Happy New Year!

It is Spring!

And I wanted to simply read you my latest children’s book, Spring’s Miracles.

A few lessons:

* remember to breathe

* when you feel scared, let the earth give you bravery

* celebrate the seasons with simplicity and care

* remember you’re never alone

We made it.

Instead of trying to write more words for what I am feeling today, here is a video with a little reading from the book and a message for you, my subscribers.

Thank you for being my community. Chii migwetch!

The book is already in the top 60,000 of books on Amazon, which is no small feat in a sea of millions. I am humbled and grateful.

Today I’ll be celebrating the book on Substack Live at 12pm ET! Hope to see you there.

Several podcasts are releasing today, and here are a few:

This episode with BaddestChaplain was so much fun!

More to come!

I leave for Scotland tomorrow, and stay tuned, because we are starting a brand new series next month!

Friends,

As I think about our transition from winter to spring today and tomorrow, I realize that it’s just as important to say goodbye to a season as it is to say hello to the next one.

Springtime is sacred for us Anishinnabe folks, it’s our new year, the time when everything shows up, life springing forth from their resting places.

But it’s important to examine what we leave behind with winter, what we learned, what gifts we received there.

So, I’d like to share a ritual with you to help us find our way in this transition, and I’d love to know how you showed up in this space and what it helped you process about this moment.

If you can take 10-30 minutes, whatever time you have, I think it’s important to honor this space. If you can show up with a big meal and intentionally eat and celebrate on your own or with community or family, please do that too, asking together what it means to move into this season of becoming and showing up.

Letting Go & Welcoming In Ritual (Audio is included if you’d like to be led through the ritual instead of reading the transcript):

Find a comfortable spot in your home or outside. If possible, bring two candles with you, a journal or paper and something to write with.

Take four deep breaths, imagining you’re welcoming the four seasons and the four directions.

Light the first candle

Turn your attention to Winter, thinking over the last few months, from December until March, and what you’ve learned or practiced.

Ask:

* what has winter taught me?

* what gifts of winter am I taking with me?

Say goodbye to winter. If you have a journal, write a letter to winter saying goodbye until next year.

Take four deep breaths again.

Light the next candle.

Turn your attention to Spring, looking ahead to the next few months, from March to June. Think of the warming months, Mother Earth, and the work of blooming and becoming.

Ask:

* what visions and expectations do I hold for the spring season?

* how can I hold space for myself in the coming months to honor my journey?

Say hello to spring. Write in your journal, draw a picture, or simply sit with your eyes closed and envision spring as it arrives.

Take two deep breaths.

Blow out the first candle.

Take two more deep breaths.

Blow out the second candle.

Pause a moment to honor the letting go and welcoming in.

Go with that intention.

I’ll be traveling on the first day of spring this week, speaking at Boston College for my first in-person event of 2024.

I’ve got some lovely events lined up for this year, but I also have space for a few more, so if you’re looking for something along the lines of these themes, let’s chat:

* spirituality & identity

* inter-faith relationships & storytelling

* healing & ongoing colonization in America

* workshops on care in difficult times

* workshops on our connections to ourselves, one another, and Mother Earth

* retreats on any of the above themes

To inquire about booking, please visit my website.

As always, thank you for all your support along the way.

Can’t wait to connect with you in the future!

Today’s poem is a short podcast of my thoughts + a reading.

Hope you enjoy! The transcript is below (and please don’t mind the dogs walking and drinking water in the background!).

Today’s poem is dedicated to my husband Travis, who is my best friend, my constant companion.

Today’s prompt is the word chill, and I thought of him right away, the warm energy that drew me to him and the fire we’ve carried ever since.

I hope you like it. I can’t wait to read yours.

Chill

Sometimes people get chills when they are in love,

but not me.

The first time I met you, I felt warmed

all the way through,

and terrified, too,

because you could see me,

like, really see me

with those eyes of yours.

