There is a particular kind of rebellion in choosing to be less connected in a world that insists we should always be connected. I have been thinking about what it means to live a more analog life in an increasingly digital world—not because I believe the Internet is evil, nor because I intend to retreat into some romantic fantasy where electricity and technology do not exist.

If you had a time machine and could send just one message to your past self, what would it say? ~If I could send one message back to my younger self, it would be this: **Please, stop wasting so much time worrying about how your body looks, and start appreciating what it can do.** That body you are criticizing in the mirror today will one day be the body you would give almost anything to have back—not because it was perfect, but because it was *yours*, alive and capable and carrying you through the world.

If your future self could send you one sentence, what do you hope it would say? I have been thinking lately about the peculiar impatience of being human. We live in a time that has trained us to expect immediacy. We want the answer now. The healing now. The transformation now. We plant a seed and, somewhere in the back of our minds, expect it to become a tree on our preferred schedule.

What is your favorite quote? "You continually come back to things you thought you understoodand see deeper truths."—Barry H. Gillespie Somewhere along the long path of life I've walked, I am embracing the uneven turning of that spiral—when I woke up in my 60s I quite profoundly something quietly staggering: I am not the same person physically, spiritually or emotionally…

🌿"What is Pagan? Pagan is not a costume, not an aesthetic, though it may wear bones and bark, ash and antler. 🍃 Pagan is a way of being.It is to root yourself in the soil of this world, not just to walk on the land, but to belong to it. To honour the turning of the wheel, the pulse of the seasons, the spirits in wood and water, stone and storm.

If you could erase one trend from history, what would it be? The Ethical Tension of AI, Data Centers, and Making a Living Online You probably feel it too. That quiet, persistent friction: the awareness that in order to exist as a writer, artist, or creative voice today, you must participate in the very systems that are contributing to environmental strain.

From the center I call the four directions—South… East… North… West—step by step, breath by breath,never breaking, never do I rest~until I return to the center once more,to ask what my fate has waiting in store. Who am I?Where do I stand?What time is it?What need is at hand?Which way blows the wind—tell me true—

What’s a lesson you’ve learned recently that shifted your perspective? The gentlest people with a Warrior-Healer's heart make the world safer for every creature. This is not a sentimental claim, but an observable truth. Gentleness, particularly in those who have known hardship, is not weakness; it is a calibrated form of strength. It emerges not from naivety, but from lived experience and conscious choice.

Today I want to be proud of being an American, to reclaim that feeling I had as a kid when hearing the lyrics to the Star-Spangled Banner and watching the fireworks in the dusk on our small town’s cemetery hill. But how can I be proud when the man running our country takes up constant airtime, spewing speeches of division, pitting each American against their fellow neighbors and countrymen?

What’s the best way to deal with negative thoughts? You know, true originality is nearly impossible—only by being unique with what has come to your awareness through others, this is the normal condition of humanities expression. It's the human experience and is the creative force behind new ideas/ways of doing things… So let’s just get that out of the way first, because apparently we still need disclaimers before telling the truth out loud of how the best way to deal with negative thinking.

What’s the best advice you’d give to someone younger than you? I tell the angry and frightened youth I meet that I want—gods, how I want—to be kind.To soften my voice, to open my hands, to meet the world with a gentleness that heals rather than harms. I whisper it like a prayer: *be kind, be kind, be kind.*

Who are you most inspired by? My offering of awe for this season of possibilities: Yesterday the wheel tipped—sun at its zenith, breath held at the lip of fire—and now, today, we stand inside the long exhale. Today I'm most inspired by the work of Shakespeare and the shared knowledge Midsummer is not a moment. It is a threshold. A shimmering, heat-hummed corridor where the seen and unseen loosen their boundaries, and what we call…

After spending time sight seeing Victoria BC, I came back with something unexpected; I was painfully aware of how truly disconnected to our own reality we've become as a species, largely because we now live our lives completely filtered and processed —moment by irreplaceable moment —through our devices and the  interwebs of our never silenced cell phones. Walking, going to green parks to play, shopping, eating out, driving, going to shows, visiting famous historical places, museums, planning trips, visiting points of interest, fishing, swimming, or camping.

What’s a fear you’ve overcome — and how did you do it? *trigger warning ⚠️ -this post talks about a sensitive topic to certain individuals* Twelve Paintings, Eight Thresholds: Bearing Witness to What Was Never Meant to Be Hidden—using art to overcome childhood fears of trust and intimacy. There are stories that live in the body long before they ever find language when severe trauma is inflicted on people, especially as children.

What’s the best way to build self-confidence? As many other artists who show their art work online know (be it traditional drawing and painting or digitally drawn) they have a hard time with authenticity of ownership due to a.i. and its insidious overwhelm in almost every aspect of human life today. Last September I decided to share my artwork professionally simply because I had such a large body of work piling up in my tiny studio that I didn't know what else to do with it but try to sell it.

