Fall fallow to feed what fuels you. 🌱

desperate times call for daring depth, community dreaming, poetic compassion, cooking with friends, long walks to nowhere, collaborative art & napping

Hello, my friends!

Though you haven’t heard from me for a few weeks of desperately-needed rest, I’ve been collecting little thoughts for you here and there. Today, I wrote to you while I baked & listened to this addictively wonky audio experiment on repeat:

I kneaded sourdough and breathed and wrote— and then I just sat and watched the dough rise above the edge of the cast iron with my head pressed against the oven window, tossing toys for the cat…

in 2008 i made an animation very close to my heart featuring some meditative dough-kneading…

🥣 nourishment

By the end of 2024, I was starving.

As in, I needed to find fuel to survive. But, rather than run around wrangling new resources, I let myself fall into the soil I’ve already been tending for years.

I can’t tell you how good this has felt in my body & heart.

The next time a violent misogynist christofacist narcissist takes power in your country threatening all you hold sacred and dear, might I recommend scheduling time to hang out with kind and generous visionary artists, musicians and poets?

Without this, the last two months would’ve pulled me under…

But instead, I spent January with the brilliant & tender Ritual Lab Community making meaning and magic with our oracle cards.

a few cards by: me, hannah williams & vasalisart

And last weekend, Neon & I opened our home to host the first ever Vision Train regional meetup — which also happened to be an intimate gathering of Image Word Mystery members

Nina Telthorst

,

John Raux

& Lee!

Y’all…it was incredible.

We hugged, we cooked, we made music, we made art, we wrote poetry, we took walks, we laughed, we cried, we sang.

At some point on Saturday, I looked at Neon with misty eyes and said, “I haven’t felt this much like myself in years…” 💕

Here’s the quietest moment of the weekend, passing our notebooks around, collaborating on freeform pages:

Spreading out around our table, fully activating all the senses, immersed in the laughs and side-conversations, snacks, pigments, music and ideas swirling— this is the nourishment I’ve been missing. 🙏

THANK YOU for being the trim tab for this get-together, sweet @Nina Telthorst (Lee is not pictured here but their presence was a joy!)

Of course, I’ll be sharing so much more from these and other adventures soon, but for now I’m letting this email be as easy as the flow of conversation around a cluttered table with yer friends.

A powerful reminder: Sometimes good things can be effortless.

More soon! Sending you warm sandalwood-scented hugs, big belly laughs and some sourdough garlic knots.

xoxo,