world now, and I can see it. I can feel it. Like that holiday Dr Who episode where the forest and trees release their spirits into the sky to be among the stars when people are planning to destroy the forest across the whole planet. I know how lucky I am to be fully present for this with her in a way that nobody else is. It's holy: this awareness of how lucky we are to be together and exactly as we are.

This is also the year that– for maybe the first time ever– the season of turning inward and deepening reflection started all the way back in January, not here at the end of fall and beginning of winter. My season of deepening reflection began back when I announced in January 2025 that I intended to be selling Ritual Mischief to a wonderful new family in 2025, if we could find them. And then we did find them, and we did that, at the end of May. I spent all spring in the unknowing and the summer to, although I also got to spend the summer helping them, only as they needed help, which was lovely. This entire year is/was a year of reflection. A year of in-between and uncertainty. And wonder. And wandering. Wow, talk about a privilege. This was the first year I got to be fully me: Reflection Gal!

Yesterday, I got to buy a new-to-me Ritual Mischief lip balm, in a store I'd never been to, in Oak Harbor, called Oaklawn Enchantments. From a woman I just met who described herself as "a family friend of Ritual Mischief," and I got to tell her about my connection to Ritual Mischief too, we sensed a new thread of connection, which made us both glow and smile, though there were enough customers wanting her attention that I couldn't stay and chat long. That experience was also holy. Right there, in that crystal-filled, witchy self-care and woman-loving, earth-loving, environmental-stewardship-leadership space where you can get tea, refill liquid soaps and laundry soaps and shampoos and conditioners, and gather items for gift giving, new ritual making, and spell casting. A space where I saw a sassy shirt for sale that read something like "Don't pray for me. Do something."– the same words I've heard again and again online from parents whose children have been slaughtered at school by mass shooters in the U.S. We need MORE from our neighbors than just thoughts and prayers! A raw, brave, honest space. Nice. And, I love sass. Holy, for me, means all spaces and moments within which we're learning or loving or crying or creating while also aware of this: "I can't believe how lucky I am to be here right now. I can't believe how lucky we are and have been."

I read yesterday that this past weekend the U.S. had its 380th mass shooting of the year. At a children's birthday party. Wow does the elected "leadership" of this country hate children. Nothing holy about that reality at all. Its horrifying. And men keep not listening and keep investing in weaponry, billionaires, and brutality. We have front row seats now to what chronic abuse, chronic self-hate, chronic not listening, and chronic exhaustion does not just to us but to all people and children. This close-up witnessing does seem to be pulling forth the holy rage and awareness of our own power and connection that we need to get off our collective asses, grow closer as communities, change, and do something far more meaningful to protect children as a whole instead of teaching them how to run and hide and duck for cover when the inevitable billionaire-backed, property-protecting (and life destroying) armed-to-the-teeth government agents and government-policies-of-intentional-poverty-for-most-sucked-our-family-completely-dry-of-empathy shooters show up. When most of the rest of the humans on earth don't seem to have this ongoing "Yay guns! Our kids are completely expendable!" problem much, if at all.

There is nothing inevitable about what happens next here. We just have to dream together, not alone. Dream wider/wilder/bigger/more bravely. Become each other's seed catalogs. What a turning point that will be! I'm always working toward eliminating violence for all of earth's children. Even when I'm resting, the children of earth have my heart's full attention. I got that from my Mom. When I'm resting/we're resting together, we also get to be among those children we care so deeply about. We are them. Got that from all the women in my family– thought that was never directly discussed.

I'm kind of obsessed with people who play and work and rest together to strengthen community, expand empathy, stand with those harmed by the violent, and stand up to those who still think abuse, force, and violence are humanity's best responses to fear and loss. Kind of obsessed with those who float. There's the spark.

How about you? What warms you from within?

Step 9: Turn toward warmth without

Once we're aware of what most lights us up from within right now, it becomes simple to know where to turn outside of yourself.

