you need to go touch grass.
Workshop this Sunday! ECOPOETICS will get us in touch with the grass and each other | Registration closes tonight!
our grass is gated so we can get in, but it can’t get out. and though our grass is surrounded by loudness and watched by the houseless, our grass is mostly lonely and mowed monthly on retainer. we pay for our grass but the lawn isn’t locked, you see, so i’m constantly clocking how much this lot would be worth to a 'real' city person more starved for nature… and here i am sweating outside forty five strangers’ window glass scrolling my phone, telling me: girl, you need to go touch grass. [Friday, August 1st, 2025]
ECOPOETICS: Writing with the more-than-human world
THIS SUNDAY, AUGUST 3rd
from 12-3pm central
The Image Word Mystery Ritual Lab returns this weekend for a special 3-hour poetic intensive. ECOPOETICS participants will dive deep into their unique relationship with place through a series of creative prompts as we ask:
“What is poetry’s role when the world is burning?”
Join me & Ritual Lab Community members Allie, Nina, Jade, Elisa, John, Lee, Erika, Miles, Neon, Cam, Hannah, Shara, Stacey, Cori & Krisztina by grabbing your ticket here!
REGISTRATION CLOSES TONIGHT! Links go out tomorrow!
$75 here or 35% off when join the full year of Ritual Lab. [Reach out if you’re in need of a scholarship.]
I’m really looking forward to sharing some time in the sweet morphogenetic field of group poetry crafting with you!
It’s always magic & true medicine.
In the meantime, here’s another poem I wrote this week from the yard:
the flood stage is only 12 feet but by 10 the water will hit 13.5 while the AQI is 159 & the fire is burning 1,560 miles away & the dew point's over 70, so it's only 87 but it feels like 93. our days are numbered.
A prompt for you…
What type of nature-based narratives are you noticing around you? While you dive down the scroll-hole? While you talk to your friends?
“Go touch grass” seems to be meme-ing about as much as “the world is on fire”…
What are you noticing? Make a list then pick a phrase and run with it for a freewrite or poem & PLEASE share it with us here!
Well, it’s time for me to go inside and crank up the air conditioning…see ya on Sunday!
xoxoxo,
Love.
Feeding my mouth
Feeding my soul
I feed my grief
Feeling those without bread.
Disconnected souls
Disconnected creatures
Pulling up weeds
Not knowing they are truly medicine.
Answers are here.
Whispering, let go and stop resisting nature.
Let go and
normalize your age
Normalize the bugs
Normalize the weeds
Normalize the trees
Normalize the connection between all things.
Love.
What sparks joy?
In the darkest hours
I search for that spark
My one voice
In the dark
Reaching out
Across time and space
To hear the harmonic surge
Of many voices
Rising up and out
Joined as one
To know that I am not alone
In my despair
Voices rising up
From the ashes and decay
Voices screaming out
To the numb and blind
For support, for help
Hands, so many hands
Reaching out from
The depths of the ocean, cave,
Pit of destruction
Desolation
De-SOUL-ation
When the form no longer fits
We must burn the meat suit
And rise from the ashes
Creating our own fire
And sparking the scream
That wakes us from the
Nightmare
And every morning
That I wake up
Is a chance to try again
What sparks joy?
That tiny crack that
Is a sign of being broken
Is also where the light gets in
That can fuel a
Thousand rainbows
The beauty after
The storm