What’s something you’d love to see in the future, but know you probably won’t live to witness? There is a future I ache for, though I know I will likely never live to see it. I dream of a world that remembers the Ancient Ways—not as some romanticized past, but as a lived truth—where humanity once again understands itself as part of Nature, not master over it.

How do you handle fear and self-doubt? There is a peculiar wisdom carried on the wind that allows me to battle my fears and self doubt—a wild inner wisdom that bubbles up in my soul like laughter at the edge of the grave; a knowing so deep that it coils like a tail biting serpent around the base of my spine…

What’s the most profound piece of advice you’ve been given? Did you take it? Inside every quiet facethere is a whole forest.Old roads.Hidden rivers.Night prayers.Memories that still glowlike moonlightthrough the trees. Our elders taughtthat the spirit is layered.Part earth.Part story.Part wound.Part song. That is whyyou must be careful…

What’s a moment in your life that felt like it was straight out of a movie? Riverside Gallery —South Bend WA I found such an astonishing place I am allowed—no, invited—to call home. Just like from a movie of happily ever, after I found my tribe and my place. Not a home of walls alone, but of spirits. A gathering place where the air hums with creation, where each corner seems to whisper, …

Every piece of art I create becomes a vessel—a small, breathing reliquary of the moment it was born. When I look upon my work, I do not simply see lines, color, or form—I am returned.Returned to the exact texture of my thoughts,the weight of my feelings,the unseen tide that moved through me as my hands made meaning out of silence.

What’s a simple pleasure in life that brings you joy? I walk where the old songs grow in the ground,Where silence is thick and the soul makes a sound,Where moss drinks the stories of all who have been,And the bones of the lost make the forest within. I am she who remembers the language of leaf,

The Living Earth Speaks This is the Trickster Coyote’s Last Laugh… Oh, you clever ape. You who stole lightning and tucked it into your pocket. You who said: “Look, Jord, my Mother, I can make stars on the ground.” And she said nothing—at first. Because fire, you see, was always hers. She let you play with it. Let you cook your roots and scare away the dark.

What’s the most interesting local custom you’ve encountered? The most interesting local custom I've encountered was found locally many generations ago just about everywhere on the Planet. “Mother Nature” is not merely a poetic metaphor—it is a deeply rooted cognitive and cultural framework through which human societies have interpreted ecological reality through cross cultural traditions. Across agrarian and pre-industrial cultures, the earth’s generative capacity—its ability to bring forth life, sustain it, and reclaim it—invited comparison to the maternal body and with that understanding, all ancient tribes and cultures follow customs, rituals and traditions that honored this understanding.

What’s a thing you were completely obsessed with as a kid? Did you know, that all throughout my high school years I was planning on becoming a Marine Biologist? I got married and had my kids instead, but I still keep my finger on the pulse of our oceans health, it's wildlife diversity and their quality of life status. And well kids, our oceans life force and life sustainability is going down the shitter faster than I can spit.

“We’ve been rambling all the night and some time of this day…to bring you ribbons colored bright, and the garland gay…”The Mummers' Dance" is a 1997 Celtic new-age song by Loreena McKennitt inspired by ancient, often pagan, European traditions of masked, costumed folk plays. The lyrics and dance reference spring celebrations (like May Day) involving the death and revival of characters, played by a "mummer" (who is a masked actor or performer in traditional, often rural, folk plays) usually performed around spring.

In the temple of crumbs and coffee grinds,Where cast iron hums and the dishwasher whines,There lies—behold!—our sacred clutch:A dozen eggs (give or take…please don’t touch).Not in some sterile, cataloged pen,But beside the sourdough starter and a red painted hen,We midwife life in the wildcraft way—With laughter, grit, and a bit of hay.The incubator hums like a old druid’s spell,

What is your mission? Greenland: A Moral Crossroads —another Captain Obvious moment to help save the planet. Greenland is not a commodity.It is not a prize.It is not “untapped potential” waiting for human extraction. Greenland is a free land whose culture has endured through unity with Nature—not domination of it. And now, whether we like it or not, it has become a symbol: Nature’s last stand against human greed.

On the Longest Night When Raven WaitsCoyote laughs softly to himself—not the loud, trickster howl,but the quiet grin of a teacherwho knows the dark is not an endingbut a mystery.His footprints spiral the snow,circles pretending to be mistakes.He tips the world just enoughfor wonder to spill out,for rules to loosen their grip,

What could you do less of? The room remembers things I’ve forgotten—brushstrokes left in the air,unfinished colors drifting like ghostswho never learned to be ashamedof their incompletion. The walls—soft green, a little faded—hold the nostalgia of every artistwho ever stood trembling before a blank canvas.They don’t apologize for their chipped cornersor the places the light touches unevenly.

