Writing – A Wabi Sabi Life

One Path

“crossing the river of life”
Mo Chuu (mother river) Bhutan, October 19, 2025

“No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There may be countless trails and bridges and demigods who would gladly carry you across; but only at the price of pawning and forgoing yourself. There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don’t ask, walk!”
Friedrich Nietzsche in The Marginalian

This time the path led to touring and trekking in Bhutan, with an early three-day layover in Bangkok. Curious about Bhutan since reading that its Gross National Product was based on happiness, in recent years I’d begun my research. Committed to traveling with a Canadian company, and wanting to experience the country by walking in its forests and on its mountain trails, after last year’s heartening experience, I opted for a women’s hiking tour hosted by Wild Women Expeditions. Away almost three weeks in October, companioned by three women from the US, we were expertly hosted by local guide Chhimi from Blue Poppy Travel.

Since walking the Portuguese Coastal Camino in May 2022, I’ve made annual long distance walks. Each has been a known pilgrimage with sacred sites marking well worn paths trodden for hundreds of years by seekers and practitioners. Bhutan was no exception, as ornately carved wooden temples perched on mountain plateaus, white stucco stupas scattered in fields and on roads, and prayer flags strung across chasms constantly reminded us that we were being held by Mayahana Buddhism, the state religion deeply integrated into all aspects of Bhutanese life.

From our first walkabout during our first day in Paro, when hearing chanting we came upon the first of several ceremonies and offerings for peace, compassion, and the ending of suffering of all beings – hallmarks of this form of Buddhism. Chhimi confirmed my hunch that given so much current global conflict and suffering, the monks and nuns were engaged in even more ceremony as antidote. As I write this post, the country is hosting an unprecedented Global Peace Prayer Festival, November 4-17, in its capital, Thimpu, at the site of the massive seated golden Buddha, in hopes of rekindling hope and shared prosperity. We were deeply moved that this small country of 700,000 citizens was undertaking such effort, and expense, for the well-being of the planet and all its beings … for each of us.

Buddha Dordemna, Thimpu (for perspective)

We were many times blessed on our expedition. Everyday the sun shone in an azure sky when the week prior had brought unprecedented rains washing out trails and creating landslides on the only highway traversing the country, resulting in hours’ long delays. Narrow road shoulders became more treacherous with debris and washout along cliff edges. Days after our departure, major storm systems in neighboring India were bringing more rain.

Too, we had countless “right place, right time” moments, including watching monks practice their festival dance in the field one Sunday morning; meeting a local girl who invited us to use her bow and arrow to practice the national sport; having an unusual roadside photo opp with a Himalayan Grey Langur; seeing one of the four Queen Mothers (the earlier king married sisters), and the current King and Queen pass us in their motor entourages (no photos allowed); and even seeing Mount Everest from our plane departing Paro.

To have journeyed in such a small group, with two women who, like me, were celebrating their 70th birthdays was an answered prayer, as we supported each other in challenging climbs that took us to heights of 3000+ meters, and lengthy, quad and calf gripping descents.

I am filled to the brim with visceral and visual impressions in which here, now, is my first humble attempt to put into words. Many times, as is my way, my heart overflowed in tears. I trust poetry will emerge … in the right place, at right time. But for now, may this suffice.

With much love and kindest regards, dear friends. “om mani padme hum”

Ring a Bell … Take a Pause … Find Some Patience

Ring a Bell … Take a Pause … Find Some Patience – Touching in with musings about my summer.

July 11 was the last time I posted. Then, a poem from Rosemerry Wahtola Trummer with the perfect photo of a perfect red zinnia to complement her words. “Beyond Patience,” which was how I’d been feeling. Now today, up at 4:00 am – intentionally as I’m on a Timeshifter jetlag program – I wanted to touch in with you.

Summers are short here on ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ (Amiskwacîwâskahikan), Treaty 6 territory, and my rhythm is to be out in it as much as I can before the cold comes and I cocoon. This year has been marked by early rain, big winds, and again smoke, though not as much as last year. September brought wasp-free warmth inviting meals al fresco and early morning coffee sipped on the deck before dawn, wrapped in a down quilt, watching Venus shimmer, the sun rise, and the crows fly from the east, readying for their migration south. It’s become my meditation.

