Following the thread
How a life is woven from the things we return to.
When asked how to become more creative, more connected, and more fully oneself, I rarely think of grand transformations.
I think the answer is practice. Because what we give our attention to, grows.
Choose one thing.
Something that feels alive. Something that lights you up, sparks curiosity, or sends a little electricity through your body. Something that makes you feel awake.
Then stay with it long enough to let it change you.
I’ve been living more wild these past two years. Sleeping in a tiny cottage up on a ridge in the mountains with my dogs. That is my personal practice. Not something I am. Something I do. It’s a relationship to myself and my environment, and it’s changed me.
Wildness is not only found in forests, desert canyons, mountain peaks, or oceans. We recognize it in ourselves when we stay connected to our bodies, when we stop abandoning ourselves, and when we follow what awakens us, rather than distracting ourselves with what numbs us.
A practice requires us to show up. Again and again and again. To pay attention and remain responsive to our curiosity rather than obedient to the demands of a culture. A practice changes our lives, slowly, as we learn to choose aliveness over certainty.
What are you practicing?
And is that practice carrying you closer to the life you want to inhabit?
Choose a practice.
Stay with it.
See what it does to you.
If you don’t want to do this alone, if you want to be seen in it, not for how well you do it, but for how honestly you meet it, you can come into the Secret Garden.
If you want a place to return to, a rhythm, a container, a kind of quiet accountability, you don’t have to call yourself an artist to create an artful life.
Starting on June 27, I’ll be inside the Secret Garden, with a small group, moving through this in real time. I hope you’ll consider joining us.
Following the Thread
A few things I'm paying attention to right now
Reading
Margo’s Got Money Troubles - book by Rufi Thorpe — for questions of art, labor, reinvention, and refusing shame.
Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It – A Cundill Prize Longlisted Social History of Medieval Europe by Janina Ramirez - for a new relationship with the past; recovering the stories hidden beneath official histories and remembering how much has always been there, unseen.
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett- for its attention to memory, attachment, and the stories we carry long after we’ve left them.
Hamnet, by Maggie O'Farrell - grief, devotion, the body, and the invisible threads between people.
Watching
Margo’s Got Money Troubles - series on Apple TV - not as good as the book, in my opinion, but thought-provoking
Lorne - creativity, persistence, and the strange business of making things over a lifetime.
Listening
Kevin Morby - for inspiration while driving mountain roads or staring out windows.
Practicing
Learn the names of five plants growing within a mile of your home.
Sit outside at dawn three times this week.
Memorize a poem.
Spend twenty minutes following a question instead of searching for an answer.
ONLINE OFFERING
THE SECRET GARDEN SERIES - free for paid subscribers
The Secret Garden Series is an 8 week exploration of your chosen art practice, within the support of community. The series opens with a storytelling workshop and continues through the summer with monthly workshops and weekly prompts.
Wander in and out of this garden, as little or as much as you like.
Workshops are offered on the following Saturdays from 1:00-2:00 PT
June 27 - The Art of Storytelling
July 25 - Art as a Daily Practice
Aug 29 - The Art of Mindfulness
Free with your annual paid subscription to Forager Field Notes
All recordings will be sent to paid subscribers.
Connect in person…
Yoga at the Maloof – Fridays at 10 a.m. Yoga on Tap at Claremont Craft Ales – 2nd & 4th Sundays, 11:30 a.m. Crestline Hot Yoga - Tuesdays at 9:00 a.m.
Summer retreats are sold out. To join the waitlist for November 6-8, post waitlist in the comments. Details forthcoming.
Why an Annual Membership
There are a lot of ways to move through your life. You can circle the trailhead. Read a map. Keep your options open.
Or you can step off the path.
An annual membership is stepping off the path.
Experiencing a year of Forager Field Notes costs $59 - less than a single night out. And it opens everything: The Secret Garden, the 12-week Artist’s Way cohort, the full archive, and every new offering in the coming year.
But this isn’t really about access.
It’s about staying past the easy turn back, about following instinct into denser terrain, about moving until the noise drops out and something older takes over.
We find each other here. We build a community of care around our creative practices.
An annual membership is a small, clear act of devotion, a way of telling yourself: I’m not here to hover at the edge. I’m here to go all the way in.
Come all the way in.
A gift for you:
Forager Field Note #3 - Hide and Seek
And, while you’re on Spotify, consider giving Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult a listen, free for those on Spotify Premium.
Who Am I? - I’m a writer, teacher, and lifelong forager. Raised in an apocalyptic cult in the mountains of California, I learned to survive off the land and listen for what lives beneath the surface.
My memoir, Forager: Field Notes on Surviving a Family Cult, (Golden Poppy finalist), tells the story of how I left everyone and everything I believed in, and why.
Through this newsletter, classes, retreats and workshops, I help people build creative lives rooted in attention, embodiment, and a relationship with the natural world.
