Dear Friend and Reader,

Before you dive into my Letter from Savannah, I want to quickly acknowledge an evolution in my substack publication.

This summer has been a time of diving within for internal excavation and integration. In looking closely at myself, my relationship to the things and people I love, I’ve been taking stock of what’s important. And uncovering cleverly disguised patterns of coping within myself that can distract, scatter my energy, leave me without much left to tend to things that truly fuel my spirit.

I dare say, this reckoning is not over, likely just beginning. Perhaps, life is a continuous uncovering of what really matters, revealed through trial and error. It is not always easy, letting go of obligations, priorities, in order to make room for the spaces where our inspiration most wants to move. It can feel risky.

To shortcut to why this matters to you…well, it means I no longer am writing as a mere, cathartic hobby, throwing stuff out there willy nilly when it just feels good, for free, seeing what resonates.

Well, mostly anyway—I’ll still yet throw a loose dart out there on occasion!

To make space to take the art form of story-telling and the written word whole heartedly, I’m dropping a whole lot of silly balls I’ve been carrying round, for good reasons perhaps—but for no TRUE reason other than they’ve been quite useful distractions — a.k.a. she hates the thought of failure!

In doing so friends, I’m honoring part of my interpersonal work of late—tending to my own sense of worth—by treating my efforts to create as valuable, as a body of good stuff, worthy of reciprocity.

You may notice a bit of a re-branding happening here, as this newsletter takes on its new name, A Life Lived With Max—and Max takes an even more integrative role in my storytelling here on Substack.

Yes, this means that much of what I’ll be publishing going forward is moving behind the paywall. Not all, so it still pays to be a free subscriber! But to read much of my good stuff it will require joining for the $5.25/month subscription (or $60/annual).

If you generously decide to keep up with this work, jumping in as Paid Subscriber, I pray to not to disappoint you! (Fortunately, if I do, you can easily unsubscribe at any time.)

And as a gift to those who’ve been following me here, giving me the courage to even call myself a ‘writer’, I’m giving you each a three month subscription free. A good amount of time to see if you find it worth it and send me your feedback—which I’d really love!

So please click here to join via this small promotional gift, and let me hear from you as we continue on.

If you cannot join me as Paid Subscriber, please know I understand. You will still hear from me from time to time!

God knows, we live in a world in which we are all over-subscribed, needing to simplify and streamline, all pulling our hair out at the price of gas as we try to budget and prioritize.

Because of this, any single subscription is not taken lightly by this woman, and is another good motivation to continue to devoting myself to keeping these stories alive.

With that, I now leave you to the story below…picking up the pen to further reveal the ongoing process of walking with Mom and Dad as Dad’s dementia progresses. Sharing the hard bits of the journey, as well as the ongoing revelations in somehow finding peace in dying.

With lots of Love,

Sarah

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Now…

A Letter from Savannah

It is Monday, August 10, 2026. It is nearly 8pm.

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It was the final moments of the women’s dance.

As a ‘dancer’, I’d been in the arbor for two days.

Sleeping outside on my little air mattress,

By the North Fire, and under the totem of the Cailleach.

Celtic Goddess of Winter.

Mythical Crone.

She is the one who shapes the Earth, dropping stones from her apron.

She calls in the frost, protects the hungry wolf through the winter.

Until she releases her hold, letting seasons turn to warmth, to life, yet again.

As a dancer, you fast. You sleep outside in the arbor, with the five fires.

One in the East, the South, the West, the North and the Center.

You are held in the container of the ceremony…

By the beat of the drum,

By the energies, the archetypes, the spirits called into the dance,

Watched over by the human crew..

The Chief Matriarch, the Elders, the Fire Mothers, Drummers, Aunties, all.

Watched over by Great Spirit, God, Shiva, whatever name choose you for that higher power,

For this is not a religious ceremony, it is a rite of healing and connection for all souls.

When the drum moves, you move as you are moved to move.

Maybe you dance wildly.

Maybe you sit still with a fire.

Maybe you laugh.

Maybe you scream.

Howl even.

Maybe you cry.

Or stay so very quiet.

Receive a vision.

Feel something heavy,

something old,

drop from your soul.

Unburdening your whole body as it goes,

into the fire,

into the soil,

to be recycled, restored,

caught by Mother Earth,

whose presence becomes known to you,

becomes something real,

something ancient,

something beautiful,

something whole.

You surrender,

Everything,

to Spirit.

And you find out what it feels like to be truly held,

To let go all your internal armor,

To see,

Past error, judgement, wounds, exhaustion, pride, belief

With new eyes of wonder.

It was the final moments of that women’s dance.

And I felt strong, though I’d not eaten or taken a drink in two days.

I stood by the tree in the arbor’s center, surrounded by the five fires, the swirling of the drum beat, the movement of the ceremony. Just before, I’d been dancing, celebrating the coming of the end of the ceremony, the restoration that I’d felt pour into me these last two days. But now, I felt still.

I stood calm, as I faced the tree at arbor’s center, and the Spirit Fire just beyond it, and the East Fire, and arbor gate just beyond it.

I was waiting, I thought, for that final drum beat to the ceremony’s end.

My dance was over.

I looked forward to the nearing feast.

Then, something drew near,

Wait, what is this, I am thinking…

A massive energy,

Large, Old,

A grey haired woman,

She is giant.

I feel tiny, for she is stood right next to me.

My breath draws shallow, my senses suddenly keening.

The Cailleach.

The old grandmother spirit stood quiet and long next to me.

We now together lingered our gaze over the arbor, the ceremony, the dancers, the fires, the drums. Movement swirls all around us, but I am caught ever so still in her presence.

We are rooted, like the tree in the center, in some other, immoveable space.

I feel her age. Incalculable.

I feel her kindness, even in her wintry coolness.

Mother, Grandmother, Legend, Old Feminine Spirit.

I thought she’d leave me at any moment, that I’d soon loose grasp of her presence.

But then she spoke.

Loud.

Soundless, yet booming voice.

A simple phrase, she nearly just whispered, “I only roll my stones down hill.”

The Cailleach smiled then a bit. A little nonchalant shrug and nod. As she saw me receiving her wisdom for the ages.

Then, the drum stopped, and I was stood alone again.

That was October and now we enter July.

Nine months or so later, I have to ask myself if I have not forgotten the Cailleach’s visit.

Those seven words, a simple statement. No less a lesson to build one’s life around.

It’s coming back to me now, for one simple reason…because I’ve forgotten it.

Grown weary, been trying to push stones up hill, yet again.

You know, it only gets harder. Though there’s a logic that the more you push, the stronger you get, and the easier it gets. But this is not so.

Strength is not always in being able to push more, carry more, shove even more weight up a mountain.

Strength, if I am to grasp the Old Woman’s lesson…may be found in refusing to push those stones at all anymore.

Let them roll down. If down hill is indeed where they are trying to go.

What does that look like in practice? I ask myself just now…

First thing comes to mind…is saying the truth when the truth needs to be said.

Speaking truth means first allowing truth, no matter how I might feel about it. No matter how I may worry about how others feel about it.

…Like my counselor says, ‘say what you mean without saying it mean’.

And when the truth is:

I’m tired,

Or you’ve crossed the line,

Or made a mistake,

Or I’ve made a mistake,

Or that’s not good for you, or for me, or the world…

Well, then that is the truth.

The truth does not need to be fixed or modified.

How, in fact, can you fix Truth?

So many try when they find it is not aligned with what they thought they wanted or needed or how things should be.

We employ incredible strategies, devise games, bribes, even deceive.

Those are heavy stones to hold up forever.

And it’s been too long — me holding up more than a few rocks, against the pull of gravity.

It’s not that one must stop creating, stop helping, stop working.

It’s not that one must speak words, caring not who they hurt.

It’s that one must stop and acknowledge when life and energy are out of balance.

If compassion is lost and frustration is entering,

If the next step feels heavy,

If vision is tunneling,

If inspiration lacking,

An answer just not coming…

Then winter has come for a reason,

Stillness,

Stoppingness,

Returningness,

Retreatingness…

And only the Cailleach is wise enough to know how long this frost will last.

She who has been working with, not against, gravity for ages.

Align with her, and walk with a giantess, a legend, a goddess whose time is unlimited, and purpose as sacred and as whole as the seasons.

How many women have prayed, have asked, “how do I let go of burden and find myself again?”

“How did I arrive under all this weight, all this I’ve managed to lay on my back and carry? I’m tired, I’m heavy…God help me.”

That old adage, “I’ve been killing myself for [this]…”

[This] being a blank that can be filled in by a great myriad of life experiences.

There’s more truth to that statement than we’d perhaps like to believe.

And when the body hits where mine is reaching now, a few months from 46, that truth takes the shape of a reckoning.

When the Cailleach appeared to me in the arbor, she was not merely offering clever advice.

She was saving my life.

Telling me that it is my choice: sustain your stress or sustain your life.

Keep pushing yourself beyond your limits, and that cliff you will eventually spill over.

We’ve made it honorable as a society for women to kill themselves for the betterment of their family, community, workplace, etc.

And if I think of it now, every wise woman I know has met that fork in the road, where she starts choosing her authenticity over everything else. Some advanced spirits never gave it up in the first place, dance through life like a little sprite, but rare is she.

And it’s easy to interpret the message as a directive to drop all balls for good and checkout for a permanent vacation.

But I’m also reminded by the lore…The Cailleach never abandons her post.

Never stops protecting that hungry wolf,

Shifting Earth,

Laying frost when the soil’s been giving too long and needs a rest.

But just as she said, she throws her stones such that she need not push them uphill.

If it feels within her capacity to shift this, to press here, to move this over here, then she acts.

But if resistance is there, she knows it before hand, and doesn’t even bother.

She is the embodiment of balanced, wise

creating,

serving,

giving,

protecting.

She knows when to move in and when to withdraw herself.

She beckons me, as she does any woman fortunate enough to reach this point in life, but is feeling a bit worn down…

“You are tired child, because you’ve yet to learn how to carry. Walk with the old Chrone little one, and I’ll show you how to move Earth and Stone without growing weary.”

What am I…

A child,

She flies,

On the backs of fireflies,

Imagination spread wide,

Toes in the dirt,

Mouth corner touched by a dab of vanilla icing,

Leftover from some wild little person’s birthday celebration…

What am I…

A girlwoman,

Shy, a tad serious,

Points her toe, extends her arm, making beauty, trying on Art

A ballerina dancer, mending the child’s broken heart,

With every leap, plie` and bend,

Seeking to remember what it felt like,

That wind off the wings of those gleeful fireflies…

What am I…

A womangirl,

Books in hand, papers to write,

Confused, critical, cynical,

Thinking a lot, probably a bit too much

But life is real now, that child’s time is almost up…

Parties, pizza, the university lifestyle,

Cobain is dead, sleep is dead,

But Sex in The City sure is hot,

Its just now the 2000s, so no one yet knows how much

Zs could help,

Rest is still for wusses,

So she rather forays into Love’s confusing nights,

Adventure,

Escaping pressure,

Forgetting for a moment that deadline at end of semester,

Nice mid-driff, she can make a man smile,

Let her find out,

This is not the place where her worth will be found…

What am I…

A womangirl, a forgotten child,

Pump heels, nice suit, big title,

Richly unsatisfied, can’t figure out why,

Strutting success,

No man, no need,

They’ve proven rather expensive anyhow,

Perfectly single,

Homeowner,

Affords nice wine,

But there doesn’t seem enough of it,

To cover up this hole that keeps growing in my center…

Crisis hits,

Life has no meaning,

But then…

There she is…

No, no, no Cinderella, it’s Not Prince Charming…

It’s HER…

Riding in like a wild fire,

Clearing the way,

That little wild one,

White blonde hair a mess and flying,

Vanilla-icing donned,

She sails in,

On the backs of those summer lightning bugs,

Imagination and laughter roaring wide…

Here to fix all I that forgot…

Like, What AM I?

A Woman,

A Girl,

A Child…

Perhaps it will be pumps today,

Though likely not, not now that plantar fasciitis haunts,

More likely I’ll choose flats, but remember, the choice IS mine,

And I’ll let some vanilla icing coat my lips,

Because hell, why not,

Whether ‘put together’ or ‘all a mess’,

I’m my only real enemy,

And my one true friend…

I’m every step,

every idea,

every f’up,

heartbreak,

and every success,

I’m every change I’ve made in 45 years, for better or worse,

And every change my body faces now, welcomed or not,

Like all those wrinkles, that pesky cellulite that keeps showing up,

And those sighs that slip out,

Exhales unfiltered,

Oops, I forgot to care if you heard me or not…

I am a Woman,

Girl,

Child,

To love and hold,

To listen to,

To see,

To just let be…

With the past, the now, and the future all in my belly,

Even if it shall grow fat,

I’ll celebrate all that experience’s wisdom,

Because,

That - Is - Me

Woman, Girl, Child,

Loved, lost, forgotten, remembered, over and again,

Resaddling myself on the backs of my fleet of fireflies,

Yes, a bit wobbly at first, a bit unused to the ride,

But how quick I am remembering,

How I first arrived here,

And remain still to this day...

Totally,

Unapologetically,

Joyfully,

Unabashedly,

Free...

THAT is me.

Thank you for reading. You can further support my work by donating as a paid subscriber here and/or sharing with others. Have a beautiful summer weekend friends!

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~ Original Work by Sarah Hemphill Kudevoh, June 19, 2026

I’m here today, as I am more and more. At Double Oaks Inn in downtown Greensboro. This magnificent former home—turned B&B—turned coffee shop on the bottom floor / leased work space on the top.

It’s here where I come to focus, be creative, get grounded. It is my ‘office’— the place I arrive when trying my best to own this aspect of myself called ‘writer’.

As you know if you know me, I write most often about my own life. At first I didn’t know why. And I didn’t even question it, the little stories I’d publish about life on my Facebook page. Stories people, for some reason, tend to read and respond to in number. Making me realize over time that this pull I feel to scribble away on the page has some purpose beyond shear catharticism.

When I first started writing publically, I only wrote when blanketed by a ‘coming over’. Quite literally that is the best way I can describe it. This powerful need to write. Entering my day without warning. It is almost like a madness. I just HAD to write. NOW. And keep writing, until it felt done. No stopping, not even to take a sip of water or pee break!

Sometimes that is still how I write, but more and more I’m trying to deliberately make time to sit down and write, whether I feel that ‘coming over’, that hard push, or not. Thankfully I find, most of the time, if I intentionally open the door to inspiration she flows right in like a lady in waiting. It’s as if we are forming a more polite relationship, me and Lady Inspiration. One in which, instead of bulldozing me over in an announced arrival, she sits in the foyer and waits. Allowing me to decide when is a good time to for us to come together at the table.

And every time we sit down together, oh how I feel whole. I didn’t notice I wasn’t feeling whole before, but now that I do, I realize what a disservice I was doing myself by prioritizing other life ‘stuff’ over writing.

It is so nice to move like this, raptured by inspiration. Not questioning, just acting. No cloud of doubt in view. Absorbed fully in that creative river source of imagination.

I feel as if I rarely move like this outside the act of word smithing.

More often my movement through life feels stuttered, as I start then stop and rethink, then start and stop and rethink…tripping over, getting in my own way. And letting life’s many demands and challenges hold me back—These very things that often bear great fruit for my story-telling can also doggedly distract, carry me away from my capacity to utter a graceful word onto paper or otherwise.