As I’d been having trouble finding words to write, I metaphorically rang a bell and took a pause. Played some pickleball, though it’s lost some allure. Returned, after several years away, to the Canmore Folk Festival, though soaking showers and the ongoing threat of storms added a tiring element of vigilance. Planted herbs and greens and made good summer salads. Read a few good books. Sat for a weekend in silence. Polished a couple of poems from April’s half-marathon, one of which was accepted in the upcoming “Kairos” issue of Yellow Arrow Journal. Read some of my poetry at the weekly summer Sounds From the Valley concert. Bought an e-bike in June, and during the past five Fridays riding with a friend have finally relived the promise of its joy and exhilaration. Walked the river valley, though not as many kilometers as in past two summers, but climbed hundreds of its stairs, all in preparation for tomorrow’s departure for Bhutan and this year’s long-distance walk.

And I revised, and revised, and revised my poetry collection for its upcoming publication. From the introduction:

“Composed of sixty-two poems complemented by my photos, Skyborne Insight, Homemade Love is the metaphor for my realizations, often brought into focus—quite literally—while sitting by the window on a plane, staring out into the sky. Something about that view’s unobstructed vastness where, paradoxically, I feel closer . . . to my vulnerabilities . . . to my shortcomings and misgivings . . . to my questions seeking answers . . . to God, which might be the best word for all of it. Those “aha” moments, distilled from noticing and naming the grief and the beauty in life’s imperfections, the sacred in the mundane moments at home, and those extraordinary ones when travelling abroad.”

This summer I’ve come to know in my bones both the boon and necessity of living life slower, and paradoxically feeling its fullness. Time feels thick. Not that it’s moving fast, but that I can hardly track what I did last week, let alone that it was only yesterday when we saw that play, or ate dinner at that restaurant, when it feels much longer ago.

“The artist actively works to experience life slowly, and then to re-experience the same things anew …

… If we removed time from the equation of a work’s development, what we’re left with is patience. Not just for the development of the work, but for the development of the artist as a whole.”
Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

I’m about to ring the bell again, and take another pause, this time walking in a land that prizes happiness and is deeply steeped in a slow and mindful patience. As is my way, I go curious and feel anxious with the unknown of it all, this being my first time flying solo to Asia. I hope for the words and photos to note experiences which I trust will be profound. In the interim, may you be well and happy. And thank you, as ever, for reading.

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.

Breathe and Create

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my participation in a poetry writing half marathon. As preamble to this week’s post, below is the prompt given for the 23rd hour, and the “list” poem I cobbled together from the book on my desk at dawn that Sunday morning, after 10 hours of writing 10 previous poems.

Hour 23 — Write a poem about harvesting something, it could be anything from clams to apples.

A List for Harvesting Creativity

Know that you and everyone is creative.
Tune into your ideas, impulses, dreams and hunches.
Make it up. Experimentation leads to innovation.
Expect surprises.
Mistakes are part of the process.
Rules can serve. Rules can hinder. Learn the difference.
Self doubt is part of the process.
So is rejection.
Keep your habits fresh.
What you don’t know is as, if not more, important than what you know.
Saying “no” is foundational to saying “yes”.
Play.

With thanks to Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act: A Way of Being (2023)

Now that I’m back to walking, often solo, in preparation for another long distance trek (destination and details to come), I’ve returned to listening to podcasts and audio books to help pass the time. I found Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act on Spotify and as I’m reading it for a monthly book study, hearing the author read his pithy chapters, the transition from one into the next marked by the ringing of a bell, has been as delightfully edifying as the book study conversations.

The list above captures a mere fraction of his self acknowledged “noticings” about what and how to open possibilities for a creative way of being. This past week, I was struck by his chapters on listening, and patience.

“Listening is suspending belief.”
Rick Rubin, The Creative Act

Given that we listen not only with our ears, but with our whole bodies, our filters of acculturation, beliefs, perceptions, and biases affect what we hear. Learning to listen with an awareness of these influences opens possibilities and grants us freedom from unconscious and accepted limitations. While I know this, to hear another say it, meaningfully hit home.

“There are no shortcuts.”
Rick Rubin, The Creative Act

So opens the chapter on patience. But it could be the mantra for entire book. I stopped walking and replayed Rubin saying:

“When it comes to the creative process, patience is accepting that the majority of the work we do is out of our control. We can’t force greatness to happen. All we can do is invite in it and await it actively. Not anxiously, as this might scare it off. Simply in a state of continual welcoming.”

To do otherwise, by letting our cultural predisposition towards efficiency govern instead of responding to life in sync with its revealed rhythms and not our imposed agendas, is an argument with reality. Another deep resonance.

On my writing desk, beside Rubin’s book is Suleika Jaouad’s The Book of Alchemy. A gift from my sister, with a focus on journaling, its subtitle, A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life, suggests its hugging up against Rubin is not a coincidence.

