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It is the bleak mid-winter...straight up. Now that I'm both tending bees and a pond, I have a much greater awareness of the details of winter. And despite how many of us, in this western world, view winter, so much happens at this time. We just can't see it. The irony of our perception vs. the reality of it all is that, without these still, bare moments, nothing would happen...ever. And it's worth our effort to re-train our minds to allow for the extraordinary activity that happens in the subtle realms. In our subtle realms as well as the wild world's and the season's. It's not business as usual. Our commerce might enforce this 24/7/365 notion, but we will not shift the way The World conducts its business. Likely, we will be evicted as poorly behaving tenants long before The World changes its ways.

(stream of consciousness, unedited...with apologies) It is five fifty-eight am....the Earthquake man has just driven away to the airport for a business trip. The elkhound is working on a bone in the light of our beautiful wild-caught christmas tree (still up but not for long I think). One cat has found the chair next to me at the kitchen table. The other is already out hunting - at this hour and at this frosty temperature, he’ll be lucky to ‘catch’ a frozen carcass left on the lawn from yesterday’s carnage. The moon has set, and it's pitch black outside. Not even a hint of dawn. But that will probably change in less than fifteen minutes. Even though I’ve lived to see 17, 235 sunrises this moment will never get relegated to the mundane. I am moved to tears each time I am fortunate enough to witness the sunrise. And, I’ve often got skin in this game of sunrise happening, every day on time, just like it always has, just like it silently promised us it always will, by virtue of its relentless envious unwavering predictability.

It’s hard to know what of *this* is the cleanse, the situation, or something entirely as yet out of my awareness. But for two days I have been feeling so permeable. Like a fragile weathered leaf or a very thin layer of ice. None of that actually captures the full truth of where I am in this moment; poised to take greater risks than ever before in service of my work (which is my life, there is no separation). I’ve committed to cleaning up my relationship with money (oh lord, what an epic feat for my intrepid guide, Bari Tessler); committed to publishing my poetry (thank you to the Earthquake Man and Max Regan); committed to speaking my truth no matter what (thank you, again, Earthquake Man, my incredible women’s council and Jayson Gaddis); committed to finally completing the Women’s Wisdom Card Deck & Guidebook; committed to finally prioritizing my relationship with The World, my place within it, and my unapologetic outrageously all-consuming love for it.

For the last six years I have been in the process of writing a book prompted by my experiences gathering stories for the Global Culture of Women (a non-profit I founded eight years ago). I am in the final stages of this extraordinary project, which has grown and morphed over and over. Now it is a Women's Wisdom Card Deck and Guidebook, with the guidebook being a body of work that could easily stand on its own. There are 43 cards all with original photographs, most of which have been donated by female photographers who have traveled the world capturing extraordinary images of every-day women. The purpose of this offering (like the mission of the GCW itself) is to inspire women everywhere to share their soul stories and speak their wisdom. As if all life depended on it, because it does.

I am not like the others Today as I sit writing at the kitchen table a brawny flicker lands on the porch checking out the empty feeder leaning against the post

This morning is day three of a much-needed cleanse the Earthquake Man and I have started. It isn’t particularly rigorous. Just long (one month). We already eat pretty well, but we love our glasses of wine, the EQM loves his coffee, and of course, we love chocolate. Nope. None of it...not for now. It’s already having it’s way with us.

I am the 4am daughter of the slippery epiphanies

the unspoken-come-back-and-haunt-you truths from the days before

Of the wailing until sleep comes

Of the innocent backing-into-it love making

I am the 4am daughter of the secret songs and talking tales for how the universe got here

Today it is frigid cold. With the little bit of sun that peers through the high clouds here and there, the finches have finally dared to come out of their tucked-away nests to eat at the feeders. Our elkhound, on day three of no proper exercise (because I have been fighting a virus and have had no energy for our usual routine), is sitting just feet from me on the couch, staring at me and sighing heavily every few minutes.

Last night I went to Chasing Ice with The Earthquake Man and my two children. I sat between them in a sold-out theater and beheld images of ice...ice others...like individuals...so full of story, like jewels beneath big skies, calving glaciers which are now simply leaving. Falling apart. So much has happened in the last 100 years after a millennia-long dance of becoming and falling apart. Overnight.

We are such a clever species.

"There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground"

even if one lives in the trees my belly aches to hear their dreams

Just moments earlier in bed with the Earthquake Man his big careful hands run along my body

"You must ask for what you really want"