But here, in this old home filled with powerful spirits of the past, I find my grounding again. Get undistracted.

I did not intentionally sit down today at a table under a photo of Fannie Lou Hamer. This was simply the only table left, and it is awkward and wobbly, and not actually a great place to try and write. But as I was sitting typing, trying to do so lightly to keep the table top from from wobbling, organizing my thoughts around which project I should focus on today, something said…“Look up”.

I’ve sat here and read the story beneath the photo before, but I read it again and lingered on that final quote…

“I’m gonna be standing up, I’m gonna be moving forward, and if they shoot me, I’m not going to fall back, I’m going to fall 5’ 4” forward.” ~ Fannie Lou Hamer.

Hmmm…I smile lightly as I look back at her photo.

What an immense and unsuspecting power sat right in the body of that little woman.

Then, another whisper came through my head…“Determination.”

And I knew it was the commandment of Inspiration to start writing today…and in doing so, start self-reflecting…

My efforts to write consistently are still more haphazard than I’d like.

But, they are also, upon reflection on the last several months, improving in their dedication. Haphazard yes, but consistently present too.

I know that it all comes down to owning up to one thing: how much do I value my own inspiration? How much do I believe in myself?

If this 5’4” daughter of a sharecropper could organize a movement that stood against the power of the day, that changed the democratic process of the world’s most powerful nation for better…then what exactly CANNOT be achieved by a single determined soul?

I could never compare my life challenges to that of Fannie Lou. All I can say is Thank You. Thank you Fannie Lou for hovering over me today, directing me back towards that eternal requirement for getting anything requiring some effort done…Determination.

There is so much in life that we cannot control. And this trips me up a lot. Becomes the source of mental suffering, even soul-level suffering. I can become cynical, and give up all rights to self-determination.

What a sin.

What a sin against the past achievements of women like Fannie Lou.

This woman faught with her life and won exactly that: the right to self-determine.

So let me not commit such a foul again. Most certainly not if I intend to show up here, beneath her image, as I open the door and invite back to my table this strange, mysterious, inexplicable creative source that feels lovely to dance with.

To just be able to tap into it, sit with it awhile, is a blessing I’ve taken for granted.

I feel as if Fannie Lou might shake her finger at me and ask: who am I to deny such a light in my own life, to stand in my own way and cover it over with the darkness of a cynical, distracted mind? Hmmm…no I think that I shall not commit such a sin any further. A cursed future only, it seems, that could bring. Or at the least, a far more boring one.

~ If you need a little dose of determination today, I hope my musings help lift you up in that way.

Thanks for reading,

Sarah

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I’m returning today to The Heart of Recognition to practice a bit of Lectio Divina.

Only a few paragraphs into the Introduction, a phrase says, “sit with me.”

“…freedom is not just the glimpse of our own Divinity,

it is the full merging with that Divinity.

The glimpse is part of the Grace that is calling us back home.”

What a definition of freedom.

In our culture today, Freedom seems so often to be aspired to as the means to do what I want. Buy what I want. Go where I want. Secure what I want. Freedom is experienced by having more and more choices, sometimes limitlessly so.

There is another definition…freedom from oppression. Which, seems inherently good. Justice. The lack of oppression means a presence of Love, of respect for any Other.

But the freedom to choose. Without Constraint. It makes me think of the kid at the candy counter—the story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. So much blissful choice makes one sick.

Sick.

Sounds sad. Sounds bad.

Except…dis ease…dis satisfaction…dis turbance…these are often the things that open the door for Grace. They carry in a time when something inside wakes and questions all this deliciousness, all this choice, all this money, all this opportunity, all this romance, all this ‘freedom’…all this I have and yet, I don’t feel Okay…why?

That is the call coming in…

For all my life, I’ve been glimpsing more than merging, as Swami K so describes it here. Abiding…remaining…fully devoted…married, consciously with Divine presence…these are masterful states. Personally, I’ve experienced these states only fleetingly. In mediation, or prayer, or ceremony.

I come out influenced, better for it for sure.

But without continual practice, like smoke once a fire dies down, it dissipates. Now, hungry and forgetful, at times I have wandered back to Life’s candy bar. Engaged in old patterns…feeling separate again…anxious…life gets hard and then exhaustion comes in, then, in the worst of times, despair. High on that candy, my response looks like grasping, problem solving, partially disassociating, self-medicating. Pressure…so much pressure I put on myself to fix it, make whatever is wrong right again. As if I had the power, too, anyway.

Healers say inner work is circular, spiraling, not a straight line. It is like an onion, rather, I’ve heard say.

We heal a little bit, peel away a layer of discontent and delusion, only to discover yet an even deeper layer underneath.

Don’t feel bad. You’re not the only human with a big ole onion you are slowly peeling away at.

(These are words I’m writing as much to myself, mind you.)

My heart feels a bit sad today. Has felt so for many days now. I’m missing loved ones, some of whom are literally far away and others the nearest to me, yet the furthest away in some other sense.

What does a sad heart need?

Tender attention.

First and foremost from its owner.

And The Heart of Recognition says to me: Rejoice. Rejoice in your sad heart rather.

For it rings out with the bells of Grace, calling “loved one, come back home.”

…

Thank you, Mathew Krepps, for the gift of this sacred book.

I’ve been working most mornings now for about two weeks on re-reading The Heart of Recognition in a Lectio Divina practice. I’ll be offering some of my meditations with my lovely readers here, in a new series simply titled ‘Meditations’.

If these speak to you, I highly recommend ordering your own copy of this sacred teaching on the ancient Tantric Sutras of the Pratyabhinja Hrdayam. Perhaps read along with me and enjoy the practices that are included with the book.

And if you can, please consider becoming a paid donor by clicking here…

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Truly, it is a bit too warm for early Spring. But I’m relieved the cold weather is behind us. Even as I worry for what kind of summer this early spring heat wave beckons.

I wonder today…what would Jesus say about the weather if he were here in the flesh in 2026? Would he comment about how unusually hot it is? Would he criticize us for how we are treating our land in this industrial age? Maybe he’d try to set an example, trade in his fuel-based engine for a Tesla. I don’t know, though, that seems a bit too flashy for the man who rode into town to meet his martyrdom on the back of a donkey. No, my guess is we’d see him moving round on a bicycle, using public transportation. What better way, in fact, to join the ‘least of these’ in their daily struggles?

My pondering down this thought line continues…

What would Jesus say about the wars raging around the world right now? He was certainly known for calling out evil and corruption. Would he also be worried about the high gas prices? About the shipping crisis in the Straight of Hormuz, the markets, the economic instability? Or would he simply cut through the noise, scolding us all for thinking of anything other than the human beings suffering at the hands of corruption, incompetence, and extremism, all married up to power, wielding the mighty hand of the nation state?

It’s a tricky thing, being a follower of Jesus Christ. This man, who never once preached violence or revenge.—“Let you who have never sinned cast the first stone.”—A man who indeed rode that donkey into town, when he could have ridden a steed in order to make his final statement on the eve of his death.

Yeah, tricky indeed. As I don’t imagine Jesus would spend much time worrying about the things I too often think about… like the fees associated with my Amazon Prime account and whether I could get that thing I need cheaper through Walmart’s delivery. Like my credit score rating and borrowing power. Like the crazy high price of owning a vehicle or a home these days.

What was that you said, Jesus…something about a camel entering the eye of a needle before a rich man enters the Kingdom of God?…hmm…quite a conundrum indeed, living and participating in this consumer society, yet trying to follow such a humble teacher, so untethered to the material.

As I contemplate Jesus again this weekend, his life and his teachings, and his death, this thought hits me today: “You know, he could have just run away.”

Jesus, a prophet, with the power to foresee, knew his betrayal and death were at hand. So rather than ride that donkey into town, he could have ridden away, off to some other land.

Hidden himself away. Changed his name — a lot less paperwork to deal with in doing so in his day! He could have gone to work at a regular job—carpentry, fishing, farming. Jesus could have lived out his days quietly as Jesus the regular guy, enjoying the simple joys of a layperson’s life. But he chose not to.

This man, who preached so fervently against our fears, those impulses that have us grasping for material certainty. He was also not for hypocrisy. Clearly. So he let his faith in his calling carry him straight into a most gruesome and public end.

Absolute humiliation and annihilation.

Or so it seemed, as Jesus famously uttered those last words on the cross, showing his own struggle with doubt. “Why God, have you forsaken me?”

“Why God?” …How many times, do you think, God has heard that question uttered?

I know I’ve personally asked it a few times in life. Why God?…Why this?…Why me?…It’s not fair, God…

And in my seeking, here I am, revisiting this old Easter story, told over and again by countless pastors, priests, and ministers through the centuries.

I’m sure you certainly don’t need to hear it again. But, here you are too, still reading…so maybe you are a little like me…finding an old story quenching a still present thirst. Timelessness, that is perhaps a key hallmark of something true.

I took Max to the Easter service on Easter Sunday. I had to first fight myself to get up, get us ready, and get us out the door in time. Attending Sunday church services is not part of our regular rhythm, for better or worse. But I was glad that I made it through my own mud, if for no other reason than to witness Max’s elation throughout the service.

At one point, as we stood for a hymn, Max turned and placed his hand over the heart of a young man, about 16, just behind us. As is always the case, the young man received Max’s gesture with a mixture of surprise, uncertainty, and grace. He smiled back at Max in the sudden exchange, a smile I sensed was more vulnerable than the youth typically allowed the world to see. I then guided Max back around to face front, before he could go all in for the ‘bear hug’.

It came time for communion, and I considered skipping it in order to remain safely out of sight of most the congregation. It would be far less anxiety-enducing to just quietly sit in our pew near the exit of the sanctuary. Max makes such an impression in any crowd, in particulary in a church crowd. To usher Max down the isle to the altar, to help him hold out his hand, dip his chip in the wine, direct him hand over hand to place the chip in his mouth and recieve the blood and body of Christ, then walk with him all the way back to our seat, passing all the curious faces watching Max…it all means that I too must be willing to be seen… whilst also worrying about keeping Max on task, following protocol, not veering off on his own agenda, not taking over the whole service as his own personal concert.

My whole life, Max and I have been doing this dance in public as siblings.

You’d think I’d be more comfortable with it by now.

Being uncomfortable…but doing it anyway…

Max is the one who has given me the courage to do anything in life that feels uncomfortable, vulnerable, risky.

Witnessing the pain, the disability, the constant physical, mental, and life challenges that Max encounters has given me an up close view of just what a human can survive. We can certainly survive far more than we think.

Max’s walk is also a constant reminder that life is precious, not guaranteed. Too precious to waste, always sitting in your comfort zone. Its true, perhaps you are less likely to experience failure in that zone, but I think you are also far less likely to experience the wonder available in this world.

Failure.

The thought of it seems as distasteful as death. For some, even worse. Death, as far as we know it, merely brings an end to anything we can know. But failure brings a new beginning, one that we all know usually starts with shame.

That wretched emotion is such a common bedfellow to failure. Despite the fact that failure is also the seeding ground from which heroines and heroes emerge, carrying forth wisdom, a demonstration of the potential for transformation, for rebirth. Yet I know no one who has ever said, “I can’t wait to fail!”

I know the feeling of failure, of shame, personally. I imagine most do, if they're honest.

Max’s example has encouraged me out of that place of self-indulgent doom and gloom time and again. With his sense of humor and his other great gift—his faith.

Max trusts life. Max could have a seizure right now, will definitely have one anytime in the near future. We never know when, just that it will happen. Or when the next respiratory infection will pop up, next pneumonia, next fill-in-the-blank-here that will land him in the hospital, threaten his life again.

I worry all the time about these things. But Max is not worried. Not in the least.

He’s laughing in the other room, in fact, right now as I write this. Focused on living the moment with glee.

And when he does encounter illness again, he will not get angry, will not lose his patience. He may frown more than usual, but I’ve also seen him laugh in times of crisis. A couple of years ago, I watched Max charm the ICU nurse's heart, as she monitored him through a moment of tricky heart activity caused by an infection gone septic. Here we are, all gathered round his bed, worrying in the middle of the night for his life, as Max just smiles at the nurse, enjoying sharing with her the next song on his YouTube playlist.

Suffice it to say that Max endures suffering with incredible courage and faith. Like Jesus in his last hours, Max faces it all head-on. No denial, not a vengeful thought, no blaming. He seems to know that everything, including suffering, has its end. That is the mercy we are given, not a promise that we will never suffer, just a promise that nothing is permanent.

So Max just goes through with it, rather than waste energy on resisting or cursing his reality. Perhaps the very reason he has the strength to survive his trials, time and again.

So this Easter, as I turn again to hear this old story, to Jesus’ final teaching…

I find in the wisdom of it all this advice: don’t hide when Life comes calling.

The calling I’ve always struggled with most is being Max’s sister. Max’s only sibling. When Mom and Dad leave us, Max is left with no other family to watch over his wild life, but me.

I could run from this truth. Have in fact tried. Only to find I could not leave behind my own shadow of grief over life’s unfairnes…my own big, “Why God?”… No matter where I go or which hat I try to put on to hide, that shadow followed me. And the healing, the reframing, the understanding, the blessing…could not begin until I turned to face it, to walk through it.

In his death, Jesus demonstrated a mastery at facing life’s most daunting tasks with grace. Perhaps this is why he left such an extraordinary impression on this planet, one that still lives on all these 2000 and some years later.

I dare say Max is a master as well. Inspiring his small hemisphere of people to remember the choice we have in how we face the unthinkable.

For us amateurs, we will likely struggle with such sweet surrender the whole of our lifetime—for many lifetimes, perhaps. Resistant we are to the pain ever present in this strange, unfair and often violent world.

Strange, unfair, violent…but then, appearing right along with it is that smile, that glee on my brother’s face…his hand, placed compassionately upon a stranger’s heart…and the next sun rise…the next chance for reemergence, redemption, repair, reconciliation, rebirth…

I’ll end here with this Easter contemplation, thanking Max, yet again, for making me see it this way, for drawing me ever closer to the good wisdom for how to live out our days, letting joy in, and ushering cynicism out.

It is the summer of 2017 in Arkansas, and the Ozarks are experiencing a heat wave.

I am a couple of months into my resident apprenticeship at Circle Yoga Shala.

As an apprentice here, yoga is not something we practice on a mat very often. Rather, you are invited to see it as a way of doing. Doing what, you might ask? Well, everything. From emptying the compost toilets, to feeding the chickens, to cleaning dishes after a meal—everything is an invitation to practice mindfulness, presence, connection.

Yoga pants are thus a very impractical attire here. And though I brought all of my Lululemon’s, within a week after I arrived, they migrated to the bottom of my drawer never to surface again.

Almost every day in this precious year of my life begins by waking, shimmying down the ladder from my loft bed, then stepping barefoot outside to skitter round the corner and relieve my bladder in the outhouse.

As soon as I step out of the door of my one room cabin I am acutely aware of my feet hitting bare earth.

My cabin, a roughly 10x10 wooden structure, has a tall triangular ceiling that provides just enough space to sit upright in the loft. Here, I can sit and stare out the big picture windows, viewing all the happenings of the Shala at once. From the gardens, to the horse pasture, to the outdoor pavilion, to the main house. Like a bird, I have this perch to rest and watch all the comings and goings and workings.