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.

To Travel Is To Feel

The best way to travel, after all, is to feel,
To feel everything in every way,
To feel everything excessively,
Because all things are, in truth, excessive
And all reality is an excess, a violence,
An extraordinarily vivid hallucination.

~ Fernando Pessoa ~

This photo, taken three years ago while strolling in Lisbon the evening I arrived to acclimatize before walking the Portuguese Coastal Camino, is a modern homage to Portugal’s man of letters, Fernando Pessaro. His understanding of travel mirrors my own experiences, often reflected in my own poetry and photography.

This spring, SYNKRONICITI, the literary online quarterly founded by Katherine Grace McDaniel, again made a home for my creative expressions. In the current issue Identity, my poem “Ammonite Answers” and companion photo of the Moroccan mesa which inspired it, are but dozens of submissions beautifully curated by Katherine. As a poet who writes about the beauty in life’s imperfection and photographs its shimmer, often in response to my travels, I appreciate having my work accepted from among the many writers, poets, and visual artists from around the world who submit.

But what makes these acceptances all the more special is the time Katherine takes to uplift each contributor’s work by posting her often intuitive, always thoughtful impressions on her website’s blog and social media. In the case of my poem, she writes:

“Carl Jung recognized travel as a powerful tool for self discovery and individuation. Our interaction with unfamiliar parts of the outside world helps us hone who we are and often opens our eyes to things we didn’t know about ourselves, as well as confirming things we suspected.”

Hers is feedback as gift, both acknowledging, and inviting me into a deeper reflection on my writing and how it resonates with another. Thank you, Katherine.

Here’s the link to Katherine’s labor of love, that includes mine and that of many other global creatives.

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.

Bragging Rights

Early Sunday morning I completed my first half marathon.

For twelve hours, from 7:00 pm Saturday night to 7:00 am Sunday morning, I joined hundreds of poets from around the world in writing a poem an hour for twelve or twenty-four. Hosted by Caitlin and Jacob Jans from Toronto, I opted for twelve. Having the choice of joining the first or the last half, I elected the latter, knowing my preference for writing in the dark stillness as the day begins or ends. And given a recent bout of mid insomnia, waking like clockwork around 3:00 am (and what I learned during the marathon is called the “hour of the wolf”), I figured I’d be OK for the duration. And I was.

Once registered and having completed the online orientation, I took a peek at posts sharing preparation tips and writing strategies. I kept it simple by jotting down a few inspiring phrases that I’d heard or read last week, trusting they’d provide enough light structure for creating. I made snacks from leftovers, abstained from wine at dinner instead drinking an “americano,” and brewed several mugs of black tea over the course.

Funny thing is, I almost missed the start. By four hours!

Hard to believe, given I’d just been in Ontario and regularly call my parents, that I would have mixed up time zones. Instead of grokking that the official start time of 9:00 am EDT would be 7:00 am my time, I somehow thought it was 11:00 am. Ambivalence was definitely at play, though intention won the day, as arriving to my studio after supper Saturday, puttering around and getting organized, I thought I’d check in on the proceedings shortly after 7. There I saw the prompt posted for Hour 13, and recalled that was to be my start for the half marathon.

Thankfully, during my puttering, I’d given thought to writing a “found” poem from the book titles sitting on my desk in front of me. And that became my first poem, giving me a time to catch my breath and race upstairs to share my near calamity with Sig.

My strategy proved effective as I weaved a line I’d written down with Caitlin’s hourly verbal and/or visual prompts. I experimented with form, writing haiku, haibun, list, abecedarian, ekphrastic, and free verse. I realized my objective of creating some fresh pieces and successfully wrote a poem an hour, posting, and reading a few other entries.

With eyes “scorched” from twelve hours online, and a mushy brain that continued to compose even as I fell into bed at 7 am, I concluded that what I’d done once I’d not do again. But with rest and time outside planting my herbs and salad greens, and a more thoughtful review of my writing, I’ll reconsider.

While most of us conceded our efforts are at best “sh…tty first drafts” (thanks, Anne Lamott), several of mine are rough pearls in need of a polish to shine.

And I get to join four hundred global poets claiming bragging rights.

Thank Goodness for A Found Poem — when I confused time zones!
the carrying of apples on a windowsill,
when bright dead things become the creative act,
and the book of alchemy transcends the hurting kind

What kind of daughter messes up the time zone and writes
her first half marathon poem from book titles
sitting on her desk in front of her?