The chill never hit me,

never goosebumps

but this constant falling into you,

into your warmth, your smell, your love,

your mystery, your adventure.

And still, fifteen years later,

there is no chill.

We have built a life of warmth and care,

a life nestled into one another,

into corners of this earth

where we find solace and fire and magic.

You, my love, are a burning ember,

forever drawing me to your warmth.

Hello friends!

Happy Tuesday. Today I kept my youngest home from school because I thought we had a doctor’s appointment, and then I realized I’d written the date wrong and that appointment is tomorrow, so we ran home, grabbed the backpack, and filled out the official tardy slip as I accepted, with a few jokes, that my brain is in many places lately. How’s your week been!?

Today’s podcast episode is a short snippet, a little over 3 minutes long. It’s about why I insert poetry into my books, plus a reading of a new poem from Living Resistance!

Please take a few moments to listen, or read the whole thing in the text below.

And mark your calendars for a month from today, March 7th! I can’t wait for you to hold Living Resistance in your hands or listen to my voice reading to you on Audible. I hope that in my words and stories you find a home, a safe place, a curious spot to ask some questions for your own life and to know you’re not alone on the journey.

And now, onto today’s podcast episode:

Hi everyone, thank you so much for joining me here at the Liminality Journal.

My book, Living Resistance, is coming out a month from today, March 7th!

And I wanted to talk a little bit on today’s episode about the poetry I use in my books.

I have never published a full poetry book, but poetry has always meant a lot to me.

I’ve been writing poetry since I was young.

The best way to incorporate poetry into my books is to slide them into different sections and chapters. I kind of believe that poems can add a breath, help us take a pause, to stop a moment and consider what we are reading, thinking, and processing.

A lot my books center around difficult topics, that can be triggering or overwhelming, like colonization, white supremacy, oppression, and hate.

My work as a storyteller is to leave space for readers, and for myself, to stop and pause.

My first book, Glory Happening, is a series of essays and prayers, and the prayers are very much written as poems.

My second book, Native, is full of poems. I inserted them into chapters, beginning of sections of the book, as a space to just pause.

In my new book, Living Resistance, there are poems, again, at the beginnings of the sections of the book, strewn throughout.

And today, I want to read you one of these poems.

This poem is from Part 2 of the book, The Communal Realm, which you’ll read about in the book. I’m going to read you the poem at the beginning of this section:

Maybe you don’t know strength until you’ve rested beneath the branches of a magnolia tree, feeling the weight of her regal, waxed leaves. Maybe you don’t know community until you’ve watched ants rebuild what was broken by a world much bigger than theirs. Maybe you don’t know fortitude until you’ve noticed geese fly to the furthest border of warmth to protect their children. Maybe you don’t know compassion until you place your hands in the dirt and feel the pulse of the earth, her heart and soul welcoming you. Maybe you don’t know time until you run your fingers over a river rock, their skin softened by generations of magic. Maybe you don’t know yourself until the mirror of the water reminds you of your goodness and brings you home again.

Thank you, again, for all your support along the way. Make sure you pre-order your copy of Living Resistance, and stay tuned for more news and sneak peeks in the coming weeks!

Friends,

Welcome to episode 2 of the Liminality Journal Podcast!

In case you missed the first episode, you can catch the full 7ish minutes here. The episode was released on Indigenous Peoples Day, but it is simply a meditative practice about our relationship to Mother Earth, and you can (and should) use it any day of the year. Hope you like it!

Today’s episode is called Comfort Within, Comfort Without, and it’s a short practice to help us recognize how we find comfort in ourselves, in our own heart center, and how we find comfort outside of ourselves in the world around us. I hope it helps you identify comfort in a season that is supposedly all about comfort but is often exhausting and full of pressure.

Let’s release some of that pressure together and lean into the good, kind stuff as winter approaches.

It is the season of comfort and joy—or so they tell us. It is also the season of outlandish ads for Black Friday, perfect Thanksgiving dinners with family, and over the top Christmas shopping.