My cabin has no plumbing. But it has an attached outhouse with a compost toilet. Nearby, is the barn, now converted into group sleeping quarters with a full community bath house where I wash up. In the barns upstairs rafters is the studio and teaching space.

It perhaps sounds rugged, and life here is, but it’s also beautiful—and full. There is rarely a dull moment here. The Shala’s 25 acres are completely surrounded by ancient Ozark mountain wilderness. Behind my cabin is the dirt road that brings you onto Shiloh Mountain. Beyond it, a vast forest. A few feet from my cabin’s front door is the large strawberry patch covering almost a quarter of the gardens. It makes for a beautiful front yard, but is also nice oasis for the healthy snake population in the Ozarks. Hence, why I am watchful every time I cross the threshold of my cabin door and step onto the land.

I have landed here after embarking on an enormous life change at the age of 35. By at least 10 years, I’m the oldest apprentice to inhabit the Shala. And probably one of the most Type A. Before coming I sold my business suits, my heels, my furniture, and my cute house in an up and coming neighborhood in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina.

Many people, in particular my parents, think I’ve gone completely mad.

She’s lost it…

I would wonder sometimes myself if it isn’t so.

But after settling into the rhythm of life here at the Shala, I’ve no doubt in my mind—if I was mad to be here, then this madness was a great gift upon my life.

In exchange for living here and receiving dedicated support from my teachers in that age old process of self-contemplation and personal transformation, I have brought along my decade of experience in marketing. My primary contribution to the Shala would be a campaign to raise $35,000 in donations. A goal that, thankfully, we more than met. I would return a few years after finishing my apprenticeship to step into the brand new building that I’d helped make manifest.

But these are the early days of this story, and I’m still just trying to find my footing on this new journey.

To give you an example of how NOT dull life here is…On the second night in my new tiny cabin an incredible storm blew across the mountain. I braced myself for death, as I felt sure I and my little roof would soon be swept away by the winds or set on fire by the lightening bursting bright, loud claps of white light into my loft.

As you can see, I fortunately survived unharmed.

A few nights later I laid in bed, bracing againg, as I listened to the sound of a large animal digging in the earth around my cabin. A wild boar, a bear? Or coould it be—no surely a mountain lion wouldn’t make so much noise—would it???

Whatever it was, my dogs sleeping just below me on the cabin floor made not a sound. Strange—these loud mouths always bark and shout at any critter who dares stir in their territory. So I listened further to the rustling of this mystery creature just below my window, wondering why the dogs were keeping so quiet, getting ever more nervous. Finally, I crept quietly down from the bunk to the cabin door, double-triple checking it was closed and locked well.

A week or so later, a late spring rain lingered over Shiloh mountain for days. It pounded the grounds, loosening the soil around my cabin, which sits at a low point on the property. The day the rains and fog finally clear, I step out of my door and take just a few steps before I notice something curious. A large stone sticking up out of the earth. It is solid white, smooth, round. There is something unusal about this rock. Curious, I take my fingers to the dirt. It doesn’t take much to loosen the earth and extract a fully intact bear skull.

In the lodges and medicine wheel ceremonies I’ve been in with my teacher in North Carolina, the Bear holds the medicine of the West. West is also marked by the color black, representative of the void, the Great Mystery, the dream time. A black cloth is tied symbolically to the West side of the lodge where we pray to mark the West gate.

These ceremonies and thier teachings were a gift, inherited by my teacher from Joseph Rael, a Ute and Tiwa Native American mystic. Every time my teacher leads the lodges, she takes careful time to pass on the symbolic teachings. She always reminds us of the 7 sacred directions—East, South, West, North, Above, Below, Center—forming the container within which we speak our prayers, representative of the cycle of life and death and rebirth.

The West is said to be the placement of our adulthood, our dreams, of physical manifestation, and physical healing. It is given the archetype of the Bear to symbolize the art of introspection. The bear reminds us that right and good action is born from taking our time to go within, to dream, to sit in the darkness of the void, where all potential has yet to take form. It is from this place of introspection that good, benefitial actions can arise.

I placed the bear skull on a small altar that I kept in my cabin for that year. When I left the Shala, I considered taking it, but then thought, No—It will hold the spirit of the West for the next soul who chooses to sleep here.

So, as I say, never a dull moment at the Shala on Shiloh mountain. And now, let us come back round to this mid-summer heat wave where I began…

The strawberry patch outside my door has been harvested of all its fruit, but the rest of the garden is bursting with abundance now. Each day work is done to process the greens, the tomatoes, the cucumbers, the okra, and to plant seeds for the late summer and fall crops.

Many mornings I walk out of my cabin after pulling on a pair of jean shorts and a tee shirt, tread barefoot (careful of where I step) to the chicken coop. I fill up their grain feeder, their water, and collect any eggs. If Holly or another apprentice hasn’t done it, I’ll throw hay and fill the horses buckets with grain. And always, without fail, I walk up to main house to brew a cup of coffee and sit a spell on the porch before tackling the rest of the day’s work.

June was a busy time at the Shala as we hosted a month long residential yoga teacher training. Now, as July’s heat sets in, the bustle of many bodies moving around the land has gone, leaving a quiet sigh over the mountain.

We’ve entered a short period of reprieve before more training weeks and weekends begin. But, as I have already learned, it is rare there’s not a new or old comer stepping foot onto the farm, bringing with them some new energy, maybe a new adventure, to our days.

Larry, an old friend of the Shala’s founders—my teachers Matt and Holly Krepps—is staying with us this week. Larry is a real life cowboy. He sports so naturally his boots and big brimmed, white hat, as if they are a mere extension of his weathered skin and easy going, country character.

Larry is a cowboy and a horseman.

His work is training horses, though it could be said it’s often the people he is training to be in right relationship with their horse.

Holly, in addition to being a mystic, yogini, counselor, medicine woman—there are many terms you could apply to her, perhaps the simplest is ‘wise woman’—is also a horsewoman. And throughout my year here, I would most acutely learn the art of self-observation, mindfulness, and presence through two mechanisms. One, through Holly’s teachings in the horse pen. And second, through the act of witnessing her run the Shala’s operations. I witnessed an active and powerful wisdom every day in the ways Holly responded to the constant flow of this place, a land that had grown to have a life beat of its own, an enormous community of teachers, practitioners, seekers, always coming and going. Watching her, I learned the art of being truly present with reality, as she responded to a life that could easily feel like chaos, if it wasn’t for her graceful capacity to embrace everything and make it somehow part of the Shala’s magic.

Not once would she and I sit down on a yoga mat or a meditation pillow that year. If we sat down at all, it was on the front porch of the farm house. Sometimes we sat in silence as we decompressed from a whirlwind of activity. Sometimes we sat in laughter. Sometimes we sat and discussed fundraising and other business plans. And sometimes—many times—before I’d even realize it, we’d be sitting and talking quietly, as she waded me through the waters of that eternal work of self-seeing and healing through wisdom.

At this mid-summer juncture in these early days of my apprenticeship, I can just sense it—what’s confirmed, in brighter details, as the years pass long after I leave the Shala—that grace is blessing me with this dedicated teaching from Holly—and from her horses.

And right now, at this moment of the story, Larry is here with us as well, giving an impromptu week-long workshop in horsemanship—for free out of the goodness of his heart—to me and the other two apprentices residing here on the farm.

Daily this week, in this dusty Ozark heat, we’ve been stepping into the ring with our teachers: Larry, Holly, Szwarte`—Holly’s enormous black Friesian stallion, Honey—rightly named for her honey colored body and blonde mane—and the quite precocious, black and brown Morpheus.

We are learning the basics of leading and commanding a horse. As Larry talks to us about how to be leaders, trusted partners, I’m astounded by how relaxed the horses are with him standing in the ring guiding us. What I know of this band of horses is not this relaxed, easy going herd standing before us in the ring with Larry leading.

Earlier in the summer, I’d taken on the task of moving hay from a pile high in the pasture to the area where we compost. I had little relationship with the horses at that point, beyond occassionally throwing feed or petting them when they’d stand by the fence. As I hiked it back and forth from the top of the pasture, to the gate, to the compost pushing my wheel barrow, the horses ignored me for a long while. But after a few trips, they grew curious, and with Szwarte` in the front made their way to the hay pile.

I tried to play it cool, as I attempted to load more hay into the wheel barrow with their large bodies moving around me. But it became clear, they were not interested in giving up anymore of their hay. They would move into my space as I tried to rake it up, forcing me to move to another place to gather while they started munching. So as I finally got my wheel barrow filled and made way back toward the gate, I thought—mmm, perhaps this should be my final trip.

My three little dogs, two beagles and a bossy little min-pin chihuahua mix, had followed me to the Shala.—Short interlude here…I had adopted these dogs from the Humane Society. Never intending to take on three, but lets save that story for another time. Regardless, they had become my little family. Had seen me through a really tough heartbreak, a move, all my stresses in my job. And my original plan was to let them reside temporarily with my parents while I took on this apprenticehship. But fortunes shifted that.

In the fall of 2016, a couple of months after leaving my job and starting to transition my life, I spoke with Holly and made an agreement to begin an apprenticeship that January. I was in the process of selling my home by November, when my brother Max started undergoing screenings for cancer. Before Christmas hit, he was diagnosed with stage 3 colorrectal cancer at age 32.

Max, if you don’t know him already, is my only sibling. He is nonverbal, has a seizure disorder, chronic asthma and pneumonias, and a profound intellectual disability.

So, instead of starting my apprenticeship that January, I stayed in Carolina to help my folks see him through his treatments. I thought, no problem, I’ll reach the Shala by early April. But for anyone who has had cancer or cared for someone going through it, you also know what I didn’t at that time, Cancer rarely agrees to your life schedule.

By April, Max had his surgery to have the tumor removed. He came out of it with an illieostomy bag. And what was supposed to be a few days in the general hospital turned into a whole month in the ICU.

I was there at his bedside when, 48 hours after the surgery, Max started puking his guts up. I watched in horror as the residents on call navigated a tube down his stomach, with nurses penning him to the ped, as they attempted to manage the flow of bile coming up. I was there to sign the papers a few hours later, allowing the ICU to intubate him onto a ventilator.

I was there when they put in the feeding tube in after it became clear Max was suffering from malnutrition from days of not being able to eat. For the whole horrid event, I was there. Bedside, trying to speak for Max, to help the nurses and doctors as he faught hard for his life.

When I reached the Shala in late May, after he’d finally made it home, I was seriously sleep deprived. Traumatized from the pain I’d seen Max in, and the fear we’d endured that he may not survive that horrible time. My whole life I’d been fearing this moment in Max and my lives. This moment when my parents started to age, and could no longer be Max’s only bedrock of support. This moment when I knew I’d feel compelled to step in.

Ironically, when I left my job in marketing to start this spiritual journey, I’d convinced myself that I should stop fearing that future. Should just live my life freely. I convinced myself that Max was OKAY. And that I was just ‘catastrophizing’ about a disastrous future for his health.

To this day, as I write this story now, I’m still working through the ripples of this moment when it hit, as if God were laughing at me for my naivety—for my gaw to try and step out of the shadow of fear and believe all could actually go well.

But right now…at this moment in the story…I’m walking down that horse pasture to the gate, pushing my wheel barrow of hay with the horses following me. And my little dogs, who’ve been having a big ole time romping round this farm ever since we got here.

I am a bit nervous, very aware of the horses following behind me, very aware of the dogs running round, but, I tell myself, everyone seems to be relaxed—so just relax. There’s nothing to worry about here. Then, quite suddenly, I hear the sound of heavy hoof beats galloping behind me. And I turn just in time to see Szwarte`, that massive black stallion, with his mane flying, speeding towards my dog Delila. Delila is quite deaf. And as she happily trots along with her tongue dangling, does not here the falling feet of death about to overtake her. The whole scene lasts only a few seconds, and I watch in horror as Szwarte` tramples Delila.

Delila squeals as his front foot hits the center of her back. Then, faster than it started, it’s over.

And my eyes can’t believe it.

Not only is Delila, this 20lb little old beagle, still alive…she is still trotting along. Freaked totally out, of course, her eyes wide and ears penned down…but she is alive and all out running for her life now…apparently unharmed.

We have nearly reached the gate, and I exit quickly then close it behind. Szwarte` has stopped his gallop some distance away. He stands and watches us now. The dogs have all skirted under the fence to safety.

I leave my wheel barrow. I am shaking. Thinking, ‘Is Delila really okay??’

I march to my cabin, calling the dogs. I get everyone inside, and sit on the floor with them. They are their usual selves, just piling over each other to get close to me. Delila doesn’t appear to even have a bruise. She shows no sign of pain.

After a few moments of pets and face licks, I’m calm, relieved the trampling was not the disaster it had appeared to be as it was happening.

And I was awestruck—This elephant-sized horse had enough control over his gallop and steps, to make what looked from the outside like a deadly blow, just a harmless, cautionary tap.

I left the dogs now in the cabin with some water and the window AC unit running loud.

I stood outside my door for a long moment, looking back at the pasture. The horses had returned to grazing. I was not done with moving the hay. I was scared to re-enter the pasture now. But, I thought, ‘No. I’m not going to let them bully me.’

So I got behind my wheelbarrow again, slowly re-opened the gate to the pasture, stepped inside, and began my march back to the hay pile.

Swarte` is between me and my destination. He lifts his head, watches me stoically as I near him. I look him in the eye briefly, defiantly, then keep my gaze on my path. I take care to make a wide birth around him, but as I pass he turns from his grazing spot, and falls into step beside me.

I try to act cool, but I am nervous to have this large beast walking so close to me. But we walk together anyway, and I do my best to be nonchalant. As we clomp along, out of the corner of my eye, I began to take notice of his demeanor. Szwarte’s head is hung low, and he walks next to me slowly, almost gingerly. I realize, his posture seems to be saying, ‘there is no harm here…I mean you no harm.’ He’s just strolling alongside sheepishly almost, as if we are old pals.

I glance over at him now, curious. This is not like the horse that had just trampled my little dog in a knightly gallop. I catch his eye looking sheepishly at me through his thick black mane.

“I’m sorry.”

I could hear him say it, despite no words being exchange.

“I’m sorry. Do you understand why I had to do it?”

And I did understand, almost immediately what he meant.

“It’s okay, I understand. I forgive you,” I say it out loud to him.

Szwarte` looks again at me, and continues to walk a few more steps beside me. He seems satisfied with my answer, happy I’ve heard him. And now, he moves away, veering off casually in another direction.

Just as the many people would come and go from the Shala, dogs were also frequent visitors, and often became residents. Some showed up from out of nowhere. As if they’d heard there were kind people on the mountain top who would feed and shelter any strays. And I had watched, all summer, as two of the largest dogs on the property, a wolf-dog and his calico coated-half-wild buddy tormented the horses in their pasture. Those two rascals had been in trouble with their humans here more than once, for entertaining themselves by pretend nipping at the horses legs, and barking at them. It created quite a scene, and sent a few of us running outside at times to stop them. The horses though were their own best defenders, as they kicked and stomped in out right defense of themselves when the dogs would predatorily circle round their flanks.

