Drew and I recently took a car trip – starting at our home in Conway, Arkansas – south through parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and back. Our Southern Trip, we creatively called it, stopping to visit family and friends along the way. 

Coastal Florida was relaxing...and chilly.

Mardi Gras parades were electrifying...and chilly.




Extra layers were certainly helpful.

​But it was the flowers, oh the unexpected flowers – in February! – that warmed my winter-weary soul. Tulip trees laden with pink blossoms, daffodils bedecked in yellow frills, tulips and azaleas aglow in shades of Easter basket delight.
 (My word choice... too flowery, perhaps... but if flowers don't inspire poetry, what does?)

There was one camellia bush, in particular, that caught my eye. Its brilliant red flowers seemed to shout, "Spring is Really Here!" (at least in Florida.) The blossoms were too beautiful among the glossy leaves to snatch one off the branch, so I searched the ground below for a recent dropping. I found one, fingered its soft petals, and placed it gently in my pocket.

I took it back to our bed and breakfast and positioned it on a window sill to admire throughout the evening.

Then left it the next morning floating in a fountain, the redness adding a hopeful sign to the leftovers  of winter.
​And I carried a piece of that hope with me, as we drove on down the road.

The first, and only, time I heard the term "High Tree Day," I was attending a day-long journaling retreat at the Shrine of St. Therese in Juneau, Alaska – around 30 years ago. I still recall the weather, one of those treasured days in Southeast Alaska when the sky is a brilliant blue, and the only clouds are merely passing by. Not a hint of rain.  

The facilitator led us through a series of writing prompts. The five other participants and I wrote, shared, listened, drank herbal tea and longed to get outside. The host's log cabin, although cozy, felt more confining as the morning passed. Everyone in Juneau knows that on a sunny day... you get outside.

Finally, she said that the remainder of the day was ours – to wander, write, sketch, sit, walk the labyrinth – but not talk. "It's a time to listen to yourself, to nature, to reflect, or simply clear your mind."  A High Tree Day, she called it. 

Of course, we didn't rush to the nearest evergreens and start climbing to a perfect perch. But the image was, and still is, a powerful one for me. High in a tree is time away from foot traffic, from details of the everyday. It is a  change in perspective, a chance to see the bigger picture.
A time to be open.

Over the past years, I have taken many High Tree Days, some in nature, others in a comfortable chair or on the floor in our house with books and journals spread around me. I leave my phone and Apple Watch, and their distractions, in a drawer. I climb up my imaginary tree and wonder what I may learn.

Another High Tree Day is way overdue. Last June, I  attended a Veriditas labyrinth pilgrimage in Chartres, France and filled a journal with notes and  ideas, quotations and inspirations. Ever since then, I have intended to re-read my words, but have allowed daily To Do lists to take priority.  

What, I wonder, did I want to carry back home with me, to integrate into my life?  Only in quiet reflection, will I know.  

I'll sit on the window seat in our upstairs room, looking down on the street, as if I'm perched in a tree. I'll open my labyrinth journal and allow the words to transport me back to France.

​What might your High Tree Day (or half day or couple of hours) look like? Is there something, in particular, you want to reflect on? Or perhaps you need  time and space for yourself, for whatever bubbles to the surface. 

​If so, there's a tree just waiting for you.

​

On this super cold (6 degree F) morning in Arkansas, these four Russian Santas are basking in the sunlight that pours through our dining room windows. And I'm basking right along with them. Thankfully, we've been spared the snowstorms, which much of the country has experienced. But the frigid temperatures remind me of the days in Moscow when I purchased the Santas. 

No matter how many layers of clothes, gloves, socks, scarves and hats I put on, I still froze each December when I  went shopping for gifts at Izmailovo Market.

As I wandered among matryoshka  dolls, lacquerware, amber jewelry, Frabergé eggs (replicas), paintings, fur hats, carpets, Soviet memorabilia, and endless rows of booths – my  fingers  and feet quickly grew numb. I could hardly unzip my purse to pull out rubles or clomp down  one more lane to find just the right item. But, of course, I did!

When it came to selecting one Santa from hundreds, I had a clear priority. He must have a kind face. Even if I couldn't see his entire mouth, I could tell kindness in twinkling eyes, rosy cheeks, an upturned mustache. 

The kindness in their faces is the quality I remember most about the Russian friends Drew and I made while working for seven years at the Anglo-American School in Moscow and St. Petersburg. We shared meals, conversations, cups of tea, an occasional sip of vodka, and spoke of our families, our commonalities – despite our countries' historic differences. 

