Gratitude, not just Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving may have passed, and though I may no longer be in the Pacific Northwest, I hold immense gratitude today and everyday for the humans who have make my life extra vibrant, joyful, and filled with abundance. These lovely people (as well as several not photographed) have made me feel welcomed, heard, held, safe, warm, and loved in these extraordinary times.

New friendships have been built, and old connections rekindled or deepened as we as consciously and delicately as possible navigate these uncharted waters of what most of us would agree to be filled with uncertainty and anxiety. To have one another to share thoughts, emotions, stories, walks, and meals, whether in person or virtual, has been extremely valuable right now and moving forward. Grateful for you all out there too - keep well, stay healthy please. I'm thinking of you and sending you a remote hug from the redwoods in California. #gratitude

The state of the (our) mind(s).

A lot of folks are sitting uneasy, anxious, scared this evening and in the coming months and years, no matter the outcome of these next couple days. Myself included.

On Sunday, I felt this deep urge to drop all the tasks and projects at hand and head into my sanctuary - the wilderness. The wilderness of the Pacific Northwest is like a church to me. If I don't go every so often, on the regular, I would feel disconnected from the divinity of nature and the spirit of the elements, which in turn makes for a slightly less patient, compassionate, and more reactive me. Not my best self.

Having just witnessed in the evening before a spectacular sunset across the Olympics mountains from the edge of the Puget Sound followed by the full blue moon rise (thanks to the spontaneous company of @annah_kim!), I was eager to really soak up more nature magic especially while the autumn weather gods gift us a rare window of fair weather and clear skies.

And goodness am I grateful for the meteorologists! Sunday to Monday proved to be the mildest, clearest conditions I've hiked the Cascades in the month of November, ever. The winds never blew harder than a light breeze, while sending with it the divine smells of pine, sap, and tree bark across the forest trail as I carried a night's worth of gear + sustenance on my back. The sunshine was abundant all day, to the point where I was able to sunbathe, simply in shorts, at the edge of a frozen pond (not the one pictured) while feeling warmer and Vitamin D-filled than I have in weeks.

I'm also grateful to my dear friends @moonshinecaroline @northofkings in always being of support to my spontaneous ventures and lending me their car while mine is taken apart and worked on (one of the frustrating projects that had me departing the city).

If you've gotten this far, I hope you'll remember this - no matter what the results from this election will be, mother nature prevails and provides. As shitty as we as a species have been to her historically and in the present, she is resilient, powerful, beautiful, and we owe all that we depend our lives on to her. May these truths and this image re-ground you as they have for me.