Simply keep noting your energy:

• Where are you when your energy rises? How are you feeling? What are you doing? Who are you with? Move in that direction. Turn toward or gather with those whose eyes light up at similar things. Turn toward those who just get it. Just get you. People who you feel like you've known forever, even if you've only just met them.
• Where does your energy drain away? What's happening? Who are you with? What are you and others doing? As you can, make changes or move away from who or what drains you. Even if you once loved it/them. Like I loved Ritual Mischief for many years, and then last year, it mostly just drained me. The guilt of wanting to let it go when I was the one who loved it and built it was a big part of that. Open to receiving whatever help it takes to move away from what drains you. Accept that sometimes this means letting go of loved ones or places or things you love. Letting go can be for now. It doesn't have to be forever. And. Sometimes it does. Holding on to what needs to change or just go is energy draining too.

We are all different, so this looks and sounds different for everyone. And we all change with time, so this even looks and sounds different for us from year to year. Some things don't change, but most do. The process of letting go of what was to pick up the new feels remarkably similar though.

Step 10: Release the need for control, force, and violence

People often shake their heads and say they're so sorry when they hear that Mom has had Alzheimer's disease for decades. "That must be so difficult," they say. They are, mostly, wrong. My energy increases when I'm with Mom. It always has. Alzheimer's didn't change that. We got enough help– again and again, usually just in the nick of time– so Alzheimer's couldn't touch that about us. Though it did burn a few other relationships to the ground over the years. Or I did.

And Alzheimer's has changed me considerably. What a gift. It's a disease that demands full presence and eventually means that you have less than zero time for bullshit. Cultural bullshit, family bullshit, your own bullshit– all of it. So, to stay with us, you have to be at least a bit of what we are to make it through with us. You have to be gentle almost always as a balance for the ongoing frustration, grief, and loss. You have to be both honest and strong AF to be friends with an Alzheimer's care partner or elder caregiver family. Honest and strong like all women are honest and strong: collectively. You have to be more patient and loving than you want to be some days. You have to weep or scream or run into the woods some days. You have to get help after help after help to stay emotionally present during the most difficult times– more help than is comfortable asking for. Some days you must be more bossy/pushy/fierce/just showing up to help, too. Drop a half-hearted "Let us know if we can help." to an Alzheimer's family and, at some point, you'll stop hearing from us entirely. Even if we love you. In this culture, holding Alzheimer's while holding everything else doesn't give us much time to think about, let alone express, how other people can help us. Even when we need it.

This is a disease that requires real friendship, real community, real "You seem tired. I'm dropping food off to you tonight. What time will you be home?" And, eventually, if you're lucky enough to spend decades with someone you love with Alzheimer's disease, you realize that what people think or believe or even say all matter far less than the fact that they simply show up for each other. All sorts of people I disagree with help us out now. And all sorts of people I completely agree with about most things haven't shown up for us much or at all. Your presence matters. Period. Your presence is appreciated. Always.

Here we turn toward those who show up, in person, for the community, the land we love, or the planet as a whole. We have to. We have no other choice. And decades into elder caregiving, I don't want another choice. I like where this has brought us. I love that we can receive love from just about anywhere now. And I love that we can let living beings, places, and things go to make sure love continues to win the day.

Your presence matters. Period.
Your presence is appreciated. Always.

In seasons and moments of darkness, we don't have the energy or time or even the desire to stay with what drains us. Doing so could get you hurt, make you sick, make you worse, make you controlling or violent or accept violence as somehow normal, or even kill you or those you love. Trust your body's present and collective, ancestral instincts to move toward what lights you up from within and move away from or let go of what drains you. Show up in person only where you deeply want to be. Make no promises. Just show up fully. Do that and you are automatically practicing letting go. Practicing floating. Practicing welcoming neighbors. Practicing holding and embracing darkness together, not just the light. When you can do all these things together, in person, you won't feel the need for control, force, or violence much anymore. And you won't be alone.

Thanks for reading this far.
Happy December or whatever month you got here. 😄