Santa, aka Ded Moroz, Pére Noël, Sinterklaas, Saint Nicolas, Weihnaachtsmann, Kris Kringle, is not bothered by boundaries, nationalities, governments or even stop lights as he faithfully  delivers gifts to one and all alike. One chimney, pair of shoes, stocking or tree is the same to him.

I wonder.  Might we, as recipients of that generosity, likewise  spread peace and good will to our neighbors, wherever we may find them? 

I simply need to look into  the faces of my Russian Santas...to believe.  

When I showed Drew the bouquet I collected on my morning walk, he said, "Well, it looks like it's seen better days."
"True," I conceded, as I turned the brown, crispy, shedding remains of once vibrant wildflowers in my fingers. "But there's a story here."
"I thought there might be," he nodded, knowing that the story wasn't far behind. And it wasn't.

It all started last Sunday morning when I set forth on a well-trodden path, a ritual of sorts, from our condo in Portland, Maine to Portland Head Light,  a 15-minute drive away.  The Head Light is the oldest lighthouse in Maine, completed in 1791, along the rugged shore of the shipping channel into Portland Harbor.  The lighthouse was my destination, but I rarely reach it by simply traveling from point A to B. 

Step 1 – Stop at Scratch Baking Co.

Bypassing the fresh-baked bread and bagels, maple banana bread, breakfast sandwiches and scones, I select a bran muffin, brimming with Maine blueberries. With a cup of decaf in hand, I head out the door before the scones coax me to take a few of them along. 

Step 2 – Park at the Head Light and walk the cliff trail.

I discovered the rock at least five trips ago, or maybe it discovered me. I needed an outdoor place to be, a solitary spot where I could listen to what was around and inside me.

​The landscape is browner than the last time I was here, more on the winter side of fall. The world feels quieter, like it's taking a deep breath, which will last for several months.  I look more closely at the generic  brownness around me, so easily dismissed as drab. Breaking off a stem here, a dried flower there, tiny seeds fall in my palm or fly upwards upon  pieces of fuzz. Within the brownness, rests new life.  Within me, stillness.

Step 4 – Follow path to the lighthouse

Gently clutching my bouquet, I walk the remainder of the path to the Head Light. I circle its broad base, pause at the railing to watch the surging waves roll then splash, and re-read the bronzed stanza from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, The Lighthouse.

Sail on, sail on, ye stately ships!
And with your floating bridge the ocean span;
Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse.
Be yours to bring man neared unto man.

The story goes that Longfellow, a resident of Portland, frequently followed his own well-trodden path to the lighthouse. I picture him sitting on a rock, waiting for the words to come.

Step 5 - Retrace steps

When you arrive home from traveling a well-trodden, or brand new path, you bring things back with you – some tangible, others more abstract.  At the end of this lighthouse journey, two new items were in my tote bag,  a bunch of dried flowers and a muffin for Drew. Less visible... a welcome calmness, an anticipation of the season to come when I – like the dried, brown flowers – will find rest and restoration.  
   



   



 

    

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Take a close look at these photos of the Place de l'Eglise (Church), Auvers-sur-Oise, France. What similarities and differences do you see? No, this is not a test.

When Drew and I visited the church in July, we had not yet seen Vincent Van Gogh's painting of it in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. But we had seen a collection of similar churches in other French villages, constructed of local stone, primarily in the 12th century. While we admired the craftsmanship and appreciated the church's significance to the people throughout the centuries, there was little to set the church in Auvers apart from its contemporaries.

However, the church I saw a week later – through Van Gogh's eyes – was an entirely different story! It was alive with color and movement, as are so many of his paintings. The whole structure looked like it was getting ready to dance off its foundation and fly into glorious cobalt blueness. Who would have thought to cast the church in shades of violet, with streaks and flecks of dazzling orange atop its roof?

I wanted to peek in the windows, sit on the billowy grass, skip along one of the paths that  flowed  like rivers. I was inspired!

As a person who feels more comfortable coloring inside the lines, I was energized by Van Gogh's boldness. No one gave him permission to paint something different than what stood before him. He didn't watch a Youtube video about how to experiment with color, transform straight lines into waves, and put his soul into his art. 

He listened to – and trusted – his own imagination. 

Few approved, or even took notice, in Van Gogh's lifetime. But that wasn't the point.
It never is.
Imagination seeks expression, not approval.

Thank you, Vincent!
May we be so bold.

  
  

  

A meter of fabric
A mosaic mug
A felt making pack
A collection of Longwool sheep strands
A counted cross-stitch pincushion kit 
A napkin
A bottle with a fern collected on a walk
A watercolored notecard of smiling sheep

"What do these items have in common?" you may ask.
"Hmmm...," I reply.

