Emergence

Meditation on All Things Wild

For a New Beginning by John O'Donohue

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you

Hello Lovelies—

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Waxing First Crescent Moon, Huhti Kuu, Clearing Moon

On the mountain, the pendulum of spring swings wildly from day to day.

After a series of near 60-degree days, the snow recedes, leaving only the deepest winter-hardened drifts scattered across the hillside that plunges from the house toward the gulch where in a seasonal creek lies. Yellow-green patches of Kinnickinnic emerge along with the memory of last summer held in mats of molded grass.

Along the road, rivers of water crisscross and collide making mud so deep rubber boots or 4-wheel drive is required.

First thunder arrives along with a tapping rain. The sound on the metal roof is like a forgotten memory. I listen for a long moment, and then step into the dark beneath the eaves to welcome the voice of the spring. I breathe in, remembering the sensation of thaw.

There is a kind of forgetting that happens for me when I am deep in the thrall of a season: in winter, the bare-limbed days of summer are as far to me as the stars on a frigid night and in summer, conjuring that same breathless icy cold is like traveling to the moon.

My mind effaces sensations of seasons past, in the same way I seem to forget what clothes I have packed away. I am never not surprised by a gauzy sundress unfurled in spring or a pair of velvet leggings unwrapped in fall. Oh, I think, I remember this.

As I look up into the night, the rain is both familiar and utterly new. I feel its presence after long absence—a kind of rekindling. My mind wanders the landscape searching for Pasque flowers and the tips of white marsh marigolds or tiny tufted milkvetch still slumbering in soil. This time of year, I am aware of each patch of bare ground, each hint of green. Like my practice of stalking bear, I stalk the landscape, alive to shifts in the earth.

Acknowledgement is a blessing, is reciprocity. I am aware of the land and it is aware of me.

An hour later, the rain cascades as snow as spring slingshots back to winter. The storm descends in a curtain so thick it stalls cars along the Peak to Peak Highway below my house and causes a rockslide that closes the canyon road to Boulder for half a day as a road crew hauls boulders away and makes repairs to the road.

The next day, I walk Yuki at Kelly Dahl, and the memory of the storm has already dissolved. What remains are tiny delicate snow globes dotting the ground. The air, the landscape is wet and glimmering. Danger is a mere memory.

Herons have returned to the rookery across the highway. They nest high, in the tops of pines, their slate-blue forms like strange upright sentinels presiding over the lake, where the ice has receded and mating pairs of ducks have returned. I saw my first Mountain Bluebird in Jamestown on Sunday, while down on the flatlands, the resident male Osprey has failed to return and the female has taken up with a much younger suitor.

An new season comes into view.

But emergence is a messy affair. It never happens smoothly or all at once, or perhaps the way we think it should, or at the precise moment we tell ourselves we’re ready. It offers promise and possibility but no guarantees beyond the idea of change.

A week earlier I entered spring break with the urge to get going, to shake off the distractions of teaching to do deep writing only to run smack into the wall of a fierce chest cold. All week, I alternated between lying in bed and using any burst of energy to dismantle and scrub the winter-neglected corners of my house. My cleaning was nothing is not manic. I had to get something done.

All the while I beat myself up for not moving forward, for not being able to seize the precious window of time to do what I had intended. But my body had another message, a knowing all its own. It said not yet, stay put, sink in, trust the promise of this opening.

So I do. Here is the threshold, I tell myself. Bear witness.

These are tumultuous days. Everyday I ask: Am I doing enough? But perhaps the question is, Am I being enough? Emergence isn’t about action, it’s about receptivity.

If the world is going to change, we must change not just our minds, but our hearts, the way we inhabit this world. We must meet cruelty with kindness, destruction with beauty, fear with love. Take action, make your calls, shield the most vulnerable, march—but also practice presence, practice gathering.

We are all of us, emerging, friends. Believe it. Trust the promise of this opening.

Breathing in, I gather beauty, breathing out, I smile.

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Hold onto beauty, friends, and to each other. Carry hope. And practice being human, practice loving the earth and each other, each day. Thank you for reading.

Big love,

Karen

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I have a busy schedule of workshops this summer, here at home, near Rollinsville, CO., on ZOOM and in lovely Lake Wallowa, Oregon. I hope to see you at one of them.

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Upcoming Workshops

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I know the world is a lot right now. We all feel it. And though it may not seem like it, this is exactly to the time to tell your story. We must continue to speak up and out, to create art, to tell the story—our story—because the stories we are telling are stronger than the story of destruction. So, I invite you to join me for this Fishtrap yearlong project to write your novel, to sit with your memoir. Now is the time. We are waiting to hear your voice.

A Walk in the Woods: Mapping New Territory and Exploring the Terrain of Your Book-Length Story

“A journey of a thousand miles is begins with a single step” —Laozi

Just as a walk in the forest reveals hidden paths and surprising discoveries, this Yearlong workshop invites you to uncover the path of your own story by learning to trust your intuition and the act of putting one foot in front of the other.

Applications Open Now, first come basis.

I am very excited to announce I have been asked to return to Fishtrap in lovely Lake Wallowa, Oregon to lead the yearlong book project (summer 2025-summer 2026). My last yearlong cohort finished in 2023.

Fishtrap is a one of a kind experience. I would love to have you join me!

Click this link for more information. The yearlong workshop includes two in-residence workshops at Fishtrap (summer of 2025 and 2026), monthly zooms, comments on monthly submissions, personalized book recommendations, writing exchanges with your cohort and a optional winter retreat.

Please join me for this space-limited workshop and begin the journey of your book-length Story.

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Writing Wild Workshops - Registration Open!

Workshops exploring the landscapes of the body and the earth.

Writing Wild Workshops are season-based generative workshops exploring our wild, physical selves in all the landscapes we inhabit. Participants drop into their senses and write to and from this place in a series of exercises meant to inspire and get their creative juices going. Open to beginners and seasoned writers as well as the writing curious. Plan for camaraderie, craft talk, nature walking, discussion, and plenty of writing. Space limited. #writingwildworkshops

Half Day Workshop - $75

May 18th - Writing Wild: Initiation: Stalking the Story- 12-3pm

Full Day Workshops - $150

July 20th - Writing Wild: Wilding Your World - 10-3:30pm

Sept 14th - Writing Wild: Ritual - 10-3:30pm

Or $125each, for early registration or if you register with a friend. Click on Early or Friend link.

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See You at Lighthouse Lit Fest

2-Hour Craft Workshops via Zoom

Friday June 6th - 4:00-6:00PM MT - The Importance of Gaps

Monday, June 9th - 4:00-6PM MT - Writing the Self: Considerations of Character, Perspective and Scene

Tuesday June 10th - 4:00 - 6:00PM MT - Place-Based Writing

Thursday, June 12th - 4:00 - 6:00PM MT - Writing Cinematically: Using Moving Pictures to Tell Your Story

Friday, June 13th - 1:30-3:30PM MT - Taking it Off the Nose: Using Dialogue to Show Conflict and Develop Character

$75 for members/$85 for nonmembers

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