And Szwarte`, as the king of this herd, had every right to let all the other four-leggeds know who was the boss of this field.

When I reached the hay pile, the horses joined me again, attempting their little game of seeing if I’d let them boss me about. This time, I did not capitulate. If they came too close, I’d gesture with my rake and my body, saying matter-of-factly, “No, this is my space.” Soon satisfied with that answer, they got bored of their game and left me alone to do my work for the remainder of the day.

That was a few weeks ago. And now I stand, on this morning, ring side where Larry and Holly have guided the horses from the wider pasture into the round pen.

I am trying to absorb their wisdom, before the mid-morning sun hits and the heat brings an end to our time in this dusty, open-air ring.

To understand their teachings intellectually is one thing. But to mirror, to embody Larry and Holly’s presence with their horses, a presence which magically turns even King Szwarte` into a willing follower—well this is quite another trick to master.

When it’s my turn to step in and take the lead, I’m sweating. Yes, in part because of the heat but also because I’m nervous. And I quickly get frustrated with myself. I am anxious, desperate to mirror Larry and Holly’s ease with the herd. This translates, of course, into minimal success actually gaining their cooperation.

My failures in the ring, as failures tend to do, swing open the doors to seeing myself more honestly. We can deceive ourselves, and others too often, but we cannot decieve the horse.

The action of yoga is, perhaps in its simplest form, the action of seeing one’s true self in action—which creates more choices for us…in how we connect, relate and respond, choices that we were previously blinded to. Turning our attention inward, looking through the many layers of mind, is an almost invisible act, as it happens behind skin and bone. It is yet so real. The result of which, isn’t quite a change, but is more like an arrival. And even though we have no way to photograph it or point to the arrival destination, others around us can sense when we’ve landed. Sense when we’ve entered that calm, steady center that sits, eternally and patiently waiting, behind that complex and masquerading human mind.

Maybe it’s not so quick getting there. Maybe there are layers of emotions and experiences not fully digested that, we must pass through, as we travel on our way. But I don’t know anyone who has tried whole heartedly, and not eventually found their way in. Into their own Center.

Some might call this place ‘soul’. Others, ‘breath’. Others, our point of connection to our Maker. This place is also called ‘Center’ on the Medicine Wheel. And call it what you will. All I know is that when, by the assistance of Grace, I managed to finally ‘stand in my center’…to ‘move from my center’…it was only then that I found a deeply connected line of communication and cooperation with the horses.

Now, the funny thing about finding your center is, for all the effort it may have taken to arrive here, before you know it, you’ve completely lost it again.

So each of these days in workshop with Larry, Holly and the horses all started the same for me…First, I’m begging myself to find that place. Second, I receive feedback from the horses that I am clearly not there, as they remain dismissive and uninterested in working with me—until, boom, suddenly I find my way home, I know I’ve arrived because suddenly I would also find a willing partner for the dance in the ring.

I look back on this week of my life, and am ever more aware of this strange two-sided nature I was embodying then: this great desire to be a horsewoman like Holly, to be in relationship with the horses and have them want to be in relationship with me—and yet—this crippling fear that I could not shake of them.

A fear so great, that despite my excitement over the opportunity I was being given, it was like moving through mud to actually show up for the lessons. To pull on my jeans and boots, stick my hat on my head, and walk out to the ring each morning—this was an act that required moving through so much resistance mounting from somewhere inside me. Once the lessons got going, that resistance would fade. That is, until it was time to step into the ring. Now, I faced a challenge beyond just showing up. Now, I had to lead.

When my turn came to work with the horse, I would in the ring, step towards Szwarte`, give him a pat, and look up at the shiny black head towering above me. Will he cooperate with me today?

What I eventually came to see, is that it was not a problem that I felt fear. The problem was that I had no relationship with that fear.

My first instinct was always to dismiss it—‘Oh it’s just a little bit of fear, surely a natural reaction to being near a powerful animal.’—The mind can justify anything.

But Szwarte` would quickly let me know how futile this strategy of dismissal was. He’d veer from my directions, take his ever sweet time to respond (if at all), and sometimes completely ignore me, moving to seek attention from others. He knew, despite the fact that I held the lead in my hand, his weight was far more than mine, and he had no problem throwing it around the ring.

Fear—like anger—like envy—is a powerful, often subconscious response. And it is a physiological one as well.

It is not a misty emotion that can simply be wiped away or pretended past. Though how well and good we are at thinking it is just that easy.

It was not until my experience standing in that ring with Szwarte, that I realized that for all my 35 years, I had been trying to wipe away, pretend away a very real terror that walked around with me everywhere I went.

I had become so used to being fearful and blowing right past it in haste, that I’d forgotten that I was even afraid. I had learned to put on blinders, to stop feeling, to disassociate—anything—but turn around and just stand still with my terrorified mind.

As Holly says, the horse is a mirror reflecting back to us our inner state. Allowing us to see what is beneath whatever face we’ve learned to put on in order to masquerade to ourselves and to the world.

Shocking. This is the word I would choose to describe what it feels like to see, for the first time, a pattern of subconscious energy you’ve been carrying your whole life, singularly unaware of how it frames and affects your whole experience of living.

Our blind spots are deliberately hidden, designed to be so—this is what is taught by the Sacred Enneagram, another part of my studies at the Shala. Which posits, that one’s learned pattern of survival is not wrong, but is a bit like getting stuck on the good road and not seeing your full capacity for thriving. Our stuck mental and emotional patterns are covered up, yet with a nice secure blanket, which we wouldn’t think twice to discard. Until life hits us with something that shakes up, wakes us up, gets us wondering what the point of all this experience is anyway…

Why is so much of own mind—the subconcious—hidden to us deliberately? Many ask this question.

The Tantric Yoga Sutras give the best answer I’ve heard. The Tantrics believe that God created humans to be dense, disconnected from our origin, so that God might forget Herself in us, simply for the sole benefit of experiecing the bliss, the grace, of rediscovery.

Today, nine years after standing in that ring, I still remember well the look in Szwarte`s eyes when we worked together. Those mischievous, deep black eyes looked at me squarely but softly, with a hint of humor, and a deep empathy radiating out from some vast well within him.

And I heard him, though again, no words were spoken.

The conversation between our souls went something like this…

Me: “I’m afraid, and I don’t want to be afraid, but I cannot control it.”

Szwarte`, finally giving me his devoted attention: “Thank you for finally being honest. Can you speak to why you are afraid?”

Me: (nearly in tears suddenly) “I don’t know. Holly has taught me everything I am supposed to do, and I know if I just do it, everything will be fine. But I’m still so afraid, and I’m disgusted with myself for this.”

Szwarte` peers out at me with a gaze that seems far more intelligent than animal, “why are you disgusted with your fears?”

…Unlike in talk therapy, we skipped over the long explanations, the explorations of the many reasons. We spoke not of the many ways in which life had broken my heart, had taught me to be a ‘fixer’, had taught me not to rely on anyone or anything but myself…because of my belief that everything is going to hell in a handbasket all the time..so better not Trust in anything.

Yeah, we just zoomed right past all of that and got right to the core…

Me: “because I have no faith in life.”

Szwarte`: “Bingo.”

Me: “I have no trust that anything, much less all, will be well. And I have no hope of being truly worthy of you—of being worthy of anything or anyone other than everything going wrong all the time. So I seek to fix things before they break. I seek control so I can feel safe. I will validate, I will capitulate—do anything that might allow me to pretend to be in relationship, while in truth I am keeping a wide distance from you. I have so many ways of going about life, but rarely does involve placing faith in myself or anything else.”

Szwarte`: “Yes. It is true. And yet, here you are…loved and seen…and here you are…you are loving, and you are seeing. You are trusted, and you are trusting.”

Me: Relaxes my body, drops down out of my head for once.

Szwarte`: “Are you ready to work now? What is your command for me?”

And just like that, this great, un-moveable beast fell into lock step with me. And I, in not rejecting any part of myself, in particular that disgusting and irrational fear, moved in lock step with him.

The fear never disappeared, but like a person holds a small child to their breast, I learned to hold it with care, discovering at the same time I could move from a different place—a place of hope, of self-worth, and compassionate strength—a place somewhere deeper in my body than where my fears reside.

Holly recorded me working with Szwarte when she and I had a few 1-on-1 lessons with the black stallion later that summer. The before and after videos were incredible. When she showed me the before video, I could see plainly my stiff posture, my hesitation to get physically close to the horse, jolty movements—everything I was fighting to to hide was right there in plain sight in my posture!

In the after version, filmed once I’d finally owned, yet again, my anxieties without trying to banish them—revealed a dance between Szwarte` and I. Our bodies close in trust, movements smooth and flowing. Connected, rhythmic, reflecting a clear and equal partnership.

It was just the beginning of ‘the work’ for me. That short summer in the ring with Szwarte` remains a beacon. A place I return to time and time again.

As I learn over and over, through failure and rising, and failure and rising again, how to move through life dancing into and with my fears, and then outward, from my whole self, grounded in Love, and in my Center.

Entry 3 is in the works and coming soon. It is currently called, “Love Knocks, will fear or faith answer?”

Please support my work by Subscribing. It’s free! But you can also become a Paid subscriber, helping to sustain my publishing. A portion of the proceeds earned from my blogging this year will be donated to The Rose Angel Foundation, established by Holly. The foundation rescues and rehabilitates horses sent to the slaughter pipeline.

The holidays came to a swift end. 2025 turned its last moon, and regardless of my intent to enter 2026 with slowness and gentleness, life has poured in. A fast moving current of this-and-thats, demanding responsiveness with haste, have already swept us.

January’s epic winter storm hit just days after Mom called to inform me we were under audit by the state Medicaid offices. Audits happen on occasion, as Medicaid seeks to ensure we’ve crossed every little ’T’ and dotted every little ‘I’ in the vast world of paperwork we are legally required to maintain, so that Max may receive caregiving services. We’d just barely returned from the holiday visit with Mom and Dad, cleaned house, and unpacked—thinking now we’d settle into a nice routine, as the soccer season was poised to kick back into gear and my husband was ready to whip his boys into shape after their winter break. But instead, I found myself running preparedness plans for how we’d handle losing power for days during the coming freezing temperatures. We watched news of the weather and the State of Emergency announcements pour in. All while I gathered our documents, preparing to scan novels worth of information to send the auditing section of DHHS’s disability offices.

In the midst of this madness, we got some good news. Duke University Neurology called with a surgery date for Max. We’ve been trying for three years now to get him in for a Vagal Nerve Stimulator implant. Similar to a pacemaker for the heart, this little device intervenes with oncoming seizures. We’ve scheduled and had to cancel twice for the surgery, stymied by other health issues popping up at the last minute for Max. They say the third time is a charm, though, and we are hoping it is. The ice had not yet thawed, and many were still stuck at home, but as January was nearing its end, we made it out of our driveway and had Max back in the process of weekly visits with his hematologist. Through the saga of the VNS surgery, we have learned that Max has a condition that drives his blood platelets too low. Thankfully, there is a treatment for this. Max is going in weekly now for an injection that stimulates the bone marrow to make more. As of Friday, his bloodwork showed he’s now above the surgeon’s threshold for a safe procedure. So we hold our breath that this week, Max will make into and out of a successful surgery.

Life — it can get you so busy living it, you’ve precious little time left to prepare for its last act.

When Max and I arrived to join he and Mom in Florida in December, I was thrown into an initial sad shock to find Dad as he was. It had only been two months since we had last seen him, but the particular challenge that had only begun then was now clearly spiraling into a daily burden. For the preservation of his dignity, I won’t go into the details of it all. I know he would not agree to any public disclosure about his state. In truth, I’m sure I’ve already gone too far, at least in accordance with some past version of his mind.

Dad valued my writing. In recent years, he encouraged me to write a memoir and advised me to work to get published. Of course, at the time, he’d no idea that his final years of life would generate such a bereaved section of chapters. He would have angered even at the suggestion that it might. And despite his encouragement of my writing, I still remember one comment he made to me a few years ago: “You are very vulnerable in some of the things you write.”

I could see him struggling with this fact. On one hand, he understood this was part of the gift within my words. On the other hand, I could see, peering out through the scrunched-up lines on his forehead, those many generations of hard, quiet stoicism. A posture passed down through both sides of my family; heavy is our blood with those British Isles and northern European influences. He was working out, in that moment, an attempt to reconcile my willingness to be an ‘open book’ with a belief system that vulnerability was a weakness. To his credit, he seemed to get through it relatively quickly, maintaining his support for my writing, even when it shed light on hard topics and personal struggles within our family.

My Dad was my first writing teacher. The first and only creative writing workshops I’ve ever attended were given by Dad. During summer breaks at the college, where he was a professor, he hosted a small handful of us youngsters. I was very young then, so I honestly can’t even recall exactly what he taught us. Whatever it was, it must have taken hold and kept my thoughts and fingers flying all these years later.

It was also my Dad who came to my classrooms early in my youth to share the art of storytelling. Both my parents were educators, united in their passion for supporting young people in their developmental progression. Before he entered education, Dad’s mastery of language and writing led him to consider a career in writing. During his PhD years, he was encouraged even by his professors. It wasn’t long ago that he told me the story of his moment of decision about which way to go. He and Mom married before they finished undergraduate school, and I was born as he was finishing his doctorate at Florida State. The pressure to be a stable provider is what determined his path. I could see, as Dad told me, that he wasn’t regretful about his choice, but a little bit sad. He was okay with the sadness; it was the price he had to pay to ensure his family could eat.

Perhaps that is why, after I threw caution to the wind nearly a decade ago now, and walked away from my good job to pursue a wild dream, Dad has never quite forgiven me. Even when it became clear that my choice had inadvertently positioned me to take on my brother’s care in a time of crisis. My Dad and I have tried hard to reconcile our differences over my choices. But given the extremity of those choices, and of the stores of unexpected storms life has brought us through ever since I decided to truly live my one, wild life—well, it’s a miracle that Dad and I have managed to remain friends at all. And I’ll admit, there were many times, in particular when we were all in trapped lockdown together during Covid-19, that I wasn’t sure our relationship would hold.

But what I learned about my Dad these last few years is that more than any choice I may have made, what mattered most to him was to remain in relationship with me. To have me close by, to enjoy time together, to be a family as much as possible.

I am very fortunate for Dad’s willingness to stretch his imagination far, to make room for me and my wild bents, no matter how much they challenged him.

I never wanted to hurt or anger him with my choices. And part of our strife has been my own internal struggle between the guilt of feeling I let him down, and my obstinate determination to live a heart-first life no matter what.

One of our biggest beefs, besides the fact that I threw away a lucrative career path, has been my choice of husband. And it was my hope that once my husband finally made it through the snares of our legal immigration system and arrived here in the US, this would reconcile. And it has.

Dad had already begun to find it within himself to support our unusual relationship—an American and Ghanain couplehood, solidified by a wedding ceremony so far across the world he had to watch it on a Zoom call—but there was still an outlier of doubt, until they finally met in person. Son-in-law and father-in-law, face to face.

Dad has just barely held onto his mental capacities long enough to meet my husband and get to know him. What my father would love most, I’m sure, is to share a beer with Wonder, to travel to Ghana and see a new culture, to show Wonder ours, our mountains, to teach Wonder to fly fish. He would watch with great interest as Wonder made a homemade fishing rod, and they would love to spend hours swapping knowledge about soccer and basketball, talking politics, talking life—probably over a few shots of Dad’s favorite Scotch…

But by the time Wonder got here, Dad’s ability to speak was all but gone. So he welcomed his son-in-law with a firm handshake and a warm, but silent gaze.