I purchased all the items – except the mug (France) – within 50 miles of the little village of West Witton, in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (UK), where Drew and I have been staying for the past 10 days.  This morning I gathered them from their various packages, spread them out on the window seat of our VRBO and just enjoyed looking at them. Not analyzing The Why of my selections, other than that they simply make me smile... a bit like the sheep in the note card (by Christine Carradice).

Before coming to Yorkshire, Drew and I spent a week at a Veriditas-sponsored labyrinth retreat in Chartres, France. Along with 40 other participants, each on our individual and collective pilgrimages, we were invited to consider  images we are drawn to. "What images are we feeding ourselves?" "Are we stuck with the same images?" "Is beauty a part of our images?"

We were encouraged to pay attention to nudges, those intangible feelings, prods, taps on the shoulder, inner voices that encourage you to follow one path rather than another, or pick up that meter of lovely handwoven blue and cream fabric, rub it between your fingers and take it home with you. Our inner voices can lead us in exciting and new directions, give us renewed perspective where we live, inspire us to creativity,  encourage us to speak to people who may enrich our lives, become friends ... and more. The challenge, of course, is to honor  nudges over naysayers or inner critics, who tend to talk more loudly and with presumed authority.  

Images and nudges lay before me on the window seat. Is it their colors, textures, creativity, or perhaps their connections with other people that brought them into my life?  It's not for me to question, but to follow and see where they lead.

Right now, Drew and I are headed outside to follow a footpath that starts a few meters from our VRBO. Its image of natural beauty is nudging us to take a walk, so we are! 

Walking.... the labyrinth at the Shrine of St. Therese – Juneau, Alaska –May 13, 2022.

Walking... the labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral – Chartres, France – June 17, 2022

The labyrinth in Juneau is a Chartres labyrinth, meaning it is designed after the one in Chartres Cathedral, built almost 1000 years ago.  I knew none of this when I walked a labyrinth for the first time with my friend Margie in 2004. We were simply spending a sunny Juneau day together, circling the labyrinth at the Shrine of St. Thèrese, then sharing a picnic lunch on the beach. But, in hindsight, I clearly see how that centering, peaceful walk was a beginning – a step toward a new direction in my life.  A direction which would ultimately lead to Chartres and years of labyrinth connections.

Drew and I are in Chartres to attend Walking a Sacred Path Pilgrimage, sponsored by Veriditas, a non-profit, which "promotes further understanding of the labyrinth as a tool for personal and community transformation." We will be here in retreat for a week, with our days spent  learning, sharing, reflecting and walking with forty other participants.

Every time I step on the ancient path this week surrounded by stained glass and gothic pillars, I will remember its "sister" in Juneau, bordered by evergreens and sparkling water... and offer deep gratitude to both. 

​When I was in high school, I hated poetry, hated it! By the time my teachers analyzed each stanza to death, there was no joy left, if there was any joy to start with. My fellow students and I were never encouraged to ask how a poem made us feel, how it might touch our lives, cause us to think. Iambic pentameter were the only words I recall from my youthful foray into poetry, except boredom.

I didn't pick up a book of poetry for roughly the next 20 years until a friend introduced me to Mary Oliver.  Here were poems I immediately related to, which didn't require a third party telling me what they meant. I knew what they meant to me. 

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
~Summer Day

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
~Wild Geese

Poetry became accessible. At least I learned that there were poems in the world which could  feel as authentic to my life, as to the person who had written them.  I began searching for poets whose work resonated with me, not only in books, but stopping to read a poem in a park, subway, along graffitied walls.... on sidewalks.

Early this morning – on the last day of Poetry Month – I walked to nearby Hendrix College to re-read one of my favorite "found poems" on the Poetry Sidewalks, where poems crisscross the length of sidewalks, around corners and under archways.

​
I found The Gardener, 85 by​ Rabindranath Tagore beside a bike rack and mouthed the words aloud. 

Who are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence?
I cannot send you one single flower from the wealth of the spring,
one single streak of gold from yonder clouds. 
Open your doors and look around.

From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers
of an hundred years before.
In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning,
sending its glad voice across an hundred years.

Then I placed an azalea blossom among the words, as a remembrance for the next reader. 

May you come across a poem that speaks to you – in your walks, reading, music – or create one from  your own heart. 
​
"Open your doors and look around."

This idyllic cottage in Donegal (Glenties), Ireland burned on March 19. It has been the home to  Breezy Kelly, a friend I've never met in person. We became friends via Facebook, connecting through our common belief in the power of bread to spread peace. I posted a story about her on my blog in October.

The day after the fire, Breezy's cousin, Mary Lane, wrote to tell me about it. Thankfully, Breezy and her cat Tiddles were unhurt; but The Cottage, as Breezy calls it, was destroyed.   The before and after images of Breezy's kitchen, where she Baked Bread for Peace, are heartbreaking.  (photos by Mary).