It’s amazing, but it’s exhausting.

It’s comforting, but only in small doses.

And we have to claw our way back to the quiet magic of this season once consumerism and capitalism take over the holidays.

Do you feel it?

So let’s focus on what comfort really is, on where we find it within ourselves and without ourselves.

I’d like to start with a few questions from Choctaw writer and spiritual teacher Pixie Lighthorse. In her book Boundaries & Protection she writes:

These are big questions to consider, but they can be answered when we are clear about our expectations. Who doesn’t want to feel sacred? Is there something preventing you from believing that you, others, and every living thing are sacred? How would you like to be treated?

Or, we could ask, how should I treat myself, my own soul, in remembering that I am sacred?

Let’s start there, with our own soul’s sacredness.

How do you imagine your soul? Is it your heart? Is it an orb of light at the center of you? Is it a small child? Is it an outstretched hand? Take a moment to imagine.

(pause)

As we imagine our soul, either take your physical hands and place them right at the center of your stomach, below your sternum and above your belly, or imagine placing a warm hand there. Take 3 deep breaths as you honor your soul, your center.

breath 1

breath 2

breath 3

We can say to our soul, “You are sacred. You are loved. I will listen to what you have to say, and I will trust you. Thank you for comforting me when I’m scared or uneasy. Thank you for being my guide.”

Take three more deep breaths here, as you honor your own soul, as you imagine them.

breath 1

breath 2

breath 3

Now let’s move to the comfort without us. Where do we find comfort without ourselves, in the world around us?

Close your eyes for a moment, and say the word comfort out loud a few times. When you speak the word, who or what comes to mind? A partner, close friend? An animal teacher? Another aspect of Nature? A book or song? What brings you comfort?

Let’s pause and see who or what shows up.

(pause)

Now let’s invite that outside comfort to reside with us.

We say, “Thank you for being a comfort outside of my own soul. Thank you for feeding my soul with the way you care for me and love me. You are sacred. You are good. I invite you to reside with me today.”

Let’s take three more breaths now

breath 1

breath 2

breath 3

Set intentions for the coming season, whatever it brings, that you will honor comfort—the comfort within your own soul and the comfort without it—and what it gives to you each and every day.

The Land That Loves (Us):

Indigenous Peoples Day is political. It is a call to action, to movement, to care. It is a call to name that our ideas of reconciliation are dead util we actually tell the truth about the land, about colonization, about how we got here.

Columbus Day has its origins in a mixed bag of culture, colonization and Catholicism. President Roosevelt declared it a national holiday while lobbying the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic service order. And so, as it is with many holidays, we expand colonization in the name of democracy while destroying the lives of Indigenous peoples and the sacred land we call home.

So, here’s what I want us to explore today. If we celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day without acknowledging our relationship to the land, what are we missing? As Indigenous people, we recognize that the very essence of who we are, our cultures, our daily lives, everything is a gift from Segmekwe, Mother Earth. Journeying with humility, care, and gratitude is a life well-lived. But how do we get there if we’ve lost our way?

So today, let’s journey back to the land together.

It all starts at childhood. Doesn’t it? Doesn’t everything?

Think back to when you were young, an interaction you had with nature, a moment when you held a pebble of sand or touched the rough skin of a pine tree. Remember what it was like to walk the earth humbly, to have questions and curiosities drawn from play and imagination.

For many, trauma finds us in childhood. It is painful, difficult, where our first moments of dissociation and heartache appear, when we find ways to escape our bodies and hearts because it all hurts too much. We are told that there are quick fixes out there if we only try.

So let’s take off the band-aids, and put aside the quick fixes. And let’s return to the land that loves us so deeply, so well.

We are going to do a mix of a safe space exercise and a return to nature. We are going to go home, back to the land, and have a conversation with Aki, the land, the earth, the dirt.

Find a quiet corner of your home. If you’re able, close your eyes. Take three deep breaths.