When Wonder arrived the first of June 2024, Dad could understand most of everything we said, even though he struggled to respond. So we had a bit of time to get him passionate about the Premier League and Real Madrid, and expose him to some Ghanaian food dishes that he really liked. And he’s shared the wonders of the trail with us, through the myriad of backpacking documentaries on YouTube that now fill Dad’s afternoons.

As we enter into 2026, I’m no longer so sure how much Dad can understand. Over Christmas, I would speak to Dad, and it was often clear he wasn’t processing what I said. He tries to maintain his polite, present gaze and follow, but it is getting harder and harder. He gets confused more easily now. Struggles to follow basic commands when we try to help him with something simple, like changing his shirt. It is so much work for him to process and respond to life that he often has to lie down and nap after just a few hours of wakefulness.

I feel like we’ve not had enough time.

The wait to be a complete family as we went through the immigration process with my husband was so many years long, made more painfully long by COVID, and then a backed-up immigration system.

Wonder was supposed to arrive here sooner. We were supposed to enjoy many happy years together as a whole family. How many years I spent looking forward to that time.

To say it’s been completely lost is not true, but the rich relationship my father could have had, that he held out hope for having for so long, despite his initial doubts about my choice of man—well, it feels like something precious that has been stolen from us by time.

In America, we like to claim that whatever you dare to dream you can make come true. If you just work hard enough. If you just remain dedicated enough. Hate to be a Debbie Downer, but I’ll categorically raise my hand and give you my family as an example, illustrating that this is just absolute and utter bullshit.

The truth is, we are limited. Even in America. Between our own ineptness and the barriers and forces outside of us that are so much bigger than we are. Which come in so many variations…Poverty. Cruetly. Ignorance. Disease. Disaster. Corruption. Disability. Death…suffice it to say there is a long list of potential kill-joys standing between any one of us and our wildest dreams.

Luck. Privilege. Support—without these forces, no amount of will to work hard will overcome the vast forces of misfortune.

Cynical. That’s what you are thinking of me right now.

But, read on dear reader, as this is not a chapter that ends with a statement that you shouldn’t ever dare to dream.

Cynical I may be, but I do still dream myself, despite all that I’ve seen go sideways. If I were so cynical as to stop dreaming, then I’d give up writing this entry and go spend my time doing something I feel more assured someone might find of value.

I have grown up watching my father respond in the face of his own lost dreams. Having a son like Max meant my father lost all his dreams of what being a Dad could be. He wrote a poem about it once, about how he had to wrestle with the grief that his son would never excel in school, sports, career, or life the way he wished his son would. On top of that, Dad would go on later in life to never be free to live a life without the burden of caring for his son.

Dad shared his poem at a support meeting for families who have a child with a disability. I was a child myself then. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen my Dad speak with more vulnerability in a public setting.

But the proof is there: Dad can be vulnerable too. He also used his gift of writing to articulate experiences that he and others needed to have articulated in order to heal.

In fact, Dad is the only family member who ever had the courage to talk to me when I was an adolescent about what had happened to Max. I was so young I could barely remember the incident that led to Max’s intellectual disability diagnosis. And I was in about seventh grade when I first started writing about my experience as a sibling to Max, for a school project.

Dad helped me. He shared with me, with a matter-of-factness, more of the facts of Max’s early journey after a disastrous seizure disabled him. Dad did not hide his dislike for the past, but also shared it with a sense of acceptance. He was a safe space for me in that way. For most of my life, he has been like a wise best friend. Even when it was more difficult for him after I entered into my second half of adulthood on a real wild streak, he still tried hard to be an emotional support, even if he disagreed.

Sometimes it hits me, out of nowhere, that this is who and what I’m losing as Dad’s mind fades closer and closer to the edge of the veil.

I pulled out a T-shirt from the drawer he gave me just the other day. A shirt sporting the logo of the Snap Dragon, a funky little restaurant in downtown Burnsville, NC. The restaurant’s story brings together Dad’s love for history, sailing, the mountains, and good beer all in one vibrant social setting. I wear the shirt all the time, but for some reason this time, as I put it on, all the memories of enjoying a meal and a drink with Dad at the Snap Dragon washed over me. I had to sit on the bed for a few moments and sniffle, as I struggled with the fact that these are memories of a time that has passed us now.

So yeah, Dad has shown me, with a straight eye, life can be total shit—and that even so, it’s still up to me to work hard and make something worth writing home about come true. Even if that something isn’t the dream I started out with, before I knew what I know now.

Dad seems to still be carrying on with that attitude.

He can no longer go on the long backcountry hikes that have been his most constant source of recreation. But he’s not given up being on the move just yet. His one bit of joy, his one final act of independence, is now to take off without notice for a short walk around his retirement community. He doesn’t invite anyone to go.I guess I also inherited from him that desire for solitude when walking. He goes out at least once a day. And so far, he always finds his way back. However, I recently learned that if not supervised, he may put his shoes on the wrong feet. And I thought, well, good for him for going anyway.

At New Year’s, two of my girlfriends and their boys - in total six little males between ages 3 and 11 - joined us. For the first time in years, I found myself hosting a house party full of so many people that you couldn’t hold your focus straight for even a minute. And it was SO MUCH FUN. The best part for me was watching Dad light up. The boys’ whirlwind of energy enlivened us all. I’m as grateful for that brief moment of exhaustingly good joy and seeing my Dad caught up in it, as I was bereaved that it was only a moment. I saw in that moment more life than I’ve seen in Dad in some time. It was truly a wonderful way to end a year of heartache. I wanted to somehow capture the moment and hold it in a container for Dad, but almost as soon as they arrived, our friends departed, and the time of celebration ushered us too far away from Mom and Dad.

Life gives us plenty of chances to grieve, and it doesn’t seem to be letting up with any such opportunities. But if I’m to honor Dad in my own walk, as he fades slowly away from us and makes me miss the old days of his health, I think the way forward is to try and hold the paradox he held so well—to be a little bit vulnerable, to be a little bit sad, and, to be a little bit tough enough to shrug off the hard knocks and just go on with it and create a new dream.

I never witnessed Dad pity himself. He continued to wake every morning, get his coffee, balance it with his briefcase, then usher us out the door to drop us at school before he went to work. He set sail upon his Flying Scott on weekends. Walked the trails. Wrote. Advocated for Max and those less fortunate than he. Enjoyed his glass of whiskey, maybe a bit too much and a little too often if we’re honest—but then again, time is coming for us, so why not enjoy what we’ve got? Even when it’s total shit, there is something in the richness of it all, something to take in as precious.

Dad stands at the threshold between life and death now, just teetering. And yet I’m way back down the stream, getting caught in the river current of life and its many unexpected bends. I am nervous about the state Dad will be in when we see him in just a few short weeks, as spring break is approaching. And I have to watch myself, as I tend to get ahead of the process, and start to fear what is to come as if I know.

This gift of writing, my Dad gave me. It is a good way to pull myself up out of the current of life and thought, and sit down on the shore a moment—just look around and get fully present with all that is happening. Here, I can take a breath, take a moment to grieve what is gone, and summon a way to appreciate what is being given.

This metaphor of the river reminds me of another skill Dad gave me. One of the coolest camping trips he ever took me on was an overnight trip down the Dan River in his canoe. Dad was a skilled navigator, in the water and in life, and he shared his knowledge with me. I’m lucky, not everybody has a Dad like that they can count on. When I see him next, I’m going to make sure I thank him, for we know that if I wait any longer, it may be too late.

Date: October 21, 2025

In two days we step into the arbor and light the fires for the Animatrix Fire Dance…a women’s medicine dance.

Tonight, I took Max to his horse riding class at HorsePower Therapeutic Riding Center. This 7pm Wednesday night class is always a haul to get to, but Max loves it, and I do too… just being here.

On the outskirts of Greensboro and High Point, the riding center is a peaceful expanse of rolling acres. Here, about 15 to 20 therapy horses live and work. They work with kids and adults with special needs, and also a group of veterans healing through PTSD. My brother, Max, has been riding here for over a decade. For just the last few years, I’ve been the one bringing him to his sessions. And recently, on occasion, my husband subs in and brings him.

My husband is infinitely strong and fit, and scares away the toughest of criminals when he simply walks down the street—and he fears horses. Max is underdeveloped, a fall risk, not in the least bit a ‘tough guy’ by appearance. And Max has no fear of horses or much else, for that matter.

Max was just a wee thing when he first rode bareback in the Special Olympics on his partner horse, Moe. “Whoa Moe”…” Walk on Moe”…two of just a handful of phrases Max has learned to speak in all his 40-some years of life.

I love horses too, though I’m a far less experienced rider than Max. Like my husband, I also fear them a bit too. These massively powerful animals who could kill us with a few kicks, yet, for some mysterious reason allow us to not only be near them but command them, ride them, work them, and learn from them.

Tonight I wander from the riding ring while Max is in his class, as I often do, around the grounds of the farm. The sunset over the horse pastures and forest beyond is always a sight worth taking in. This late in October, all that’s left of the sunset by now is a dash of quickly fading orange spray juxtaposed above the black tree line in the distance.

I amble into the center’s huge barn and indoor stalls. There’s a horse in the first stall—Willie—as announced by his name plate. Willie is much to into his well-earned pile of hay to give me any attention beyond a head turn. He spies me only briefly before returning to his dinner. So I wander on past and look down the line of stalls. All are empty…except…maybe there at the end?… I take a few steps forward, peering through the long line of black bars extending up from the wooden lower halves of the stalls. Then I can see that, yes, at the very end is another being.

As I near the stall of Azteca, the call of an owl floats in from somewhere in the distant tree line. “Hello Azteca,” I say to the large rear end of a sizable black horse. His head is also in his hay—dinner time is not the best time to gain a horse’s attention, unless you’ve food on you, and I’ve none. So I assume this will also be a short-lived interaction. But, to my surprise, the midnight colored beast, who curiously has a large plastic covering over his eyes, suddenly moves to approach me. He makes a half circle, bringing his nose and eyes to me first. He sniffs my hand as I offer it through the stall bars, then moves a couple of steps and halts with his shoulder now in my front and his body as close as possible to the stall bars.

As I reach my hand through to pet his shoulder and neck, it now dawns on me how large a horse he is. His shoulder is as high as my own tall gaze, sitting at about 5’9”. I pet and scratch and feel the warmth of this gentle giant, standing stoic and still except for the occasional head turn to look back at me. I’m surprised and thrilled to be allowed so much audience, especially given that we’ve never met before and he has all that scrumptious hay behind him. But the minutes tick on. My arm even begins to tire. And the owl continues its haunting calls from the dark forest outside.

At some point, Azteca turns and brings his head close to me. As I rub his nose and the front of his neck, he rubs his face against the stall wall. “This thing over your face,” I say, “I’m sorry it must be aggravating.” The cover is dusty, and though I can see his eyes peering back at me through it, I can tell it must be difficult to see out. “You probably would like it if I could remove that. I’m sorry, but it looks like it is protecting you so you can heal.”

By now, I’ve worked out the cover’s purpose. It is protecting an IV line that is inserted into his forehead. The line runs down through his braided mane, where the end, the location where medicine is injected, dangles. I think to myself, gosh, this must be tough to keep clean and keep in a horse. Max went through a year of difficult and recurring UTIs in 2023, a couple of which landed him in the hospital with sepsis. By the end of the year, the infections would not respond to regular oral antibiotics. Because of that, I’ve grown quite comfortable giving Max antibiotics through an IV line—called a PIC line—at home multiple times a day. Shew, the memory of all that makes me shudder, and I say to Azteca, “I’m sorry for what you’re going through.”

The owl is still hooting, and now we can hear its partner responding from afar. Occasionally, Azteca points his head and ears towards the barn door and holds his massive head high. “I hear them too,” I say. In the distance, another horse in the pasture outside neighs. I wonder, are they talking to the owls? It seems as if.

Now, a family of one of Max’s fellow riders approaches with two young girls. Though they come quietly, gingerly, Azteca pulls back joltingly from me and stands facing them directly. His swift movement scares the young girls a bit, and their Grandma says, “We’ll leave so he can relax and let you pet him, poor thing, he was clearly enjoying that.” But I think he’s not unwelcoming them; it’s just that with that face barrier he struggles to see, and must reposition himself to discern well who and what has approached him.

“He’s really friendly,” I say, “I think he will let you pet him.” Almost on cue, Azteca returns now to my side, offering his whole right flank as easy petting territory. I rub his neck as I motion for the girls to approach. Their mom helps them find the courage as the littlest gal worries that he might bite. Their little hands stroke Azteca’s side a few timid pets, and then they are done and headed back to the ring to watch the riders.

I stay on for quite a while longer, stroking and petting this magnificent horse, praying that whatever ails him will heal in good time. Finally, as if he sees how weary my arms have become, he leaves my side and returns to his hay. I thank him for his attentive and compassionate company. “I needed that as much or more than you,” and bid him good night.

The owls have gone quiet. I wonder back to the riding ring. It’s the final moments of class, and Max sits tall on his mount, Trader, delighted as ever. Max missed many of his sessions last year and the year before due to illnesses, hospital stays, a major surgery, and the long recovery. But here my brother is tonight, against the odds, with a big smile sitting upon his horse. “Cowboy Max”. I’m so used to this being his story now, as I’ve been witnessing his miraculous existence all our lives. Such that I forget to wonder at it myself, until I’m around folks like the young adults volunteering tonight to support the riders.

Max is quite sturdy in his saddle, but each rider is assigned ‘side walkers’ and a horse leader - all volunteers - to ensure everyone stays safe in the ring. We are so grateful for these people, the small staff who work hard to keep this place running, and the horses in particular.

After he dismounts, Max’s side walkers congratulate him and tell him goodbye. Their zeal at Max following their prompts to ‘tap to walk on’ and ‘high five to turn left or right’ is sweet, and it fuels Max’s joy. For some reason, since Moe, Max has never spoken his horse’s name or given the verbal commands ‘walk on’ and ‘whoa’. So the stand-in for a verbal ‘walk on’ is a tap on the saddle.

Before we leave, Max gives the young man who walked with him a hug. Max’s hugs. They are famous. They can make a grown man cry — and always touch, actually pierce is the better verb, all hearts who witness. One of Max’s caregivers has even given him a shirt that says “Hug Dealer” on the front. So perfect.

Like the horse, Max speaks volumes straight from his soul. No words required. Just a gaze and a presence.

I give Max a high five and “good job, Cowboy!” as we head back to the car. Max smiles his beautiful smile and I feel happy for my brother. As we drive home, the impression of warmth Azteca left me with—something like the sensation of having been truly seen by another being—stays with me. It strikes me how much Azteca reminds me of another great black horse, and a lesson he taught me that I am still learning, years after I first stepped into the ring with him.

Entry 2, “Szwarte”, coming soon…

At the same time, it is a collective ending. A time to celebrate another year on planet Earth coming to a close, bringing with it a time to reflect on what has passed, and to dream of what we wish to come. Perhaps for many, it is simply a moment to be grateful that one has even survived another calendar year in the flesh.