Rattle—d, but a smart one.

(Book titles in italics from the following authors in order of use: Ada Limón, Shawna Lemay, Ada Limón, Rick Rubin, Suleiaka Jaouad, Ada Limón, Rayanne Haines, Timothy Green (ed))

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.

The Presence of The Absence

There is a word in Portuguese that has no direct equivalent
in any other language: “saudade.”
It is not just longing. It is more.
It is longing mixed with melancholy,
with expectation,
with tenderness and with a gentle sadness.

It is longing for something that was. . . or maybe never was.
It is absence with the scent of memory.
It is love that did not have time to end, but neither to continue.
It is music that echoes in the void left by someone.

In fado they sing saudade.
In our long silences, saudade is hidden.
In lonely walks,
in lost glances out the window,
in letters never sent.

Saudade does not want to leave.
It doesn’t heal, because it doesn’t hurt completely.
It doesn’t break you, but it doesn’t leave you whole either.
It’s the sweet wound of souls that feel deeply, beyond words.

Carrying saudade within you is proof that you loved,
that you lived,
that you dreamed… even if for a moment.

~ Waves of Life, Facebook, May 4, 2025 ~

*singing* *fado on the steps in Lisbon, May 2022*

Exactly three years ago I was walking the Portuguese Coastal Camino to Santiago. During my first evening in Lisbon, I encountered the essence of “saudade” in a young street musician strumming her guitar, perched on stone steps across from our hotel, singing “fado,” the Portuguese equivalent of the “blues.“

Once home, in preparation for writing about my experiences, I heard a Portuguese guide refer to fado as “the presence of absence.” This inspired a poem which was published later that year in 100 Caminos, an annual Chilean anthology celebrating Camino poetry:

. . . now my memory mends and fills
those cracked and empty places
with jasmine perfume and birdsong
blistered heels and sun kissed faces

Saudade captures much of how I’ve been feeling this year. Tired from the moral outrage I’ve felt in response to the incessant displays of blatant evil. . . disappointed with life events that didn’t quite become as I’d imagined. . . I feel “the longing for something that was . . . or maybe never was.”

Disillusionment giving way to letting go. Discernment that comes with age.
The proof that I have loved and lived and dreamed.
The presence of the absence acknowledged and allowed.
And what is asking to emerge next.

Life’s unfolding along its silver thread, invisible until it’s not.

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends. It’s nice to be back after several weeks’ absence.

This Spring

It’s 7:00 am Sunday morning. I’m an early riser. Lately, too early as I’ve been plagued with a bout of early morning insomnia, waking around 3. Sometimes I toss a bit, listen to the slow and steady breath of Sig sleeping beside me and try to synch my breath with hopes of falling back to sleep. When my mind overrides that intention, I quietly rise, slip into my robe and slippers and head downstairs to read, or write, or take my place on my cushion, or stare out the window, wondering.

In a couple of hours, I’ll be attending an onsite, in-person writing workshop. Hosted by the Writers’ Guild of Alberta, it’s described as “an all-day retreat designed to nourish your creative process. Writing exercises, inspiring prompts, and focused discussion will get your juices flowing and keep you motivated for days and weeks afterwards.” Goodness, I hope so, for like an Alberta spring, no sooner do my juices start to melt and flow, when they freeze solid and need to be chipped and chopped to get flowing again.

Last week in my monthly online writers’ circle, we each spoke of being in a fallow season, making reference to Katherine May’s memoir Wintering; gave space for our reactions to democracy’s demise in the face of growing fascism; and anticipated Spring’s arrival the next day. A closing offering of a poem which I’ll share here to close today’s short, and “OK enough” post.

This Spring

How can I love this spring
when it’s pulling me
through my life faster
than any time before it?
When five separate dooms
are promised this decade
and here I am, just trying
to watch a bumblebee cling
to its first purple flower.
I cannot save this world.
But look how it’s trying,
once again, to save me.

~ James A. Pearson ~

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.

Mindful

Mindful

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for –
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world –
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant –
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these –
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

– Mary Oliver –

“How are you?” ask friends who I’ve not seen, nor spoken to for a while.
“Terrified,” my response.

Not afraid, but terrified…for my country…the illegal apprehensions, deportations, and denied entry…the constant blatant disregard for law…evil in the guise of leadership.

Not a very mindful response, or is it? Certainly more intense and less palatable than “afraid.” But in the moment, truthful, uncensored. And then it passes. The weight of it lessens for its utterance. But I know, too, that I need those moments of seeing and hearing that kill me with delight.