1 breath

2 breath

3 breath

Find your way to a nature landscape—ocean, woods, mountains, desert, swamp, hills, prairie, let yourself find a way to the first landscape that you’re led to. It is a safe place where you will connect with Segmekwe.

When you get there, you find a simple shelter— a small house, a tree house, a fort, a cottage, a tent. You look inside and notice your favorite things there. You smile. You’re home, at least for a little while.

After you take a look inside, you head back out, back to visit with the land, Aki. You notice the sky. You hear animals in the distance, and you say a word of thanks for the power of kinship.

You turn to face the horizon. What do you see? What do you notice about your body, about your mind and your heart? What are you feeling?

If you start to feel unsure or anxious, take three more deep breaths. Relax your shoulders. Remember that the land loves us.

You’re holding a candle and a match. Light the candle, and set it somewhere on the ground beside you. Place your hand on that ground, or on a nearby tree, or at the edge of a body of water.

Take four deep breaths, one for each of the four directions, and as you do, let Segmekwe, Mother Earth, speak to you.

1 breath

2 breath

3 breath

4 breath

Accept what you’re hearing, feeling, understanding.

You blow out your candle. You say a word of thanks to the earth for always holding you, always speaking, always caring, always practicing relationship, kinship.

You return to your shelter, where you find a hot cup of tea or coffee waiting for you. You find a comfortable place to land, and there, you take out a journal and pen or find the recorder on your phone and you remember your experience. You remember what the land spoke to you, and you hold onto it.

You vow to begin a new season of this relationship to Segmekwe. You say thank you again, four times, for the four directions. You whisper it to the air and let it find its way back to her.

Migwetch, thank you

Migwetch, thank you

Migwetch, thank you

Migwetch, thank you.

Open your eyes.

Perhaps a few of the band-aids, the quick fixes, are gone, and we are a little more healed—or at least getting there. Perhaps days like Indigenous Peoples Day are about the people, about our journey toward decolonization. But they are also about how we do that through relationship to ourselves, each other, and the land.

May we remember.

Iw.

I wrote this poem in the front window of a Starbucks in Atlanta. I remember it. I remember where I write a lot of my poems, though huge chunks of my books are lost on me.

So technically, it’s part of the Somebody That I Used to Know series, but it’s also a poem I want to re-introduce to the world. The most depressing and magic thing about writing, about poetry and story, is that decades can pass and the same words you wrote back when can remain true.

Cycles often repeat—war, turmoil, the changing of the seasons, life and death, grief and celebration. Whatever it is, our human existence on Mother Earth is marked by such things, and we cannot seem to escape it.

I don’t remember why exactly I wrote this poem, but it was likely born out of grief that the world hurts, that we hurt each other. Whatever was happening then, the words fit perfectly into this time as if they were meant to be in 2022, and that’s the terror, and that’s the magic.

So, here’s a poem for us, and I’ve even recorded it for you, so you can listen to it if you’d like.

I won’t be adding commentary to this poem, because I think enough Christians have been writing and talking about shalom without properly understanding its depth and meaning. I’ve been guilty of it too, and I’m learning along the way what appreciation and appropriation are and how we handle this on all levels, with mistakes and commitments to do better.

So I’ll add these words I found from Rabbi David Zaslow about the real depth and meaning of shalom:

If I am a political left-winger I am only flying with one wing. If I am a political right-winger I am only flying with one wing; yet it takes two wings for an eagle to fly. It takes the integration of two opposing positions for there to be real “shalom.” The word dialogue comes from the Greek “dia + logos” meaning “across words,” or “across reason,” or “speech that goes back and forth.” It’s easy to have a left wing or a right wing “peace rally” with people who already agree with us. But this is not the wholeness that is implied in the word “shalom.”