This past Sunday, I sat in my mother and father’s Methodist church, here in Leesburg, FL at the 11am service. Max and I attended to support their joining. We witnessed them being made new members in front of the congregation. Mom stood alone because Dad got confused about why he was being summoned to the front and said, “You go.” We sang the Christmas hymns throughout. Then listened to the sermon as the pastor recounted the faith required of Mary and Joseph when the angels brought the message to them—that despite Mary’s virgin status, they were to be the new parents of God made in the flesh.

It was a well-delivered sermon on the meaning of incarnation. A good message, even for us agnostics. But I struggled to focus. The imagery of a pregnant mother, a soon-to-be baby boy, a new father—it all felt so very far away from the reality my family faces at this moment.

It is dying…not birthing…not dreaming of a lively future to come…that rests on my mind this Christmas season. The task that faces us now, as my father slides further and further away from who he once was, from the man I’ve always known him to be, is not about living well, but about discovering how to help him die well. How to help he and Mom somehow pass through this in-between space, one that feels more like purgatory than a passage way to the divine infinite.

Despite my distraction, the pastor did say something that pierced me, just before communion. He spoke of how, even nailed to the cross, dying such a painful death, the not-quite-yet-dead Jesus took time to care for his mother in her despair—took measure, to give her comfort in her grief and dismay, even though the pain he must have felt in that moment was beyond measure.

The example spoke to the internal struggle I feel in this season of my father’s life: how to be outwardly compassionate despite my own grief and anger over the circumstances that life has dealt my father. And thus us, who are swiftly becoming his caregivers. How do I smile outwardly, comfort my father and my mother, when my emotional body obsesses over the new hardships Dad’s dementia presents them with almost daily?

Max, my younger sibling who has an intellectual disability, lives with my husband and me now. He has taught us about the things Dad is passing through…The growing inability to verbalize most thoughts, to tie his shoe, to quite remember how to dress or bathe properly, and how to be anywhere but precisely in the present moment. To speak to Dad about past or future, even the minutes just a few mere moments away from RIGHT NOW, is becoming increasingly useless.

Max has been training my family and me my whole life in caring for someone with a cognitive disease. Yet, we were so very unprepared for this moment.

We become hysterical, rather than clear-headed, as we witness Dad retreat from the strong, intelligent fatherhead of our family towards a childlike state. Ever closer it seems, as the months pass, to that unseen doorway that brought his soul into this world. And we find it difficult to accept that things we would typically do as a family together are quickly becoming out of reach.

This summer, we thought it would be a grand idea to take a innertube float down one of the infamous rivers fed by Florida’s many natural springs, which surround Mom and Dad here in their retirement community. My father loves the outdoors. He taught me how to paddle, command a canoe, and sail a sailboat. Since he can no longer do these things, a passive ride in an innertube down the springs’ river seemed like a good compromise. That is, until the moment he had to get into the tube and into the water.

Unfortunately, this moment came after we’d taken a little tram full of other families from the state park headquarters to the river, then stood in a long line on the boardwalk to reach the get-in ramp.

Once we reached the front of the line, we still had a long line of people behind us, anxious for their turn to get into the water. The pressure to move quickly was upon us. And before I knew it, my 75-year-old Mom was trying to get herself and Max into a tube and into the water. “Mom let me help!” I exclaimed. I jumped into action then, helping Mom into her tube, and zoom—she’s floating away. Okay, now Max is in his tube, zoom—quickly floating away. I go quickly in after them.

As the current carries me away from the onramp, I turn my head back to see how Dad and Wonder, my husband, are managing. And I see a new crisis emerging immediately. Dad doesn’t understand that he has to turn around and sit down in the tube in the water. Even though he’s watched us go before him, he suddenly seems confused and afraid. Wonder is trying to explain and show Dad, who is becoming increasingly stressed and uncooperative.

I look back down the river now, where Mom and Max are floating along alone, but calmly. Far enough away to be blissfully ignorant of the commotion Dad is making at the onramp.

I have a decision to make, and in an instant I jump out of my tube and begin swimming with it in tow, against the current, back to the dock to help Dad. At the same time, a woman from the line behind us (God bless her) steps in to help.

My Dad is about 6’2” and over 200 lbs, and my husband is about an inch taller and also very solid and strong. Dad is resisting, the lady is encouraging, then suddenly I witness Wonder literally lift my father off his feet enough to sit him down in his tube, as the lady tries to support. I’ve reached the onramp now, just in time to catch Dad’s tube with him resentfully in it, as it begins to float away from the ramp. I immediately start to reassure him before he can flop out of it.

He is stressed, annoyed—anything but thrilled to be in the water. And the crystal-clear water is deep, and moving at a good clip. It’s now that my mind hones in on a warning the park service gave at some point in the little safety talk during which we were signing our lives away at the checkin counter: only confident swimmers should attempt this float trip.

“Can Dad even swim anymore?” I ponder.

All my life, my Dad has been strong in the water. It hadn’t occurred to me until that very moment to question whether, along with the other things he is losing his ability to do, could he also be losing his coordination in the water?

This river gave us no option to pause upon this potential revelation. A swift current, and private property and forest all along the banks were all that was between our starting point and the park’s get-out point. And so, we floated—for two and a half hours.

I spent much of that time reassuring Dad, keeping him from trying to get out of his tube before we reached the get-out point. The get-out point. Which, for some ungodly reason, the park chose to place right in the bend of a very swift-moving curve in the river.

Not only did this create a near disaster for our family, but for others as well.

Once we reached it, the one bit of mercy was that no one else was in our front and we had plenty of space to navigate up onto the ramp out of the water. So I got Dad out, with quite a deal of distress, but successfully. Then I turn around—just in time to see Max floating on by us, no concern whatsoever on his face at all that he’s missed the get out ramp. Wonder had been tending to Max as I was tending to Dad, but given Max’s complete disinterest in helping, the shove Wonder gave his tube to push him to the onramp was not quite enough.

The sole park staff stationed there on that ramp, is now offering Max a paddle to grab hold of, but he of course ignores the offer. So I take a running step back down the ramp and as I do, the slick floor takes me. I land on my ass, hard, and slide on my butt into the water—just like a water slide ride at a park. No time to care, I start swimming in the fast water to catch Max before he’s gone around the bend. Thankfully I get to him and grab his tube.

The park service has strung a rope in the water between a tree stationed waterside at that sharpest bend of the river and the off ramp, clearly anticipating many folks would get caught in the current and miss the off ramp. Holding Max’s tube in one hand and gripping the rope with the other, I pull him back against the strong current.

“Gosh damn,” I’m thinking, “what if I didn’t lift weights?…what if I cut my feet on these jagged rocks I’m pushing against?…who cares, just get Max out of the water!…” so goes my train of thought.

With Max and Dad both safe, and Wonder having gotten himself onto dry land, my hubs and I now find ourselves supporting this sole park staffer — this young woman doing her best but who’d been given the lone duty of manning this exit ramp — in retrieving others from the river. For several minutes, it seemed every time we turned around from helping one person struggle out of the water and up the slick ramp, here came another.

The stream of human beings coming off their nice, easy-going float, only to discover the final moment of exiting the river was an Olympian feat, finally came to an end. Now, it was time to march back to the car.

It was then, on those final steps of the journey, that my Mom finally lost her cool. She’d stayed positive the whole float, even when she’d accidentally tupped herself out of her tube whilst trying to help Max, and then struggled for some time to get back in it. But when Mom learned there was no tram coming to rescue us now and we had to WALK back to our cars—well she’d had it.

“There has to be a tram coming!” She almost shouted the proclamation as she sat down on a bench, refusing to march on. Even as others kept going and passing us by, she kept insisting that a tram just had to be coming. Surely no one expected her to walk from that point on.

I stayed with her, waiting for the apparent sugar low to pass, encouraging her that it really wasn’t much further. Finally, she surrendered, and we made it back to the car on our own two feet.

There, I found Wonder, stressed from trying to keep my Dad and Max in line while they waited for Mom and me to catch up. “Your Dad tried to get into some other people’s car!” Wonder whispered to me as we opened the trunk to get our towels and snacks out. I could only respond by shaking my head. We were alive. We’d kept my parents and Max alive. Our National Lampoon-style ‘relaxing summer float’ had narrowly ended without injury or death—so what was left to say at that point?

For days after that trip all I could think about was how incredibly mad I must be to willingly go out on a river—or any body of water for that matter—with my two 75 year old parents, one who has dementia, my brother with IDD, and my African-born husband who, though incredibly strong on land, is not at all a confident swimmer.

“I must be in total denial of reality,” was what I kept thinking.

And I was. I was so used to my Dad being the hero of such outings. Being the champion of such outings, that even after watching him be hospitalized three times with brain bleeds—extended strokes basically—seeing him lose his speech, and then, little by little, his other cognitive faculties—even after all this, I still just thought of him as my Dad. The same adventurous, physically strong, intelligent, mountain man, writer, photographer, generally good guy, and teacher—who could sometimes drive me crazy with his long and winding dinner table orations.

He was and is the one person I’ve always relied on. The person who carried us through the many emotionally challenging years of Max’s life, never giving up on living well. Despite the traumas and complications that Max’s health carried us all through, Dad hiked, backpacked, sailed, continued to exercise, maintained friendships, kept his interests alive, and engaged me in all of them. He did it all while, like all of us, battling the heaviness of depression and anxiety—the unavoidable toll paid for a life lived up close and personal with Max.

I can be a cynical person. I’ve witnessed life’s plentiful capacity for cruelty and pain as I’ve watched my little brother fight for his life from the moment he was born. This has created in me a tendency to imagine all the possible problems that MIGHT occur in any circumstance. Like I’m trying to get ahead of any surprises, creating a plan for every situation that COULD spring up.

As such, I’ve spent much time, since childhood, anticipating the responsibility of caring for Max, knowing it would fall to me as our parents aged and passed on. Seeking a salve for my own anxiety and grief, I’ve turned to meditation and prayer, studied the wisdom traditions, trying to learn how to surrender—how to lean on faith--things that don’t come naturally to me, but that I practice embodying daily--sometimes I do it well…sometimes not.

So I’m certainly no master, but I thought I was a pretty smart apprentice of faith—thought I’d learned to accept that life is uncertain, that it can be at least as cruel as it can be beautiful, and that dying is the inevitable last moments of living.

But yet again, as ever, I’ve been humbled by the cruel side of Creation’s vast imagination. Shown once more my own weakness and invincibility. Because I’m so very heartbroken as I witness what is unfolding for my father.

A disaster that comes before is perhaps rarely sufficient preparation for one that can come next.

Denial…grief…anger… It’s all there in my chest and in my head. Like old friends you thought you had outgrown, I reluctantly visit with them again this holiday. I have thus, in no way, joined Jesus in his capacity to face, with such immense faith and compassion, the cruel truth…not of death…but of what one faces in the dying.

Pain reminds me: it will not cease for as long as the soul is incarnate in the flesh. It is a part of living. And it is a part of dying. And its limits know no bounds. It is the heavy price paid to experience the brief moments of joy of being made tangible in this world.

Believe him to be the son of God, a wise prophet, or neither—Jesus’s life story and lessons benefit greatly those of us seeking to learn how to live and love in the face of great pain. I wonder if his message could be deduced simply to that: If you are afraid, be generous and compassionate to all anyway. If you are hurting, be generous and compassionate to all anyway. Why? Because there is no other real pathway to experiencing joy than to love. And love is the only thing that pays dividends in this strange world we live in—that is, if you are playing the long game and care how you will feel about your living once you reach the last moments of dying.

At least, is becoming apparent to me as I watch Dad’s process...

I don’t know how much of what is said in conversation Dad understands anymore. All I know is that when we are all together as a family, bantering, laughing, or even just sitting quietly, I can see the light of love in his eyes. And it is the only thing about him that I still recognize.

I cringe every time I see him stand and shuffle his feet so unassuredly. It’s hard to believe how this man, who has traversed so many mountains ahead of me, even into his early 70s, now, within a short couple of years, finds it difficult just to navigate around the house.

And I ache every time I notice his unkemptness, and realize, yet again, how completely unaware he’s become of his appearance. Can this be the same man who used to scold me as a young girl for going to school without first running a brush through my hair?

But I harken every time I witness how much he still so clearly loves being with us, his family, all together in one place.

Dad has lost almost everything now, but he still has his love for us. Nothing else matters anymore. Not his finances. Not the news. Not even his own cleanliness. (Though a word to the wise: please invest in long-term care insurance for the sake of your loved ones!)

So now, it truly is all down to love. And thank God, Dad can still feel it. And still knows us.

I’m steeling myself against what could still come with Dad’s condition before death, as I remember so acutely the way I found his mother, my Mamaw, the last time I saw her. She died from dementia. Before she died, she passed through a horrible phase of utter madness in the lockdown of a memory care unit. But after that, she became not quite but almost comatose and was docile, peaceful as a dove. The last time I laid eyes on her, her eyes were closed; she wore a diaper; her hair was a mess, and she looked not at all herself. I sat next to her in her wheel chair. We were in the dining hall of her nursing home, where a little choir sang Christmas hymns to her and other residents.

It was December, some 20-plus years ago. It was unclear if she knew I was near, but her face was turned upward with a smile as she sang incoherently along with the music. Her intellect was all gone, but the light was still blazing within her. I knew it was my last moments with her, and I let myself be glad to see her as happy as an infant listening to the music, as if it was as soothing as a mother’s voice.

Will it go that way for my Dad? My prayer is that it ends before that, for though he has lost much, the man has not yet lost his pride. It kills me to see him at times anxious or humiliated.

I want to protect him from more of that. But I know it’s not within my power. So...perhaps I’ll just keep remembering Jesus comforting his mother from his position nailed to a cross and dying. Dad is still giving us that too…working so hard to preserve himself for us, to give us a sense that all is well and his love is here for us—always, steady…A father’s love…carrying on infinitely…even when his mind and body are failing.

Yes, I think that is why I’ve been writing all this down...seeking to whittle down yet another story about that age-old moment of dying into a truth that somehow comforts...to remember that under all the pain and disappointment of the incarnate in it’s fleeting...love is yet at work, stubbornly clinging on until it lays claim to the final word.

“I am the sum total of every decision made by all of my ancestors.”

Okay, yes…go ahead and laugh at me…because this is indeed the kind of random, wild thought that comes up for me shortly after that initial burst of caffeine—and God surely only knows why…and it is pretty funny!

But really, y’all, join me here in it for a moment…Because it’s not just me!

We, each of us alive today, are a unique and individual consequence of 1000s of generations who share our DNA and the decisions they made—good, bad, indifferent, consciously or not.

It takes my breath away, truly, to think…just how much went into the making of little ole Me…and of this moment, right now…

And of You—right now—this very breath you are breathing as you read this…

And of the world—the micro and the whole of what we were born into, and living through…

Amazing to think how the decisions made by ancestors who lived 1000s of years ago and half way around the globe from where I am today…still ripple into mine and your beingness, and our lived experiences.

So then, the next thought that arises on today’s cup of coffee’s thought train is, and bare with me now—as we are the sum consequence of our ancestor’s decisions, we can not also then be liable for them—Though, we all like to take pride in the great things our ancestors did, as if we can wear their goodness like a cloak of our own significance. Face not the deeds that caused harm though—at least, it seems a good many would prefer to look the other way.

