No Map, No App

The Wild Work of Returning to Body and Land

I’ve never minded peeing behind a tree.

Maybe it’s because I did it so often as a child, on the road, in the woods, wherever we happened to be. But even now, as an adult, squatting behind a scrub oak doesn’t feel like a hardship. No plumbing, no pretense. Just a patch of earth and my body, remembering.

My bare feet press into the cold dirt, and I look up at the wide, waking sky and I feel something loosen. It’s primitive, like a return.

Afterward, I stretch my legs, lace up my boots, and step into the trees before the sun crests the ridge. No map. No app. Just instinct, and the pull of something older.

I walk until I find tracks, coyote, mostly, pressed in the soft dust beneath the sage and grass. Sometimes it’s just a toe pad or a claw mark. But I know what I’m looking for now.

People keep telling me to download Gaia or Strava. But I’m not here to track my mileage. I’m here to track myself. I move like the animals do: unsupervised, unmeasured.

I pass the same twisted pine each morning, the granite outcrop still warm from yesterday. I watch the shadows shift. I listen for what’s missing. A pause before a bird call. A sudden stillness. These are my signposts now.

I think about my younger self out here, the girl who didn’t know what she was allowed to feel, the girl who thought survival meant disappearing, the girl who carried her hunger like a secret.

I used to blame her for the ways I twisted myself. For the ways I tried to earn love. For staying too long in places that couldn’t see me.

But now, out here, I can see what she was up against.

She was clever, that girl, and she was tender. She watched everything.

She’s the one who learned to track.

Most mornings, I also think about my mother, who spent the last decade of her life completing a massive genealogy project—ninety-nine generations, neatly documented, bound, and indexed. A few years before she died, she gave each of her adult children a copy. Tucked into mine was a “special insert for Michelle.”

It said Elizabeth and John Proctor, tried and condemned for witchcraft, were our 10th great-grandparents. Ann (Holland) Bassett Burt, Elizabeth’s grandmother and my 12th great-grandmother, was a midwife and a Quaker. She too was accused.

My mother asked me to clear their names.

At the time, I wanted to say, Mom, no one thinks they were witches. The witch hunts were about politics and power. About control. We know that now.

But I didn’t say that. Instead, I wondered, who are our witches now?

As a teenager, I was often called a witch. Long, wild hair, a knowledge of plants, a belief that trees could speak, that the wind might carry truth. My mother knew this. Maybe that’s why she gave me the insert. Maybe she recognized something in me that neither of us could name.

She believed in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, but she also showed me how to believe in birdsong, clawmarks, and silence.

Maybe that’s her legacy too.

When I walk now, I walk with the girl I used to be. I don’t rush her or shame her. I watch what she notices. I let her teach me.

This is the quiet work of healing, not erasing the selves we were, but loving them enough to stop running.

Loving them enough to say, I see why you did it that way.

And I’m not leaving you behind.

---

What did your younger selves do to survive?

What did they notice? What did they carry alone?

Go for a walk with them, if you can. Let them teach you something.

You don’t have to go far. Just far enough to remember they’re still with you.

---

---

Current Offerings

Artist’s Way Summer Cohort - This summer, I’m gathering a small circle for The Artist’s Way—twelve weeks of deep listening, tiny risks, and steady, messy making. We'll meet at the edge of the solstice and walk the season together. Two simple tools: Morning Pages (daily) and Artist Dates (weekly). Twelve weeks. No grades. No gold stars. Just you, your voice, and a community of fellow travelers. We start with a welcome session on Saturday, June 7 at 1:00 PM PT on Zoom. Included with a paid subscription. We meet the first Saturday of each month on Zoom (June, July, August, September) and we check in with each other here weekly, by responding to thoughtful questions, and to each other. If a paid subscription isn’t feasible, I’ve got you. Please respond to this email and let me know you’d like a scholarship.

You don’t need permission to make art. You just need a way in. No matter how messy, you’re welcome here. Bring your tenderness. Bring your fire. I’ll walk you through the rest.

Poetry for Pleasure - June 29 - 9:30-4:30 at the Maloof Foundation for the Arts and Crafts. Make your own poetry playlist as you create a unique leather-bound book to return to, again and again. Click here for more information, or to register. Or respond to this email to request a scholarship application.

Thank you for being on this journey with me. I am grateful for the gift of your presence. Walking this path, knowing so many of you are walking it too, gives me hope. May we recognize our interbeing, with one another and the anima mundi, supporting each other in growth and recovery, like a mycelial network.