In the Hebraic view, shalom brings the binary mind together, integrating the left brain modality of thinking (linear) and the right brain modality (intuitive). When I say hello to someone I say “shalom.” When I say goodbye to someone I say “shalom.” What is more opposite than coming and going? Hello and goodbye? Shalom is the most radical union of opposites imaginable. Shalom brings together people who disagree with each other so that each will listen deeply to the “other” side. It is the people you do not agree with who have the greatest gift for you – the gift of the potential for wholeness.

When I searched “shalom” on Getty Images, these are some of the photos that appeared:

Now, I don’t know much about search algorithms, but shalom is about bringing wholeness, bringing seemingly opposite things or beings together. So, shalom is an embodiment of all things holding their sacredness—together. Shalom is all of these photos and so much more.

Shalom has a magnetic heart, as the title of my poem goes.

I hope you enjoy this poem, and may we lean deeper into wholeness however it shows up for us.

Shalom, her magnetic heart

You and I are "other" to each other,

foreign creatures,

locked in our independent skin.

You and I, we're unnerved

when we're together,

we're fractured, disconnected,

thin as moth-wing.

And yet, the same stuff

that tears us from each other

gravitates us to each other,

and all along,

the earth keeps spinning

to help us shake the

regret-dust from

our shoulders.

I cannot assume you,

and you cannot assume me.

And yet, we began in the same

womb of thought,

the same dream of beginning.

We started and we will end,

and in between we can

detonate bombs

or

unmake them;

We can tighten the noose

or

make climbing ropes;

We can pull triggers

or

bury our weapons

beneath the trees

in our city parks

and let our

oneness

grow out of their

metal mouths.

You and I are "other" to each other,

but desperate enough to invade

these spaces--

desperate enough to fill up the

missing places,

patch up the broken links,

re-engage where we've

abandoned.

Shalom-- She is a sacred word,

an everlasting act.

Shalom-- She is an enduring

vision on the

darkest night,

and that magnet-force that keeps

fighting against our

pulling

and

tugging,

because she puts us

always back

where we were before--

hand in hand by the fire.

Shalom-- She knows us better.

Shalom-- She binds together the

blistered souls,

and we quiet ourselves,

eyes locked,

all "otherness" dissipated

in a stream of

perfect light.

Would you like to lean deeper into The Liminality Journal?

For paid subscribers, I’ve currently got a separate series of Casual Blessings that will hit your inbox regularly once you sign up as a paid subscriber! Just click the box below to sign up:

Friends,

Welcome to The Liminality Journal! Subscribing to The Liminality Journal gives you access to some of my original poetry, which often doesn’t make its way into my books or other publications.

Here’s a poem I recently wrote called On Afternoons Like This, reflecting on one of my favorite times of the day: afternoon rest time. If you’d like to hear a recording of me reading the poem, click the audio player above. Hope you enjoy it.

On afternoons like this one,

I trace the lines of our one-hour rest time,

wondering how much

it will stretch past us.

I wonder if rest is an enigma

or the most simple thing we

embody as humans.

We might nap,

the kids building with LEGO bricks

while listening to that audiobook

for the hundredth time.

We might wait here in bed,

letting the sheets and blankets

get warmer, letting

the sunlight slip slowly

across the window’s curtains.

We might drink one last

cup of coffee,

naming our dreams

again and again.

One hour, and we’ve

drawn a shape

that may not make sense

to anyone but us.

It is the shape of a bird in flight,

of a house held still,

of a beautiful child

dancing in sunlight.

It is the shape of God or

God’s breath,

the shape of nothing

and everything.

It is the shape of us,

what we needed

in the stillness and space,

what we needed

when all the world

went quiet around us.

Don’t forget, most of my writing will remain free, because I believe that sharing my words with all of you is what creates this community. For free subscribers, you’ll still get access to my essays and some original poetry.

But if you’d like to subscribe for a paid account, you’ll get access to the following:

* a look into my life as an essayist and poet

* participate in discussion threads with me

* glimpses into notes from my personal journals

Onward, friends.