Winter is the best season for self care and reconnecting with the gentle healing power of Nature. This winter season give yourself the gift of self care. Your body will thank you. #wildcraft #Wildcrafted #wildcrafting #wildbotanicals

Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it? Do I have a favorite place I’ve visited? Absolutely—though it isn’t just one place. My favorite places are *every* wildwood I’ve ever stepped foot in. It’s the forests—those feral, breathing cathedrals of green—that call to me. Even as a mature woman, something ancient stirs the moment I step beneath a dense canopy.

What is one thing you would change about yourself? If possible I'd change my dread of old age, but thankfully I do have a heroine from Norse Mythology that reminds me aging is a privilege denied to many... Meet Elli – The Old Woman Who Defeated Thor Elli isn’t a warrior, a goddess, or a giantess with a weapon. She is simply Old Age — and she’s the only being who ever made Thor, the strongest of the Norse Heros, fall to his knees.

December arrives like a soft-footed spirit, slipping between the thinning veils of late autumn and the hush of winter’s first breath. The world grows quiet at the edges. Trees stand bare yet dignified, their silhouettes sharp against a sky so clear and cold it startles you—the kind of night where your warm exhale becomes a ghost of frost, drifting upward to meet the stars.

*Me in a high school play* I always related to Peter Pan — that wild boy of the in-between, forever perched on the edge of growing up, laughing at the solemn rules of a world that forgot how to play. But over the years, I began to see through the shimmer of his youth and recognize a deeper current running beneath his mischief — an ancient echo, older than Neverland.

Do you need time? No. What we need is to be fully present... People spend lifetimes building prisons around illusions — defending the empty and dead spaces of their sleep walking through life, worshipping the glittering dust of distraction. They fight for versions of reality that do not feed the soul, mistaking the white noise of busy acquisition for meaning, and the futility of total control for purpose.

With each turning of the generations, something ancient within us stirs and remembers.We are not static creatures, but living stories — unfolding, healing, learning how to love more wholly than those before us. Our evolution is not measured in technology or conquest, but in compassion — in how gently we hold one another, in how consciously we tend to the world we’ve inherited.

What historical event fascinates you the most? Human dominance as a disruptive species since the last Ice Age. We humans are, above all, cultural beings. Though our existence is grounded in biology, what truly defines us is not instinct but *enculturation*—the learned ways of perceiving, speaking, and acting that shape our understanding of self and world. Our mother tongue, our daily habits, and the symbols through which we find meaning form our “being-in-the-world.”

Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live? November comes with her cloak of smoke and frost,breathing gold upon the dying leaves,a hush upon the fields where summer’s laughter sleeps.She knocks at my heart like an old friend returning—My birth month reminds me to mark my years circling the sun,as I open the door with paint-stained hands and spirit wide.

What does it mean to be a kid at heart? Once, I believed the moon could follow my car,its silver eye winking just for me—a guardian lantern through sleep-soft trees. Fireflies stitched the dusk with light,tiny lantern-keepers of forgotten dreams.Their glow was proof that even the darkhas a heartbeat. Thunder was a giant clapping his hands…

What's something you believe everyone should know. Long after the sun sinks, your spirit is already walking—barefoot and bright, whispering to the bones of the Earth,*I see you.*The mists that obscure part for those who remember how to listen. ᚠᛉᛇ The world keeps calling you back to sleep,but you have tasted the old wind of truth,

What have you been working on? 🌲Yesterday my dear friend Kathy Stevens and I had a wonderful day of visiting and shared many healing conversations that I'm inspired to share here of what it is I am currently working on. One of the best moments of the day was our stop at Pacific Trading Co. and our deep insights of self work shared with Danielle Lynn.

What’s something most people don’t know about you? What’s something most people don’t know about me?Most folks already know I’m a writer — I’ve got about a dozen books out in the world (which still feels wild to say out loud). But what many *don’t* know is that I’m also an artist. 🎨 I draw, paint, and sculpt — sometimes all at once, depending on how caffeinated or possessed by the muse I happen to be.

What have you been putting off doing? Why? I’ve been avoiding a conversation with someone I love, because it’s one of those deeply delicate exchanges where both hearts carry old wounds, both spirits are tender, and both minds move through the world with neurodivergent rhythms that don’t always bend easily toward the calm logic or self-sovereignty that existentialism asks of us.

This is a photo of me not giving a damn about your political opinion…. Because the real stuff — the things that actually matter — are out here.In the wind.In the silence of the valley.In the moments that remind you how small all the noise really is. We are on a rock flying through Infinity…there are bigger topics to be discussed.

What skill would you like to learn? Yes. Like barefoot-in-the-mud, sleep-under-the-stars, drink-from-the-river feral. Like full-blown, dirt-under-the-nails, rain-slick hair, howl-at-the-moon, “is-that-a-wolf-or-just-me?” level of feral. Why? Because clearly, returning to my natural roots as an actual Earth creature is the only form of sanity left in a civilization so allergic to reality it thinks "Nature" is an Instagrammable weekend concept, not the literal operating system that makes human life function.

If you had a million dollars to give away, who would you give it to? "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" That is what our nation was founded upon, so where did we go so terribly wrong?