The unsuspecting gray morning woke, then nestled into her blanket of early spring fog hoping for no more or no less than yesterday. The sun was hidden. She could sleep in.  Morning wants nothing. Asks for nothing. Expects nothing from the world. She only exists as she has for millennia, day after day. Showing up […]

The human condition:  vulnerable, poignant and delightfully, necessarily messy.  I saw a new book on a morning show last week called Bittersweet by Susan Cain – How sorrow and longing make us whole. I hadn’t yet read her book Quiet – but it was on my radar. I listened intently to her description of the […]

Spring in Montana doesn’t really “spring” until June…but it is in the air. In the scent of rain, the sight of tulip and daffodil bulbs blooming, the buds in the trees and the sound of birds once again out the window. Most of us here in Montana get excited anyway, even knowing that we still might have days […]

Maybe it’s the new school year; the change of seasons; new colors to enjoy; the chill in the air; chrysanthemums, or just the butternut squash soup. YUM! Maybe for you it’s cable knit sweaters, pumpkin spice lattes, raking leaves or planting bulbs. But there is a quiet sense of change as time, space and place […]

Just like the rest of the world, it has now been over a year since our sleepy resort town on Flathead Lake and the Flathead Indian Reservation was changed abruptly by a pandemic. Like the rest of the nation, our community lay nearly dormant for over a year; terrorized by a virus – COVID-19. A […]

Tis the season of magic! Even in the darkest times, with questions about our very humanity riding high, humans still celebrate their most beloved holidays with love and care. I still feel a sense of magic this time of year, even in 2020, even at my age, even when I feel jaded about the future. […]

I could make a very long list of people who inspire me. I am sure that you can to. Some daily, some from afar, and some all my life. If I did make an actual list, it would include of course parents, and siblings, my own children, friends, extended family, colleagues, writers, artists, people still […]

Giving our creative mind a muse is like giving it sustenance. Cindi A. Jobe We strive to cultivate our lives in ways that grow our creative endeavors and honor ourselves just as we are; encouraging our passions and creating good habits is our focus. Messy and undeniably complicated, we can struggle as we try to […]

I want to share an early experience in my life (as I remember it anyway) that illustrates the importance of nurturing our creativity and our children’s creativity from birth. Even in the simplest form, our parental, community and school support must protect and nurture creative learning and active imaginations across the school curriculum and in our homes. In this time of social distancing and online learning, it is even more important to encourage our children (and adults too) to create.

The Art of…RAD When life challenges us, we can find ourselves inadvertently reaching back in time to what we remember as an easier place. Memories from our past appear, lurking, presumably to help us sort a present circumstance. I think of this process as a random form of therapeutic reflection. The most difficult version can […]