Flow Through

What’s the best part of publishing our words? My guess is:  the various opportunities to hang out with readers and writers in moments of contemplative connection. How do we help each other? What might we bring to our communities, or to readers far from our homes and maybe never known to us? Writers typically think of community in much broader than neighborhood terms—maybe those with a particular identity or curiosity or vocation, maybe those with ancestral lineages that connect to ours or with spiritual understandings that resonate with those we’ve come to recognize as touching our own.

photos courtesy of our guide extraordinaire, Evo (Yvonne) Hartman

We begin to sense our connection with others when we slow down and listen. Slow down and breathe deep. Slow down and savor a meal, or a long cold drink on a hot day. Those connections go deeper and higher and older than even humans who might share a language, or a translation. The Wind River float trip pictured above brought us to a slab of stone with dinosaur tracks, and a rock overhang protecting etched petroglyphs of mysterious origin. Imagine.

Sharing experiences we’ve had with others who have not, using our words to create what can become, imaginatively, emotionally, shared. When my words float off into the world of publication, my hope is that  they contribute to our broader sense of belonging here on this living planet. With belonging returns our recognition of so many gifts received, and with the ways of our words, we are privileged to honor the responsibility we hold with others. We care. Together. Who touches your life, and whose life do you touch? Today: my second book becomes available—wind and water please carry it to places where it may fruitfully connect.