No…not liable are we…not responsible for nor owed any credit.

Because we are each a mere, perhaps even random consequence….of 1000s, perhaps millions of unrelated decisions, made in a moment by so many ancestors of both recent and long ago. We and our circumstances were created in that way…and what we have inherited, in our bodies, in our talents and weaknesses, and in our world…it was all created without ever asking any of our opinion…

Some of us got lucky in what we inherited. And yet many did not. We have psychopaths amongst who have inherited great wealth and power, and saints who have inherited poverty and war…

So, perhaps it is not our ancestors before us and their choices for which we truly bare responsibility. How can we? I think our responsibility is much more timely than that—it is to the evolution of those circumstances, as we layer onto the past the choices that we make right now.

Gone will be our bodies, quite soon in the grand scheme of time, but our choices…those we are not making in some vacuum. Like a small pebble thrown into water, every one will ripple on—to those living now, and to those who come after.

We are in that way, no different and no less liable than our ancestors for the world as it is being created.

To ignore or to face…to prioritize or not prioritize…to fight for or to not fight for…to care or to not care…to believe or deny…to throw away or reuse…to go this way or that way or just sit still and remain confused…every choice changes the next moment for all of us—as your choices layer upon mine, layer upon theirs, layer upon all—in this moment creating a world and a future.

I think that many, in fact perhaps most of our choices, will matter far more than any of us will ever know…as the consequences of our choices will string on, piling upon one another in seemingly random strands of time, which extend so far out beyond us today, right now, that we simply can’t even see how it might be of import.

I know some will chafe at this, given the depth of the responsibility this implies we have for each of our choices, big or small…Inconvenient I know it is, to think of the planet and the life of the those around and after us—I’ve worked on many a business case in my past and it rarely maximizes short-term profits if you add such KPIs (“key performance indicators”), in order to measure the success of the choices you enact.

But in truth, and maybe I’m naive, I still believe most of us care deeply about the long term consequences of our decisions. If asked, I believe most would express a desire to right the wrongs from the past that still ripple out today in forms of ignorance, injustice, poverty, and violence. And I think most of us desire to make choices that ensure the Earth and her living thrive after we are done here.

If we are guilty of anything, for most perhaps it is simply that we are short sighted—consumed by the most immediate consequences: am I hungry or fed? tired or wired? paid or poor? happy or bored? This was so for our ancestors too. And it can’t be wrong, for it is how we were wired—to survive—to the make the most of Right Now.

But then…there is this other thing about how we were made, and many of us think this was a gift of the divine—which is a potential to find it within ourselves to rise above the noise of my own busy life and ponder beyond it…seeking…

Who and what came before me? Who and what extends beyond me as a consequence of me—now—and in the future? How do I respond to what I was given in a good way? How do I create a better moment, better relationship…asense of meaning in my life beyond just surviving?

For me, thinking in this way, brings a greater sense of purpose and thus worth to my daily dabbling. Though at times it also makes me feel heavy—and like most, I don’t particularly like that feeling. When that happens, I know, I have to throw in a good dash of not taking myself too seriously—recalling, that my choices matter greatly and yield influence—and—I’m largely not of say in how the next moment is exactly going!

But to remember from where we came…to see ALL that we have inherited…and to respond in kind with a broader vision…to change a mind, to make a different, a choice that can heal the past’s influence on the Now…for me and for another…to create a more thriving future for those who I will leave behind—it is a gift of ability that is uniquely human.

And that is something that feels pretty good to ride upon this morning…So here’s to our next decision of the day! May it be inspired, kind, wise and somehow yield a bit of joy for us all…right now and well into eternity!

Coming Home

…On Sunday, a couple in need of a sofa and dresser took the biggest pieces I’ve been trying to move out, to create room for a “remote working area”. Then yesterday, after much determination and effort, Wonder got Dad’s pressure washer working, which hadn’t been run in years now, and washed the outside of the house. On Thursday, new fiber internet gets installed - something we’ve been waiting a month for due to the backlog of ongoing work since Hurricane Helene. I am not complaining though. I’m grateful for all the work still being done to help people recover from that awful storm. This weekend I’ll do the last bits of organizing, decorating, cleaning up. Then, she’ll finally be open for guests again.

You know, I’m actually a Florida native. Was born in Tallahassee, lived in Macon, Georgia, and then two different counties in central NC growing up. I count five different houses I lived in before age 18. So it was not until I was almost 30 and Dad bought this house, that I came home for a visit and felt for the first time in my life what it feels like to “come home”.

Now, every time I’m here working, I have to shed tears for a while for the fact that Dad is no longer well enough to travel up here to his beloved mountain home. I make sure to always say some prayers, thank him, my grandparents, ancestors, and Makers for the fact that I get to come here for any time at all.

Max and I are of the first generation in a long line of kin folk who were NOT born in these mountains. But something sure settles down, and yet lights up at the same time, within us when we “go to the mountains” - not just any mountains mind you, the WNC mountains.

This is where we always came with Mom and Dad when we were “going home for the holidays” to stay with one set or another of grandparents. I think a lot these days about my ancestors who settled here from Scotland, Ireland and Northern Europe...

To cross an entire ocean, travel by foot and horseback into these hills, literally carve out of the rock and soil and forest a home and sustenance. No travel insurance. No infrastructure. No health or home owners insurance. Wars raging all around them. The British, the French, and the Cherokee and Catawba desperate to hold onto their native lands and turn back the tide of white settlers.

Some of my ancestors would have befriended the Cherokee, others would have fought them. Not a one of ‘em who settled here originally came “legally”. Neither the British nor the Cherokee gave white colonialists permission to settle into these mountains - “the frontier” as it was called when they first came. But they crossed into the frontier anyway. I guess poor and stubborn people do what they gotta do to gain their independence from an economy rigged for Lords and Ladies.

Poor and desperate for a bit of land to call their own and work - those are the people who carried my bloodline here. Liking to or not, they took land without permission that the Natives called home - unless, they did get permission from a Chief, which sometimes did happen, but I’ve found no family records to say one way or the other for my kin. Some then came to own enslaved Africans and fought for the Confederacy in the following century’s civil war, and others yet “defected” and fought for the Union. Even back then, they’d have disagreed with each other mightily on so many matters. But they are yet all my family, my blood and DNA. And I call these mountains home because of every heinous and every heroic decision they made...

All the way from Appalachia back to Ireland, Scotland and the British Isles and on and on back, all the way to Africa. So many decisions, so many challenges, wars, migrations, disasters, losses, wins, struggles and redemptions. It all came and it all passed, without anyone asking my opinion, though it’s all my - all our - inheritance.

So all I know is that every time I am here, I am reminded - be grateful to be here at all - to be one of few humans left who can still trace and feel such a long line of connection to a place so beautiful - and who can stand in that place, without anyone bothering them to either stay or to go.

And then I remember some words that my teacher’s teacher wrote, Joseph Rael Beautiful Painted Arrow...”we are the land dancing.”

Dust to dust. Ash to ash. Humanity, one great swirling dance, made out of each of us individually twirling (sometimes tripping) about. Fortunate are any of us whose feet can stand still, in peace, and with dignity, on the bit of land that gave birth to them. Heartbroken are many, even for some without knowing it for so long have they been disconnected from the soils of their fore fathers and fore mothers.

I think this is the pain we see, grabbing elbows with us, dancing with us, bringing confusion and birthing more pain amongst us. Making us forget that the land belongs to no one, rather it is we who belong to the land. Give us bodies to ambulate in and then take them she will. Giving us only one choice in the matter: how will we dance?

With mistakes and misdeeds, for sure, I think of each of us dances such disjointed steps at times. But there is always hope, even if it’s hard to see, that in our best moments we might let go of the righteousness within our opinions and beliefs and religions and traditions and hurts and wounds , and remember how to dance well with others, and with the land, from which we came and to which we will return, leaving those after us to face both the good and the bad of all our collective choices.

With the traveling and now house prep for some guests coming in hot, I’m feeling squeezed for time again this week. Hence, another class combining instruction for those just getting started on your strength training journey and those further down the road.

I welcome any feedback y’all have…or questions! I hope you enjoy this one, and I’ll see you next week for yet another good week of caring for ourselves.

May the force be with you,

Sarah

I’m still here enjoying the coast, now with my extended family here around us. I know you are feeling jealous right now—my apologies—we are indeed blessed to have this time in this beautiful place with loved ones.

I suggest to all of us…take time away, take time with loved ones. Do it as much as you can. Even if ‘away’ means a few days’ ‘stay-cation’, breaking from the hustle and bustle.

Recovery is a real thing, and a necessary thing, for our wellbeing.

I’ve in fact taken quite a break from my usual routine of training, and I was worried when I filmed the class below about how I might feel lifting again. As it turns out, I felt quite strong. Revealing the truth to me again…Rest, it is just as important as the hard work.

My parents joined us late last week, and it has been good. But it’s also been full. So I’ve combined my teaching into a class for both Experienced Movers and Beginners for today’s session. I’ve also combined my teaching into my doing, joining you for the workout in this session.

Don’t worry folks—I take my time and give different instructions for each of you, based on where you are in your progression of experience, making this a good and thoughtful workout for beginner up to advanced movers.

So let’s go, let’s move, let’s lift…it’s early days of yet another week and we are so fortunate to be present and able to move our amazing bodies!

With love,

Sarah

I send this to you from the NC coast. This week was supposed to be a family vacation week, a much needed one; and I was really looking forward to teaching today’s classes on our beach house front deck with the ocean as my back drop.

But…I am here with my family…and as my family life so frequently goes, new opportunity has arisen for me in the department of being anti-fragile.

So, I’ll just be upfront with y’all. You see what happened was…

We got down here Monday evening. (‘Down’ is a word we use in NC to refer to ‘going to the beach’, which, is in fact, technically ‘down hill’ from the piedmont and mountainous regions of our state). And, we were happy to arrive safely ‘down’ at what we call “Aunt Mare’s” beach. For it is my life-loving and ever-joyful Aunt Marianne who are visiting, and who has called this area home for decades.

Tuesday, we then began our first full day here with the intention to recover from the trip ‘down’. However, around mid-morning, we discovered, accidentally as it were, that my husband, in his lack of patience for details, had somehow missed the fact that he had coaching duties to tend to back home today (Wednesday) and tomorrow (Thursday—the day you are receiving this in your in inbox).

For those who do not know my husband, Wonder, he is a former professional soccer player-now-coach, and this is his first season coaching in the US after moving here from Ghana in West Africa. It’s been a great success, and I’m so proud of him. The youth soccer season officially ended last weekend (much to my relief). However—it turns out—this week and next week his club is hosting an intense round of tryouts for next season. And, given that my hubs just signed on for a promotion and a new contract for the ‘25-’26 season with…

Well, after about 18 hours of seeing if and how well our marriage was going to hold up despite this not-so-small-slip-up on his part—I waved goodby to him this morning as he left for the four hour drive back home to attend the try outs. Then, Max, Aunt Mare, and I made the best out of our second day on the beach.

For me, being Max’s caregiver for a full day at the beach after all the work just to get, requires everything I’ve got to give and more—this is just naked reality. Every mother and every family caregiver knows what this truth feels like. It’s still a big job when Wonder and I split it up, but it is by definition half the job when we are working together as a team.

For this reason, I’m re-publishing a workout I gave y’all a couple of weeks ago. And there is no harm in that, quite honestly.

It will still be a great compensation/compliment to Tuesday’s work. There is also a benefit in returning to the same movement series, as it can definitely open the door to experiencing a bit of felt progress in the very moment.

So…may your skin, your mentality, and your muscles be tough as nails…and equally so your capacity to be gentle with yourself, and find nourishment and grace even in those moments when life feels like a battlefield…and may your capacity to forgive those you love when they make those epic mistakes that nearly spoil a family vacation be as deep as a Saints well…(Yes, thank you, I do appreciate you sending those vibes back to me!)

I applaud each of you for whatever it took for you to make space in your day to do your practice of self-care and fortitude.

And I’ll be back shortly for a new training session with you next week!

With love,

Sarah

Beginner’s Strength Training Session

Experienced Mover’s Strength Training Session

Here, here!

~ Sarah

Beginners Strength Training

Experienced Movers Strength Training

I had a devil of a time uploading the workouts onto YouTube last night and this morning. My take-away is thus—upload further in advance! So please bear with me as I brush up my technical expertise for producing these.

Along that note, anyone know an eager teen out there looking for a digital marketing internship? It seems my understanding of the digital space has exponentially aged in recent years. A claim which science would support.

I recently read an article in Nat Geo about this. It said that we humans tend to age at a pretty steady rate post age 30ish. With a few exceptions: we hit about 3 or 4 milestone birthdays at which we undergo a sudden exponential rate of aging. Forty four is that first mile post, and at age 44.5 I can attest that the science feels too real! All those previous years of any abuse I may have put my body through thinking naively, “oh I’ll recover tomorrow”, have indeed seemed to catch up to me this year.

Geez…

But hey, all the more reason to lift weights! So without further jabber, here are your second workouts for the week. Choose your poison between the Beginner and Experienced Mover Versions—and please holler if you have a question or insight you’d like to share.

Happy moving!

~ Sarah

Today’s Strength Session for For Beginners

Max makes a special appearance in our session today. The total workout is about 45 minutes, with an additional few minutes of a guided recovery should you choose to follow along instead of taking a short post-workout walk.

Today’s Strength Session for Experienced Movers

This workout is about 50 minutes with an option to either take a 5-10 minute walk after or follow my guided recovery session to close.

Although these classes are available to you on YouTube, only those who subscribe as paid members to this Substack have access to the YouTube link. It cannot be viewed or accessed by the general public.

I’m thus using the honor system here, counting on my members to support me by not sharing the private class links with those outside our circle.

There will be exceptions occasionally when I make a workout public to reach potential new members. Because these are the first in my new series of Strength Classes, they are indeed available to the general public. Thus, you may feel free to share the below classes as a rare exception to the honor rule—in fact, I encourage you too!

Thanks!

~ Sarah

Today’s Beginners’ Workout

Today’s Experienced Movers’ Workout

“Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.” ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder

Dear friends,

After taking a couple of weeks to reflect on my initial stab at creating a personal training circle, I’m making some shifts and changes and relaunching this intention. And I promise, this is my last ‘sales pitch’ to my Substack followers!

So, what’s changing?

1. The name. The Resilience Circle is now, and more properly named, The Anti-Fragile Circle. Because let’s get real, we are the definition of beings being crafted into an anti-fragile creature.

2. The focus and format. I’m simplifying and focusing in. And it’s all about Strength. Going forward you can expect two on-demand strength training classes per week, published Tuesday and Thursday mornings. All will have access to both a Beginner’s Class (45 minutes targeted to true beginners) and an Experienced Mover’s Class (60 minutes that will challenge those of you with weight lifting experience). All classes will include a mobility, warmup and recovery period.

3. The cost. Though I plan to sprinkle in meditations and other tidbits to contribute to your total wellness journey, these things will come on an inspired basis, rather in than a structured or regular format. So the subscriber cost is dropping significantly— to $12/month. Now, I hope this is a deal few can refuse!