Thankfully, Walker obliges. Every day. The shine in his eyes, tongue hanging in joyful anticipation as I dress to play with him outside. Chasing him with one of the store of sticks he’s taken from the woodpile in the back. Our backyard scattered with them. Or inside, tugging on the damp-with-drool dishrag nearly shredded, or his blue racquetball, or red kong – each tight in his mouth, until he lets go in false surrender just to keep the game between us going.

Thankful, too, that yesterday’s sunshine and warmth allowed me to sit outside on a cafe’s patio to eat lunch after my 8+km river valley walk. All of it a balm. Nature and good food as co-regulators.

And that exquisite hand-made card sent by a friend who is excelling at paper quilling, her latest fascination. In yesterday’s mail, the envelope with my name and address, written by a hand I didn’t recognize. The note inside, bearing the same beautiful script, thanking me for my words, the tapestry I weave with them, the meaning they bring to her.

Coming through a “wintering” season, again with many more rejections of my writing than acceptances, with words laying fallow, deep underground, her gift like a prayer made out of new, spring-green grass.

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends. And to you, Cate, thank you.

Trusting the Threads

I wondered if last Friday’s photo and poem feature were simply too much for readers, as few opened the post, either here or on social media. Perhaps if I’d titled it, “I Am NOT Happy,” and posted another photo, instead of using the title of Ilya Kaminsky’s poem, “We Lived Happily during the War,” with my photo of an actual Ukrainian door burned in the invasion, it might have evoked more curiosity and less reluctance. Please know this is not a critique, simply an observation AND acknowledgment of so much fatigue, despair, rage and fear, AND the wise self-care choices we each need to make, including what to click and read, and what to pass on. Though I must take a moment to acknowledge, with deep and abiding gratitude, another’s post that cracked open and gave me permission to name what I’d named in mine.

Karen Maezen Miller, an ordained Soto Zen priest, wrote last week, “I Am Not Free,” in which she unabashedly and vulnerably shared the impacts of and her feelings about the current goings on in the USA. I won’t go into detail, but to read a Zen priest – one whose writings have always hit the mark for me, and to whom I have occasionally, naively attributed a well-practiced, placid, equanimity – use the words “terrified,” “furious,” and “hate,” was one of the most reassuring pieces I’d read in weeks. One from which I did feel free.

Last week I attended a session hosted by my library’s new writer-in-residence. “Music and the Practice of Poetry,” it ended up being a wonderfully playful experience in understanding the importance of rhythm to writing and reading aloud poetry. As recommended, I brought something to write on, in this case my black journal of bits and pieces of writing transcribed over the years from my journals, letters, emails, social media posts. A collection of “seeds” that when I reviewed, saw how several had sprouted and blossomed into poems and essays. Like this piece, written in 2014, its essence rooted in last Monday’s post, “Rest.”

“I hear a murmuring of rest, OK, yes and then
the air smelling sweet and cool.
There are berries to pick and laundry to hang.
Groceries to buy and friends to call.
This could be enough. For right now is enough.
Ease back into life here at home.
Give thanks and send blessings
to all those suffering.”

Or this one, that I wrote and posted on Facebook exactly six years ago today. Its simple truth and prescience like Kaminsky’s poem.

And how I’ll end this post:

“There are the times when a poem becomes a prayer,
an image the beautiful antidote to the day’s atrocities.”

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.

An Email Sent to a Friend Before Dawn

Buds in Spain, March 2020
(we know now the darkness that was soon to fall upon us all)

My gosh…what sweetness
to suddenly hear your voice and words
singing
on the radio
this morning.

My heart needed it all.

Such heavy harrowing times.
My words are stuck and stuffed
like my head cold.

Anyways…this moment
a sweet one.

Hope this finds you well.

Much love and kindness.

~ Katharine ~

Re-reading my email, with my friend’s lovely reply, knowing that I am, like many around me, at a loss for words, I knew this was “OK enough” for today’s photo and poem feature. With a line break here and there, formatted into stanzas…yes, it would be “OK enough.”

And how simple a gesture, to respond in the moment to the surge of surprise and joy upon hearing my friend’s name and then her singing, to reach out and connect when it’s darkest… before dawn.

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.
May we all be bearing up well, responding in the moment to those many surges of unexpected joy.

So each word, each photograph, each email matters.
Each kind word, each warm embrace matters.
It’s what we have which I have to believe can turn the tide,
perhaps first within the unseen, liminal spaces.

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