 
Breezy often posted pictures of her kitchen table, its red and white cloth dusted with flour, dough ready for the oven, a few books, quotes, and a tea pot. And my book, The Power of Bread, was often in sight. She kindly shared it with others who dropped by for a visit and "cuppa."

Mary asked if I could possibly send another book since Breezy's only copy had been lost in the fire. I was touched that Breezy had even given a second thought to the loss of the book, and by Mary's thoughtfulness in contacting me.
 
Of course, I was delighted to send extra copies and posted a package to Ireland.

Then a few days later, I received an astonishing Facebook message from Breezy...

The book had been found among the ashes! Who knows how it survived when so many of Breezy's possessions did not.
Breezy wrote....
"Its survival confirms the power of bread."
To which I added, "the power of peace."

The fresh loaves of bread in the photo confirm that Breezy is baking once again – at the home of friends, where she is staying until the cottage can be rebuilt.

Breezy writes that she leaves the window open as she bakes... "so the Aroma of Peace wafts past me and out the door to bring peace to the four directions. And I remember to count my blessings."

I'm grateful for Breezy's peaceful and generous spirit. And following in that spirit, I'm off to bake bread and pass it on. 

*For more information about Breezy's initiative,  Bake Bread for Peace, check out the Facebook page.


​

The images and headlines, the constant breaking news about the war in Ukraine, become more tragic every day. Even the words, "War in Ukraine" remain unbelievable to me. Yet the faces of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees crammed into trains – waiting hours to cross borders to safety – of children crying and parents carrying bags of hastily-gathered  belongings, is heartbreakingly real.

Drew and I feel particularly close to the situation because we lived in Russia for seven years, when he was Head of School at the Anglo-American School of Moscow, and I was a teacher. We became close friends with Russians who worked at the school. Sergei taught me how to drive in chaotic Moscow traffic; Zhenya and Matvey hosted us at their datcha; Natasha shared beautiful plants from her garden. We think of them now, knowing that the sanctions are impacting their lives, at no fault of their own. As Putin carries out his unprovoked and unspeakably inhumane invasion, people on both sides needlessly suffer.

We search for ways to help, where/what to donate, how to make a difference. The outpouring of worldwide support to Ukraine is heartening, and we join those tangible efforts. But, on a daily basis, I ask myself, "What can I do?" "How can I be a part of the peace, not the anger?" One more angry person is the last thing the world needs right now.

So I do the one thing that I always do when peace is illusive in my personal life or outside my window.  I walk a labyrinth – a meditative walking path – where I slow my pace, my breathing, and simply put one foot in front of the other. I've walked the nearby labyrinth at Hendrix College several times since the Russian invasion, and each time find a bit more peaceful energy renewed. I stand in the center and send that energy to both Ukranians and Russians. 

​This week I received an email from Ellen Bintz Meuch, a fellow Labyrinth Facilitator and founder of The Global Healing Response. Her email contained a meditation that can be used when walking a labyrinth, with specific intention to send peaceful energy around the Ukrainian/Russian situation. I've copied it below and highly recommend it as a tool for personal and global peace in the days ahead.

To find a labyrinth in your area, search the Worldwide Labyrinth Locator.
​To download a printable paper labyrinth to trace with your finger, click here.

In the absence of either, the meditation can be used in the quiet of your own home as you direct peaceful energy to yourself and others.

Peace be with us all.

 Global Healing Response for Ukraine/Russia Invasion
by Ellen Bintz Meuch
​
Intention
My intention for this labyrinth walk is to feel the coherent energy of my own heart, then send that coherent energy to world leaders and those in the conflict in Russia and the Ukraine.
​
Meditation
(something you can read to yourself, prior to saying and walking with your intention).
I fully release and let go of those things I cannot change. I let go of my fear of my own challenging world and that of the outside world.
I breathe into my heart; I exhale from my heart.
Let me begin my labyrinth walk with untying my own knots of chaos. 
I breath into my heart; I exhale from my heart.
I begin to feel the heart center opening.
Turmoil and conflict undo the world beyond my world.  When I take a breath into my heart center, I steady my own energy, my own world.
When I breath into my heart I feed my spirit with the sustainer of life, the breath.
When I exhale from the heart, I am able to direct the gift of heart energy to anyone, anywhere. 
I know this to be true.
I am grateful for this practice as I know I am full of generous potential, and capable of sharing it with others.
I open my heart wide proclaiming myself as a resource for humanity. 
I begin walking my labyrinth, centered, unburdened, and connected to all.
We connect as One, when we share our heart’s coherent energy.