So…if you are interested in going along this road with me…

• Know that by combining my two strength classes per week with your choice of cardiovascular training and fun physical activities—be it some combo of walking, jogging, hiking, gardening, Zumba, etc—you will be doing what’s good and necessary to be healthy and moving well for life.

• Forward this to someone else you know who might want to join with you!

• Read below for some additional WHYs you should join me.

• AND, watch below for a quick rundown on what you will need to join my classes from the comfort of your own home.

Now…let’s get moving and…

May the forces of good be with you always,

Sarah

**💪 Strong, Confident, and Unstoppable – This Is Your Time 💪**

Welcome to **The Anti-fragile Circle**—an empowering online strength training program built by a woman, for women of all ages. It’s time to ditch the myths and own your power. These classes are designed specifically for those who want to feel strong, confident, and in control of their health.

✨ **What You’ll Gain:**

* Effective, safe workouts tailored for female bodies of ALL ages

* Evidence based workouts that build real strength, empowering you to reach your full potential for moving well for decades

* Teaching and support to keep you accountable

* Flexible classes that fit into your busy schedule

You don’t need to shrink to feel strong—you need a plan that works. Whether you're a beginner or ready to take it to the next level, **The Anti-fragile Circle** has your back.

**Start your free 7 day trial today** and step into the strongest version of yourself.

👉

A Short Guide to Creating Your Home Gym for Beginners

A Short Guide to Creating Your Home Gym for Experienced Movers

In April, Max attended his third Fire Dance with me. It was a beautiful, healing, and in many ways still unfolding, transformative weekend. As these times of sacred ceremony are.

Despite this truth—perhaps in fact, because of this truth—the weeks after the dance, for me, are a challenging re-entry into daily life. And I think Max has been feeling the same as I have since we arrived back home on a Sunday evening. Simply put, we both seem to be in a funk.

Perhaps that sounds counterintuitive—how can one be in a funk after a beautiful weekend? But, friend, it's just true.  

The dance is three days. Three very long days of being completely full. Full of community. Full of purpose. Full of such felt and open-hearted connection with people, the land, the ancestors— with Spirit. 

Not a moment is left without intention. Not a moment is lonely. These ceremonies are a lot of work. And one becomes physically weary. But it is a good kind of weary. And one's spirit joyfully rises to keep the body going. 

Now, it's over in a flash, and we are back at our home in Greensboro. Where, to be honest, Max and I have both been struggling for some years just to find community, to find a purpose for waking up each day. There is no pressure on us to be anything to anyone, to go anywhere, or to do anything. Just existing fills up much of our days.

But at the Fire Dance, Max and I felt the strong call to serve, and we worked. We worked hard. We were asked to crew the dance as drummers. We sat with the other drummers and the Drum Chief around the Mother Drum. She is large enough for at least four to sit around. While some played her steady beat, others of us played hand drums, djembes, and rattles. 

As I played, I did my own work, and Max did his own work. We did a lot of work together, too, always in chorus with the other drums. Man, we had fun! We felt so alive! So full of purpose! So many folks at the dance told me directly how Max's presence and our presence together affected them in their spiritual journey over the weekend. 

Then, we wake up Monday at home, back in our lives where we have to work hard just to be seen physically and often are not SEEN at all. 

Max came to me midmorning that Monday, eyes wide with a hint of tears, and then he hugged me for a long time. He seemed to be saying to me…" Now what?"

Or if he wasn't saying it, I was definitely thinking it myself. 

There is a truth I'm coming down to with this line of thought…and I think it's this…after childhood ends, just being is simply not a good enough reason to exist in our society. 

Children are valued for their innocence, their pure being-ness. Adults are valued for their work. And work is defined by how much you can produce materially. Work is only work if it can be measured, bought and sold. 

This is why artists, ministers, and advocates for those in need often live as poor people. No one can quantify their value with the same relative ease as we quantify the value of an item or service for sale.

This system that values us only by what we produce and how easily it can be counted in some way—it leaves people like Max and those who care for them in a no-man's land. 

It makes me sad, but I know too that this system is practical, a necessary system for sure. Just…unimaginative and incomplete. Artists, stay-at-home-parents, caregivers, public school teachers…all have been left in the dust of our current version of capitalism. 

We create life, we keep life, try to make life beautiful, to create potential…and these things cannot be given a hard and clear value. So, they are given no value at all.

In the Christian gospels, it is said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall inherit the Kingdom of God"? I think that is what many people see when they look into Max's eyes or watch his smile...the Kingdom. So thirsty, so poor in spirit, are most of us. I think that is why Max can change someone's life with nothing more than his sweet gaze. 

And how shall one place a value on this work that Max does?

This morning, I was thinking about how, for many people, a crisis temporarily disrupts their lives, and then, after the dust settles, they experience a period of rebuilding. But for Max, there is no temporary disruption. There is only one disruption after another disruption. 

In 2017, I joined my adult path with Max's adult path after spending most of my twenties and thirties running in the opposite direction. For good reason. In rejoining the walk with my brother, which I'd done for so many years as a child, I re-entered into the constant undoing of his life. 

The year of 2017 was marked by Max's battle with cancer. It nearly killed him, and it nearly killed all of us caring for him. 

This morning I was thinking about that again, and also thinking…and then, if I had not met Wonder (my now husband whom I met in South Africa); and then, if Covid-19 had not happened; and then, if we had not had to struggle so hard for so many years to get Wonder legal entry to the US; and then, if we'd not had to struggle so hard to find constant care for Max; and if Max's health would just remain stable for awhile; and if Dad had not developed this vascular disease causing him to slip into dementia; and, if things had just at least gone how we planned once Wonder got here…" 

…if…if…if…then maybe there would be room for re-ordering. Rebuilding.

Now, as I let my mind roll over the recent past leading to today and this line of 'ifs,' it leads me to laugh at myself. Perhaps you are thinking, how can she be laughing? But after these years of walking with Max on his life's trajectory, well I'm finally getting it--that great cosmic joke at play in our lives. 

I ran long and hard from it, from age 18 to 35. I ran from the reality of my little brother with special needs. But I never escaped it. A special bond, a brotherly sisterly love, a relationship, a role--preordained before you are even born with the express purpose of teaching you something your soul needs to learn to heal...well, you can run from such a thing all you like. Still, you will never escape its shadow. And once I finally turned to face it...well, let's just say it is taking me a long time to reconcile this choice to do so. It's taken me most of these last 8 years to recognize that there is a choice here at all.

So...the disordering...it has been real, felt, and remains ever present.

But as we approach the one-year anniversary of Wonder, my husband, arriving in the US as a legal permanent resident, I can report—much to the relief of those close to me—that despite all the disorder still at work in our lives, I am feeling a greater sense of settledness these days. 

Having my partner next to me each day, no longer wondering if or when we will be able to live side by side, is still a highlight and victory amongst our family's many recent battles. 

Of course, the times being what they are, uncertainty remains in large doses. I live with one man adjusting to life as a new immigrant in this country, whilst the powers at play make it an increasingly uneasy environment for migrants. And I live with another man whose entire life depends on the gracious giving of the US taxpayer through Social Security and Medicaid. As dysfunctional and heavy-handed as these government-based aid systems can be, if it were not for this social safety net, Max and family, and others like us, would not survive long.

There is a true cost just to waking up for another day of life.

This goes back to where I started this entry…with the truth that it's hard to place a value on Max's life and on those who make it their work to care for the innocents and unfortunates among us.

While we humans struggle with this kind of valuation, we are fortunate the Divine does not. 

When Max and I sat down with the Mother Drum this weekend, before she even voiced her sound we understood—without understanding how we understood—that we were Seen. 

The Mother Drum is about the size of a small kitchen table. It is a Native American-style drum made of animal hide and wood. Four or five people can comfortably sit around it and play simultaneously. She is the heartbeat of the ceremony, and to hear and feel that incredible vibration is to experience how she emulates the heartbeat of all life. 

Our drum crew consisted of about eight drummers. Four sat on the Mother Drum, and the rest of us played hand drums, rattles, and djembes—all instruments made for sacred ceremonies. 

When you hear "Fire Dance," you might picture a circus act of some sort. Which is appropriately erroneous, just as Spirit's sense of humor and mystique would have it be.

It is not a circus act. Nor is it a Native American ceremony. But it's fair to say that the vision of it, which came as a call to my teacher Robbie Warren Otter Woman Standing (who spoke to no one of her vision for years) sprouted from the seed of Native American teachings. Teachings brought to us white folks by Joseph Rael, Beautiful Painted Arrow. Rael is my teacher's teacher, a teacher to many around the world. He has carried his culture's spiritual essence (though not their specific ceremonies) to the world, regardless of national and racial heritage. His mission has been to sow the seeds of peace in doing so. 

A phrase I would use to describe the 'dancers' in a medicine dance like the Fire Dance is: 'most active and precious prayers'. The rest of us are in prayer too, and very active, and very precious. But it is a different quality to dance. 

The dancers eat their last meal Friday afternoon and then fast from food and drink, talking and making eye contact with the crew and the rest of the world for the remainder of the weekend. They sleep outside in the arbor around the fires for the whole ceremony. Their cell phones are turned off far away from them. If they must leave the arbor to toilet, they are wrapped in a white sheet and guided to an outdoor compost toilet near the arbor. If they surrender in the arbor and fall to the earth, they are held, then carried in a white sheet to their sleeping mat. They may lay there for some time in a deep dream or vision before, next thing you know, they are back up, moving around the arbor with the next round of the drum beat.

The dancers are watched over day and night, never left alone. And the fires around which they gather never stop burning and are also never left alone.

An enormous crew of people is holding the ceremonial space for the dancers all weekend, all doing various jobs. In the past, I've most often kept one of the five fires for the weekend. Max and I kept the North Fire and then the West Fire together with Maria, in previous ceremonies he attended with me. I've 'Fire Mothered', meaning I stood in the arbor with dancers as one of the few people allowed to touch or speak to them to directly support them. I've worked in the kitchen, cooking for the rest of the crew all weekend.

This was my first time playing the drums. It was a very different experience, and as I only half-jokingly said afterward, I really needed to beat on something hard for a long time!

As we drummed, we watched the energies move in the arbor—you could see it in the fires, in the trees in the center and around the arbor, in the dancers, in the earth, and in the air. The vibration of the drum brought it all to life, kept it all moving when things needed moving, and then, as the Chief would direct us, the drums would go quiet for periods of time, allowing time for silence, rest, and integration. 

At times over the weekend, Max was laughing like a madman. In particular on Sunday morning as we neared the end of the ceremony. Even as he laughed, he sometimes had tears in his eyes. He was so connected to what was happening with the dancers. It was amazing to witness how attentive he was to them as they danced their prayers in the arbor. The Chief would often turn and look at him as a confirmation of her own sensations. Sometimes, she would pull him up from his seat and take him to the fire to clear him with her feather fan, saying, "Max, that's not yours; don't take that into your heart."  

As a dancer…and crew too…the work we are doing is prayer and generational healing. This is what I have been taught by my elders. It is also something I have experienced personally. I have danced myself a number of times. If there are pain, trauma, or tears that have not been released, either in this lifetime or in the memories of our ancestors before us…they can come up and out of us when we dance, to be witnessed, held, and then transmuted into healing, wisdom, peace and personal strength. 

Other times, as dancers, we may be in a state of pure bliss. Or in a visionary state. Words are never quite enough to fully capture the experience. 

So we drummed for the dancers, all of whom had their own unique and sacred dance. We held the heartbeat of the dance in our rhythm. We did not speak, but sometimes we sang—no words, just spontaneous sounds. Sometimes, we drummed fiercely, and sometimes, we drummed quietly. We didn't know why, we didn't need to, we just knew it was what was needed at the moment. 

And in doing this, our presence, our sheer willingness to be there and support whatever needed to happen…it was enough. 

It is always enough. 

Just being. Just waking up today. With a willingness to see what Love is calling for today...what else is really needed of us?

How easy it is to forget this and assign ourselves petty missions, ironically losing our true sense of purpose and connection. This is painful, even if we gain the wealth to cover up the pain with material things and moments of fun.

No matter the power of the purse, that pain will surely ripple out into the world, beginning, as it does, in our individual lives. Showing up in all manner of ways...as broken relationships, broken spirits, anxiety and depression medication, half-filled glasses filled with too many glasses of wine, slam-jammed calendars lulling us into an illusion of certainty and preventing any time for reflection, chronic debt, chronic pain, chronic disease, pollution, chronic worry, climate change, inflation, wars, borders, the 1%, poverty, epidemics of mental health problems, underfunded schools for our young ones, mass shootings, extremism, division, loneliness…

We see it all now every time we look out at world events…pain... rippling out in such massive waves. Catching innocent and wicked alike in its tide.  

But, when we stop--if we stop--and we remember, we heal. As grandfather, Joseph Rael might say, we begin to sow seeds of peace.

Maybe life doesn't get any 'easier' if we take time to remember and reconnect with the sacred source of our being-ness. So much is not within our control as individuals. For Max, circumstances will not change simply because he served on the drum at the Fire Dance. Max has a life-long disability; he is a 42-year-old man who lives in a system that sees him as a burden, a pity, not a gift. This will not change, at least not soon enough to make a difference for Max. 

But the weekend at the Fire Dance always reminds me of this: how we meet our reality can change, and when we meet our reality with love, reverence, and sacred connection, miracles become possible—even if they are miracles so subtle they can hardly be seen by most.

But we cannot just intellectually change our posture, we cannot just decide to have more capacity to accept, to remain curious, to promote peace. More than a change of thought is required when we live in a world where pain, disease, violence, and poverty are so very real. The shift must be deeper than mind. Pain in all its forms-- disease, violence, poverty, discrimination, hateful words---these things are not just thoughts. They are true forces of darkness that move among and within us, with real acts and impacts that devastate lives daily on this planet.

Watching Pain at work on the world stage has made me fearful as of late.

So...I took Max to the Fire Dance...

And we reconnected with that Something Greater than our oh-so-limited mental and individual fires.

Yes, I think it is so that we must go deep when the times get heavy. The heart beat--the mysterious hum, the vibration below the surface that bears all life and connects us all-- this is where light dwells, past cold knowing and logic. This is where new beginnings can be birthed with beauty, even out of the ashes of tragic and cruel endings.

I wish we had the luxury of spending some days before and after the dance on the land where it is held. If we were doing the ceremony as we did in the old days, there would be space for that. It dawns on me now that I can make some space on either side of the dance to be part of our personal preparation and post-ceremony time. I must do this, in fact. It's important, the integration work after. As my elders say, the first few days of the medicine dance are only the beginning of one's dance. And I should have cleared my post-dance calendar proactively…something that has happened anyways, as I forget about one appointment after another.

I'd say 'whoops', but I don't feel particularly bad about this at all.

So here we are, Max and I, back in Today's world, one that loves its calendars and appointments and lack of spontaneity...and look, that's okay. The Mother Drum beat is powerful enough to help us carry on as we reintegrate, doing what we must to survive and to carry the blessings seeded.

The funk will clear up as we gather ourselves and sit deeper in this knowing that it is enough…just to be here…just to be witness...and to share a smile with those who pass us by.

The Fire Dance is a ceremony open to all who feel called to join. For more information about the Fire Dance and upcoming ceremonies like it visit https://otterdance.com/fire-dance/