There is not really a method for the human brain to comprehend time in its awe-inspiring flow here on earth. Or, rather, there is not really a method in the western worlds I am immersed in, taught in, move through, to grasp what it really means for humans to stretch back 200,000 years, for glaciers… Read More

It used to be that I could run up a mountain. I made mountains out of prairie hills, running up those 200 perfect wooden steps over and over from the river valley to the plateau and back. Ran until my thighs burned, my calves ached. I ran up and paused at the top, my line… Read More

I’ve wanted to draw out this joke since a car with a giant spoiler drove by my house a little while ago.  

    whatever it is that you planted in all those nights walking in the moonlight trust that this quiet as they hush into the earth is the quiet of revolution that the roots are gathering all their courage and strength and that they hold gratitude for you – z. todd

There was a time, long ago, when I listened to this song on repeat while doing dishes, staring out at grasses and hummocks and hills as snow melted in piercing bright northern sun. And it reduced me to whole-body-heaving tears. When you’re just on the edge of a deep, great loss, art or music or… Read More

I am learning the rhythms of the tide as it inches and sweeps its way through concrete barriers, eases past columns and pours itself through wooden piles. At first, I am at a loss, here, where the coast is sectioned and partitioned and portioned in industrial fencing. If not for the stretch of nature preserve… Read More

CW: sexual assault, PTSD On a dark prairie night in 2003, my rapist leaned over the side of the bed in the long since redeveloped Rosslyn Hotel and he poured me a rum and coke out of sight (or was it Pepsi? or was it another motel? Brains have ways of protecting you from the… Read More

CW: discusses sexual assault, trauma, recovery —— Damage comes in threes. Or fours, fives, tens. Damage comes with sickly sweet smiles, knocking on your door. “Can I inquire about how you are traveling?”. Slam that door closed. It is a bright, sunny Mother’s day, and I am here, at 740 AM, with a friend. The… Read More

As I lay in bed last night, after being awoken by nightmares, I reflected on what it is like to inhabit this body in this moment. I am an empath, or a highly sensitive person, or whatever terminology you choose to apply to people whose main mode of being in the world is to feel.  I feel everything.… Read More

stones piled haphazardly atop of one another, melding into rolling green hills. A cold wind cuts across these landscapes folding into one another. This place so compact it could fit into my home continent dozens of times over. inception. This is no conception, this place. Conception implies consent. This birth, this beginning, it is something… Read More