The world is on fire.
And the wild mountain mint is blooming.

It smells like childhood in the blue ridge mountains, back when I was 7 years old singing to God, surrounded by family and friends. A bonfire blazing at twilight while 20 year olds and 60 year olds played their guitars and we sung songs to the mountain. Surrounded on all sides by the pungent mint cradled by god-with-us.

The great prophet and poet, Andrea Gibson died and it feels like yesterday, but instead it was weeks ago.
I hear their words everywhere.
They told us us they would be more with us than they were before.
And they are also changed from the world, ascended into every speck of dust, every petal, every laugh. I think about their wife and their close loved ones and I send solace to them on their daily walks with grief.

One of the dearest humans of my life is blossoming from god-child to woman and reads bedtime stories to my daughter like we used to read to her.

Children starve on the other side of the world as genocide rages. I wonder, how is there anyone left alive in the ash and the grave that is Palestine?

And I watch my jewish friends deal with more antisemitism, anguish, and fear.

We watch that exchange of how harming one, hurts us all. We all lose, intolerance grows for all.

As anonymous ICE agents kidnap people off the streets and words like “Humanity” are searched for amongst our institutions as a trigger word that Trump uses to defund our schools, health facilities, and more.

Today I laid across my bed and watched the news flash through the screen. I watched silly memes and horrible realities and I thought how tired I was.

Maybe I wouldn’t go on a walk, maybe I would just take another nap. The juice sucked out of my willpower.

Instead I got up and put on my tenny-runners. I grabbed the treat bag, & the dog, and walked out my door to the morning routine that almost didn’t happen.

There in my driveway sat a red truck, and in it, a woman looking for the dance studio in our barn.

I peered closer “-Connie?”

“Yes!”, she said.

My favorite professor from college was sitting in my driveway, coming to dance in my big red barn.

She was early. We got to talk. We laughed and shook our heads, and sat in the kismet moment of what happens when you decide to get off screens and walk out the kitchen door.

Connie Schrader dancing and collaborating with Taryn Griggs & Chris Yon of the Yoggs

I walked along the road and noticed. The tulsi basil growing, the mountain mint, the queen anne’s lace. And the fields of corn, dancing in the breeze.
The song of the crickets as a backdrop to a cool summer morning.

I walked up the barn steps. I watched my professor dance a dance she choreographed.

I thought how close I was to missing all the little moments if I’d given over to the exhaustive ache in the world instead of also participating in the day.

May your feet carry you towards connection. May you find renewal in participation. May there be more of us connected and participating humans than the destroyers. May we overcome and hold peace, dignity, life, and enough for all.